The deeper you dig, the more you find. I’ve been exploring the Samford area quite a bit over the last few months. I’ve been looking for interesting off road link-ups between the northern suburbs and Samford in the hope of piecing together a complete loop that takes in Samford, Ironbark Gully and the Samford Pony Trails and I think I succeeded a few days ago. I’ve ridden in the Samford/Ironbark Gully/Mt Nebo area for many years but have all too often followed the same old routes without digging much deeper. I guess a combination of time constraints and a slight fear of “wasting” a ride by getting lost and needing to turn back has prevented any real exploration but these days I’m much less concerned with such things. To add to that, I can also say that plotting a route on an app or website vs actually going out to a place and putting some tyre tracks down on various trails, laneways and supposed dead ends are slightly different things. Obviously, the latter leaves you with a much better sense of a place and uncovers the actual reality of its traversability.
That said, following on from the ride I did a few months ago through the western side of Ironbark Gully, along Sewer Rd, along Burns Rd and through a couple of bits of joining singletrack which landed me in the back streets of Samford, I’ve managed to find a way to eventually join back up to Days Rd and back onto the Samford Cycle Link on Petersen Rd. I have no doubt that this discovery has already been made by others but, right now, I’m excited about it so just let me have my moment already.
Upon arriving at Samford, I shoot down Station St past the museum which merges into Warwick Lane and start down the section of the Pony Trails that follow the South Pine River. That’s arguably one of the best parts of the ride. I followed the trail which crosses the Pine River a few times through a few open parks along the winding singletrack skirting the properties along the river. Eventually, I ended up at the Undambi Rotary Reserve.
From there, a few road miles need to be done up Mt O’Reilly Rd and then into Westwood Dr until I hit Uralba Park. Drop into Uralba Park and head along the grass towards the river again. There’s another crossing there. Once I crossed, I kept going along the grass with the river on my left and enjoyed the view of the open field with the large houses on the other side and the mountains in the background. Before long, I hit another river crossing.
At the other side, I followed the double track through Russell Family Park where I was deposited out onto My Glorious Rd. There was a short section on the road but luckily the shoulder is mostly pretty wide along there and it was only about 350 metres to Days Rd West where I dropped in to join up to the rest of the Pony Trails back to Petersen Rd and the Samford Cycle Link.
I’m sure there’ll be further tweaks to this route in the future but in the meantime maybe someone will find this useful.
Ride safe and see you out there sometime.