🎶🎶
“In the first week of January, the new year gave to me,
Three goannas running,
Two brown cuckoos feeding
And a brown snake near a gum tree.”🎶🎶
The Billinudgel Nature Reserve* is an untamed patch of undulating bushland between the Pacific Highway and the coastline of Northern New South Wales on Australia’s east coast. It is 850kms north of Sydney and 160kms south of Brisbane. When I was planning our ride from Currumbin to Brunswick Heads, I used Google Maps. It estimated the journey would be about 60kms each way and 3hours 20mins pedal time.
For the section between Wooyung and Brunswick Heads, I’d expected to travel via the old Pacific Highway, a dual carriageway bitumen road that sometimes mirrors, sometimes criss-crosses the more recently built Pacific Motorway (M1), running from Ballina to Brisbane. Google Maps, however, had other plans for our first overnight bicycle tour. It was taking us through the Billinudgel Nature Reserve.
We were to turn right at Jones Road after Wooyung and follow the road until we met the Nature Reserve. I really didn’t know what to expect. There was nothing on the internet about the Billinudgel Nature Reserve except a two line description on the NSW Government website, a management plan for the Reserve from November 2000, and an entry on meet-up.com for a mid-week walking group from 2013.
Although Google Maps showed a series of trails through the Reserve, I had no idea of their condition or whether they were suitable for mountain bikes only. We were at the beginning of either an enjoyable shortcut clear of busy roads or a very long diversion that would see us having to turnaround and take to the traffic.
But… the spirits of good fortune were shining and our touring bikes traversed the unsealed trails, in all their variety.
There were gravel tracks, sandy tracks, muddy bogs, and long grass that made me talk excessively and loudly to announce our imminent arrival to any snakes lingering in the grass. We rode through dry sclerophyll forests with eucalypts and banksias. We pedalled amongst coastal wetlands with melaleuca swamps, tree ferns, water lilies and bracken water stained by tea tree tannin. And yes, there were three goannas running, two brown cuckoo doves feeding and a brown snake sunning near a gum tree. We heard black cockatoos flying overhead with their eery call and pale faced rosellas scooping a flighty path through the eucalypts.
The Billinudgel Nature Reserve may have been hot and humid and hilly, but it was teeming with life. And I think my life was made richer from riding through Billinudgel’s bushy belly.
*”Nature reserves are considered to be valuable refuge areas where natural processes, phenomena and wildlife are protected and can be studied. Nature reserves differ from national parks as they do not include provision of recreation opportunities as a major objective of their management.” Billinudgel Nature Reserve Management Plan.
Entry to the Nature Reserve
Scroll over or tap each photo below to read its caption….
Narrow trail descending.
Trail through coastal wetland.
Under a broad blue sky, the day was gathering heat as I rode along the Gold Coast Oceanway near Bilinga. From here to Kirra, the Oceanway is a three metre wide pathway shared by bicycle riders, pedestrians, skaters and wheelchairs. Up ahead I saw two bike riders setting a good pace.
“Good morning, good morning!” I said as I neared to overtake.
An echo came back, “good morning” in a deep voice and then a lighter “good morning” with a slight puff behind it.
“Love ya trike” I added.
“Thanks!” she said, “we needed it today to carry the esky.”
I looked down to see a blue esky* sitting between the trike’s rear wheels.
“We’re going to pick up some prawns” she added.
“Where from?”
“Off the trawlers,” she shouted with glee.
Laughter rolled around with our wheels. I glided by, falling deeper in love with the lifestyle we call summer.
*an esky is the brand name of an Australian portable cooler or cool box.
A small dark shape floated in front of her face. She took a step backwards and the shape followed. It was early evening, dinner was over and the night warm. It was ideal for a slow bike ride to soak in whatever cool breeze the night air might offer.
The free feeling of riding a bike is amplified at night. Pace and place have a different relationship. Under the beam of a bike light and the intermittent glow of streetlights, the wheels roll, seemingly faster than in the day, and all attention turns to the path immediately ahead. The night makes black the fences and houses and trees and people that the day brings into clear relief. Now they are shadows, sometimes silhouettes, some moving, some still, one floating in front of her face.
We stopped between two paperbark trees beside the creek near the Pelican sculptures that some years ago were exhibits in the Swell Sculpture Festival. In the twilight sky, the creek water glowed with soft ripples and a pair of Oyster Catchers called – kleep! kleep! – as they flew inland. At first I thought it was a beetle, this suspended shape. But it didn’t have the buzz of a beetle. It floated and it moved when she moved like the two were connected in some way.
‘Don’t move’ I said, seeing the shape that had floated in front of her face had landed on the leg of her hibiscus-patterned shorts. In the faint glow of a streetlight, I could see it was a huntsman spider (about 5-6cms across) and swiftly brushed it from the shorts and out of sight. After sighs of relief and a thorough checking over to see the spider wasn’t still clinging to our clothes, we rode towards home, excitedly recalling how the spider encounter had unfolded.
We neared the tennis courts where four men were playing a game of doubles under a flood of lights. I don’t know why I looked down at the bike pouch that sits near my handlebars, but I did. There was a squeal, and then hands squeezing the brakes before flying off the handlebars, followed by the quickest exit I’ve ever made off my bike. It crashed to the ground and I stumbled onto the grass beside the concrete path; my remote control key for the front gate and two Mentos mints left there from my last visit to the local Japanese café, fell out of my bike pouch, but not the spider that had taken refuge in it and popped out while I was riding past the tennis courts.
It seems that when I brushed the huntsman out of sight at the paperbark trees, I’d swept it onto my bike and ridden with it for about 500 metres. We searched the bike and the poor spider was tucked up under the gear lever, making itself as small as it could. I think it just wanted to disappear and get back to its comfy web between the paperbark trees. I certainly was ready to be home too. I flicked the spider gently off the bike with a piece of bark, had a good look at it, wished it well and we rolled on home… only to find that we couldn’t open the gate. In all the kerfuffle, I’d forgotten to pick up the remote control key.
We raced back, finding the key and the Mentos mints still on the grass by the tennis court and thankfully no signs of the nightrider spider. However, I did find strands of spider web around my handlebars for days afterwards!
The bike pouch that harboured the spider on the night ride. Due to a broken zip, the pouch is always open.
a bike for all seasons 