Day 4 - Mount Werong to Boyd River campsite - 47kms

Yesterday instead of putting up my tent I decided to stay in the cabin. One of the main reasons was that I could start a fire in the fireplace to take the chill off. As it was a clear sky last night and being a 1000 metres up it got cool, but not in my nice warm and cosy cabin. Also another bonus was that I had the whole place to myself. So very relaxing and peaceful.

Warm and cosy in my cabin
This morning it was still nice and warm inside the cabin. After breakfast I was riding again at about 8am. The first 10kms went by nice and quickly along a smooth dirt road. I started passing tree plantations. Such a contrast to the natural forest with all its fauna, I could not here or see any wildlife through this area.

Tree plantations along the way
Ready to be loaded on the logging truck
To help me navigate today I have installed a number of maps on my iPhone. I had also mapped out the route. This helped immensely as there were plenty of different trails I could had took. Throughout the day only missed one turnoff, but noticed after about a km, so not to bad.

After I left the plantations I was back in the Blue Mountains wilderness area. I was following a road to Dingo Dell. I knew there would be a few valleys to negotiate, but I had no idea what there was ahead of me!

Riding along little used fire trails
The road began to drop sharply. It was so steep I couldn't control TJ riding down so had to walk her down. Then at each valley or creek I had another crazy climb out. Sometimes it was so steep I had to take all my panniers off and walk them up and then go back and get the bike. So instead of climbing the hill once, I had to do it 3 times.
The road is a lot steeper than it looks!
This of course slowed me down a lot. The scenery was just breathtaking (sometimes literally) which helped a lot. I then came to my first river which I needed to ford across. Panniers off, walk across, go back for bike, walk across again, panniers back on. Took me about 3.5 hours to travel 40kms. I rode passed Dingo Dell, where I had to ford a second river. So repeated previous steps and then climbed a big hill which led to another crazy descent. This time I got to a bigger river which had a small weir. I needed to work out the best way across, as there was a strong current. Once I found the best route I had to make 6 trips across. At least the water was refreshing to walk through.

Had to carry the bike and panniers across this one at a time.  At least the water was really refreshing and I had great views.
All back together again!
Once on the other side I began my usual climb up. This climb made all the others seem easy! As I was climbing up I met this group of motorcyclists coming down. One of them saw me walking up with my bags and stopped. He asked if he could take them to the top for me. I look up and couldn't see the top so I said "yes please". So we loaded my bags on his motorbike and he went ahead. I carried on pushing my bike up but was pleased I only had to do this climb once, as my GPS was saying 40+%. He was gone a while, so I knew I had a fair bit of climbing ahead. After about 10 minutes saw him coming down. Such a great help getting the bags there.

That was the last major climb. I reattached all my panniers to the bike. To travel just 6kms took about 2 hours. I was pleased when I got to the plateau and the road became a lot less vertical and rideable. So I was for the first time since leaving my cabin traveling 25-30kph. I got to the turn off for Kangara Walls. I headed to the Boyd River,which is where I'm camping tonight.
A couple of locals say "Hi"
It is a very big camping area, pleased I wasn't here yesterday as there were left over bottles in the shelter. Tonight there are just another couple of campers here. Today has to be one of the hardest days riding I have done. The relentless climbs and descents were draining, both physically and mentally. But I made it and am still very happy with the route I took. As it was just stunning all the way through. I'm feeling tired, time for dinner and bed. Tomorrow morning I'll ride down to Kangara Walls, will be leaving the camping stuff here, as have to come back this way.

Bed after a hard day's riding/pushing!