28/08/2025
Trail Network Review: Ironbark Gully/ Samford Conservation Pakr/ Brisbane QLD
TLDR: It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality with one of the finest blue flow trails we’ve ever ridden. Can a whole trail network essentially be about one trail? (Answer: Yes)
Perfect Bike: Full suspension trail bike that likes to jump, drive berms, navigate trees and plough the odd rock/root section, maybe with a lockout for the mellow fire road climbs. I’m sure the ebikes love this joint too.
Over the years we’ve had multiple winter trips to SE QLD and ridden most of the impressive looking places on the maps. For the most part they were a little disappointing with dual directional trails, mellow features and very generous grading. But hey we were on holidays and there were some standouts. Eastern Escarpment, Tewantin, Sugarbags and Cornubia are all worthy of a revisit. We’ve reviewed all the places in previous posts if you want to scroll but we didn’t bother bringing bikes this time as we’d figured we’d ridden all the good places.
We were wrong.
Ironbark Gully looks like nothing on the map and hence easy to overlook. Two blue descents and a black or two. Barely worth the effort of unpacking the bikes. But an old riding mate sorted us bikes with a promise of taking us somewhere he thought we’d like.
The carpark is big and easy to find with an absolutely vicious spoon drain to wake up the crew. The trail head map is right next to the up trail but we later discovered it was out of date. The climb on single track was easy and a kids green loop but you cut out onto a gentle climbing fire road which turned at the top onto the delightfully named Sewer Rd. A little pinch to open the lungs up and before you know, it you’re at the top of the trail network.
The right Bandicoot is a blue but it leads to two trails that are both black. Unfortunately we didn’t know about the black WhipSnake trail therwise we would have talked ourselves into another lap but we did ride the black Sunset that really is only a black if you’re taking it at race pace. If you’re prepared to pick your way through Bandicoot onto Sunset the blue Bandicoot has Tewantin Bloodwood vibes or maybe Cornubia. Nice natural single track, lovely roots and the odd rock to watch for, holding a brisk speed before some climbs back to the ridge. Sunset had some chunky root sections and rocks, some nice little rock drops before it got reigned in with some tight berm action. Finishing through the creek it displayed another trail style to make the top to bottom experience ever changing and interesting. We climbed again and although the climb is easy there is a track that starts only halfway up. Lorikeet was perhaps the darker shade of blue of the network. You can see it’s been ridden at speed with some decent berms, lovely tabletop jumps and then the odd double which are made from logs to get you to commit to clearing to the tr**ny. A nice trail but it would almost be more fun on a big bike.
But what everyone comes here to ride is the blue flow trail Kombi. Don’t believe me? Check the heatmaps. 2.5kms long dropping 112m with a gradient of around 4% it’s a poster child on how to build a good descending flow trail. It milks the hill like it graduated head of class from the Margaret River school of trail building. Grade reversals conserve the momentum. Line of sight is good and it projects features well with only one blind jump. There are gap jumps/doubles off the side to play with, a b***r log and then table tops towards the bottom. Finishing through the creek line it descends into some hectic singletrack with some chunky rocky creeks to navigate. Like a great guitar solo it was playful, interesting and evolving.
It was our first trail we rode and it was the only one we repeated. Some places you leave and it felt like you spent 95% of your time grinding up a boring fire road for 5% of your time smashing down stutter bumps into berms. Not here. It’s made for high rotation. Including stopping for a chat halfway down, our descents took over 11 minutes. For those who really hate climbing it seems it’s an easy place to shuttle from the Bitumen road. Considering the climb only took us 21 minutes (again stopping to shoot the s**t) then the balance in this network was nice for your average punter. Or for those seeking a nice holiday trail network.
