CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
An 811 km round trip from Nimbin - roughly 13 h 59 in the saddle. The stops in between: Limpinwood Nature Reserve, Border Ranges National Park, Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve and Gilbert State Forest. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Nightcap National Park covers a high, wet plateau and escarpment north of Lismore in New South Wales, the remains of the rim of an ancient volcano centred on Wollumbin, Mount Warning, whose eroded caldera forms one of the largest in the world. The plateau receives some of the highest rainfall in the state, and it is covered in subtropical rainforest, tall eucalypt forest and dramatic waterfalls, including Minyon Falls, which drops about a hundred metres over a cliff of volcanic rock. Nightcap is one of the Gondwana Rainforests reserves, and in 2000 it made headlines when scientists found a previously unknown tree, the Nightcap oak, surviving in only a few small populations here.
Read the complete Nightcap National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nightcap National Park is where the day begins. Next is Limpinwood Nature Reserve.
Twenty-odd million years ago, a huge shield volcano stood where the Tweed valley is now, on what became the border between New South Wales and Queensland. Erosion has since carved out its centre, leaving one of the largest erosion calderas in the world, a vast bowl of green farmland ringed by cliffs and ridges, with the volcano's old central plug, Wollumbin, also known as Mount Warning, standing in the middle. Limpinwood Nature Reserve, on the northern rim of the caldera, protects a stretch of subtropical rainforest that is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site preserving forests whose lineage goes back to the ancient supercontinent.
Read the complete Limpinwood Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limpinwood Nature Reserve comes up about 101 km into the recorded legs. Next is Border Ranges National Park.
Twenty three million years ago a huge shield volcano stood over what is now the border between New South Wales and Queensland, and the Border Ranges are the remains of its northern and western rim. The volcano has long since eroded, leaving a vast caldera with the steep central plug of Wollumbin, also known as Mount Warning, rising in the middle, and a ring of cliffs and ridges around it covered in dense subtropical rainforest. The Border Ranges National Park protects a large part of that rim, and it is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, a World Heritage Site that preserves forests whose ancestry goes back to the time when Australia was part of the supercontinent Gondwana.
Read the complete Border Ranges National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 201 km into the recorded legs you reach Border Ranges National Park. Next is Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve.
Nothofagus is the botanical name of the southern beech, and the name of this reserve gives away its treasure: stands of Antarctic beech growing high on the McPherson Range along the Queensland–New South Wales border. These gnarled, moss-covered trees, some of them centuries old and sprouting from root systems far older still, are living relics of the forests that covered Gondwana before Australia drifted away from Antarctica.
Read the complete Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve, about halfway. Next is Gilbert State Forest.
West of Brisbane, the Great Dividing Range rises as a dark wall above the plains, and Gilbert State Forest sits on its western slopes, where the rainforest of the escarpment gives way to drier eucalypt woodland and the farmland of the Darling Downs. To the east lies Main Range National Park, with its high peaks and steep cliffs; to the west, the land opens out towards Warwick and the wide grain fields beyond.
Read the complete Gilbert State Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gilbert State Forest sits at 406 km, about halfway. Next is back through Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve comes up about 511 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Border Ranges National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Border Ranges National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 610 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Border Ranges National Park. Next is back through Limpinwood Nature Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Limpinwood Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Limpinwood Nature Reserve, late in the day. Next is Nightcap National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nightcap National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 811 km.
Nightcap National Park → Limpinwood Nature Reserve is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limpinwood Nature Reserve → Border Ranges National Park is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Border Ranges National Park → Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve is 98 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve → Gilbert State Forest is 106 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gilbert State Forest → back through Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve is 106 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mount Nothofagus Flora Reserve → back through Border Ranges National Park is 98 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Border Ranges National Park → back through Limpinwood Nature Reserve is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Limpinwood Nature Reserve → Nightcap National Park is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.