Gordonvale
From CoolRunning Australia
Back to Queensland
The Basics
24 km south of Cairns is the town of Gordonvale, named after the local pioneer John Gordon. It became a sugar milling town in 1896 and is still dominated by its sugar mill, servicing the farms around it. It is a quiet town, with a population of around 6000 people. The big event of the year is "The Great Pyramid Race", held every year in August, in which enthusiasts run (or attempt to run) to the top of Walsh's Pyramid, the landmark conical hill, 922 m high, and back. The traditional Aboriginal owners of the Pyramid are the Yidinyji-Malanbarra clan who refer to it as "Djarragun": the mound of Djarruga, the scrub hen. This gave its name to Djarragun College, an indigenous school with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students situated just north of the town.
The Pryamid Run
The Pyramid is 922metres tall and I read somewhere once that its the tallest free standing mountain in the southern hemisphere.
Its a tough climb as its very steep in some spots and its hard go get good footing on some of the rock faces. I can't imagine how people run up and down! My mate and I started yesterday (Saturday) at about 2pm and it was still very hot and humid and both took 4 litres of water each.
That pic shows some of the rock faces you have to scale to climb the mountain. You can't really get a sense of how steep that one is but believe me it was tough - especially if your shoes don't have much grip.
That pic is from the very top and is looking south out onto the Great Diving Range. It was pretty scary taking that photo because I was standing right on the edge of a rocky ledge and its gets very blowy at the top. We got to the top at about 4-15pm and had a 30min break before we came back down. The views you get from the top are amazing. It was a bit cloudy yesterday which is unfortunate because when its a clear day you can almost see forever. There was times that I had to wait 5/10mins because a cloud would pass and I literally couldn't see anything.
For the record we got back to the car at exactly 6-00pm. So exluding our 30min break the whole exercise took 3hrs 30mins - the annual Pyramid Race (up and down with a 4km out and back run to the start line) is done in 1hr 20mins.
This information from The En4cer's blog, with permission.
