Where: Dubbo Gully is situated between Mangrove Mountain and Wisemans Ferry in the Dharug National Park. We meet at the Mangrove Mountain shops which is on the corner of Wisemans Ferry Road and Waratah Road at 8.30am. View Map of where we meet From the meeting point we drive approximately 2km down to Dubbo Gully Road and park in the dirt car park just before the NPWS locked gate.  This area is pretty hilly with many long climbs, be warned that the climb back to the car park continues for a couple of kilometres and is not really suited to beginners, most of the trails in the area are fire trails with a good mixture of technical sections for the experienced and downhill runs for the thrill seekers.

Wildlife: This area has lots of Auatralian wildlife, some of the species you might see are wallabies, echidna, black cockatoos, gang gang cockatoos, lace monitors (tree goanna's), diamond pythons, red bellied black snakes, frogs, feral goats and koalas have been spotted in the trees beside the road. There are also lots of wombat holes throughout the area.

History: This area is rich in Australian history, the Old Great North Road was surveyed in 1825 and is being nominated for World Heritage Listing to have the site protected and conserved. This part of the Old Great North Road in Dharug National Park is one of four sites in New South Wales included in the nomination, more information can be found here.

Rides: We have 3 intermediate to advanced shop rides to choose from in this area depending on the conditions, skill level of the group and time available, they are;

1. A 25km loop which starts at the car park and continues 2k down the hill into the valley, across the bridge and follows the trail past the pioneer cemetery & along Mangrove Creek for several k's before turning right at Simpsons Track for the climb up to Ten Mile Hollow where we usually take a short break. From there we continue north along the Old Great North Road to Clares Bridge (Clares Bridge is the second oldest bridge in mainland Australia) and continue until we hit the junction at Donny's Track for a quick descent back down to Dubbo Gully Road and then grind back up the hill to the starting point. Generally this is a 2-3 hour ride.
2. A 40-50km loop which is the same as ride 1 except we continue north along the Old Great North Road (along part of the Dirt Works 100 course) towards Yango National Park before doubling back to Donny's Track and back to the starting point. Generally this is a 4+ hour ride. Total elevation gain 780 meters, minimum elevation 6 meters, maximum elevation 263 meters.
3. A 60+km Loop which follows ride 1 until we reach Ten Mile Hollow and then continues west along the Old Great North Road until the historical descent down Devine's Hill to Wisemans Ferry Road (for a break), then we follow the road south along the Lower Hawksbury until we reach the Western Commission Track. From there we ride back up to the ridge top (this is a long nasty climb) and back to the Old Great North Road at Ten Mile Hollow. From there we head the final 15km back the way we came to our starting point. Generally this is a 5+ hour ride. Total elevation gain 1,400 meters, minimum elevation 6 meters, maximum elevation 273 meters.

What to bring: A mountain bike in good working order, plenty of water, some snacks/food and a spare tube. There is generally little or no mobile phone reception in this area.

Call the shop for more info on our next Dubbo Gully ride...

The trails out at Ourimbah State Forest are in great shape, "the graveyard" and "the meadows" have been opened up bringing the current distance of 1 lap to around 11km. Please note that people using the XC track should no longer park in the bottom car park, the trail head starts 100 or so meters up the road and is fully signposted.

Riding the roller coaster at the Ourimbah XC track with Daniel on one of our recent Sunday morning shop rides (2 x normal speed)

Nine people turned up to our last Wybung Head ride (one of Mels local trails) which is a 20km out and return trip on what is mostly single trail, it was an easy paced ride which started out in the fog and ended at the headland where we had a nice break before heading back along the same route. Click Here to discuss this ride.

The ride can also be viewed in Google Earth (you must have it installed on your computer) by saving this file (Click Here), you will then need to run the file (wybungdata.exe, a self extracting archive) by clicking on it which will create a directory containing the ride files which you can then open and view in google earth.

Looking North from Wybung Head