“Rhonda! Rhondaaaaah!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I chased Rhonda down Old Gunyah Road. We were riding the Mawson Trail between Wilmington and Quorn. Rhonda and Di had gone ahead and missed the turn onto Richman Gap Road.
Unfortunately Rhonda was enjoying a long, beautiful roll and was oblivious to my frantic attempts to stop her. I knew she wouldn’t be happy about having to climb back up again.
Luckily I had been able to catch Di before she had gone too far ahead, but it looked like Rhonda might roll all the way into Quorn and miss one of the highlights of the Mawson Trail!
After two kilometres, Rhonda stopped to look around. By now I was considering abandoning the chase, but when I saw her pause, I waved my arms frantically to indicate that something was amiss.
Concerned, she rode back towards me. I explained that we had gone off course and we began the slow climb back to where Di was waiting.
This incident is worth mentioning, because back in 2015, when I last rode this section of the Mawson Trail, we almost missed the same turn. On that occasion, Des, who had ridden the trail before, alerted us to the Mawson Trail marker which was pointing to a track beyond a gate.
For future reference, here’s a photo of the turn onto Richman Gap Road.
Wilmington to Old Gunyah Road
Our day had started uneventfully enough with a fairly flat three kilometre ride from our camp at Stony Creek Bush Camp into Wilmington.
From Wilmington, we followed Gunyah Road north. About 15 kilometres out of Wilmington, we stopped for a snack break
and our last glimpse of Mount Remarkable.
Old Gunyah Road
About 20 kilometres from Wilmington, we came to the turn-off onto Old Gunyah Road. On Old Gunyah Road the views became spectacular – typical Flinders Ranges scenery.
Richman Gap
A further ten kilometres on, and after our short detour (mentioned above), we began the climb on Richman Gap Road. It became steep towards the top.
Eventually we reached the crest and began our descent into Quorn.
As we turned onto Richman Valley Road, the views opened up.
This is the same view in May 2015 at the beginning of the wet season.
Quorn
The seven kilometre roll into Quorn is so beautiful – such a wonderful reward for over 700 metres of climbing. (This is the part of our Mawson Trail ride from Wilmington to Quorn that I really didn’t want Rhonda to miss!)
As we approached Quorn we got a nice surprise. My husband Derek and Kenji the dog had come out in the car to meet us. Derek took this picture of us on Richman Valley Road.
Our destination today in Quorn was the Quandong Cafe.
Emily’s Bistro is also very good and there are two pubs in town.
Summary
Including our ride into Wilmington and our accidental detour, we had ridden 48 kilometres and climbed over 770 metres on our Mawson Trail ride between Wilmington and Quorn. Here is the Strava map of our adventure:
To read about our other rides on the Mawson Trail, see our ride from Brachina Gorge Road to Wilpena. While staying in Wilmington, we also cycled the Melrose Wilmington Rail Trail.
