Favourite rest stop at picnic area in Paarl Reserve

Link to detailed route page and map click on route title. Note that I have included a couple of trails in this blog post. So there are 2 map pages to access [route-snippet id=”957″ featured=”image”][route-snippet id=”720″ featured=”image”]Woke up to hear rain drumming on the roof and thought, great for the garden but may put a dampener on our planned morning MTB ride – then fell back to sleep. As it was not that much rain fell, but we had cool conditions for our ride.

Initial plan was to ride up to the masts and then do a loop on the ridge. However it was breezy and cool so we decided instead to go from Main Street up to the picnic area, then down to the far side of the park before retracing our steps. Many flower distractions on the trip, see photos slide show.
I had not climbed up the section from the far side of the park (just gone down it when we do a loop through Paarl, often stopping at the Blacksmiths Kitchen for lunch) and was a bit worried how I would handle the initial gradient which is the steepest section. Very happy that I did not need to stop – would have been challenging getting back on! We had our rusk break half way up and then the sun came out and it warmed up. Lovely

Painted lady gladioli by the side of the road

As we were going well decided to cycle up to the Afrikaans Monument for lunch. Went off trail through a disused parking area. Unfortunately this did not link up easily with the road and we had to get off and push our bikes up some short but very slippery (esp in bike shoes) dirt inclines to get back on the road. Mike said later he had a bad feeling about my great detour idea!
Did not realise we had to pay to enter the monument, also bikes are not allowed. However the gentleman on the gate was really kind and let us sit on some grass under the shade of trees just inside the entrance gate to have our lunch. Mike seemed to think we had not done enough to deserve any chocolate, was overruled but happily munched his portion before it melted.
Lovely quick ride back down to the car.
Screen-show of photos from our rides, focusing on the spring flowers we saw