The Road to Airlie..

Todays ride is the most boring day.

This pic was taken on perfectly straight rd.

Long open tar on the plains... Nice scenery though.

Fueling at Marlborough

Fun little section up over the ranges just north of Marlborough on the old HWY

Long open plains

Today was the first day of dry heat I experienced ~yep it's good.

In 206km I saw 12 cars a bike & 2 trucks! thats it.

1956 Olympic Torch relay Monument.

Finally into the sugar can fields out of Sarina.

But it could of been worse.

I was joined at camp by some locals.

The next day I had a quiet one re packing the bike, swimming & reading planned ready to head north.

The good news I have cracked 3000km, stopped 13 times to relieve numb bum & had to clear a major amount of bugs of the visor around 34 times!

Mmmmm Perhaps I was going a little quick...

After the coldest night of the trip (I was that cold in my -7degree sleeping bag that I had my head under the cover) I awoke & quickly pulled on every available piece of clothing I could & started on some toast.... It took me about half an hr to break camp & head off into morer of the soft sand i was dreding...

15 minutes into the trail out I was sweating my ass off & All the liners in my jacket came out.

I survived the ride out & headed into Agnes Waters to re fuel.

I then pushed up a trail that leads to Turkey Beach (4wd- only) only to find it has been blocked off as a wildlife sanctuary (so i had a 55km loop for nothing!)

With the extra loop taking an hr of time I really hadn't planned for I resigned myself to some butt numbing kms & settled in....

ONLY TO BE INTERUPTED.....

Alledgedly I was travelling at 109 in a 80Km zone (coming into a small town) & he thought I should donate $333 to QLD ~ boy these guys are struggling in hard financial times.



Needles to say the above photo was taken at 99km p/hr

By the time I reached Rockhampton for a late lunch I was over it, Tired, Frustrated, needed beer.

Which is when I found the Caves.

About 30km north of rocky is the caves campground & tourist park

I set up camp & took a guided tour of 7 of the caves which were pretty impressive, the last cave we went through was "the Cathedral"

After the tour I took a quick ride to the pub where I found a friend as I sat down next to the wood fire I disturbed the pub cat.

This cat spent the next 15 mins begging for any scraps from my dinner.

The next local to say g'day was Nodds who was impressed with my jerry can pannier setup & not having a camera on him insisted I stop by his place for a cuppa in the morning to show his mate "Kiwi" the setup as he is travelling around oz next year.

He also insisted that I come & meet some of the other locals, which turned out to be a good night I remember meeting Stretch, Col, Nath, Bronc & some I can't.

He also had one or 2 comments about the sticker collection. (see earlier post)

Needless to say we all had 1 or 2 beers.... i slept well.

Nodds & his BMW 1200, nice setup for a BM.

The days after

Well the days following my mis adventures with phil were spent resting my knee, picking up a few items for the bike & basically being cared for by my Grandy... I thought I would end up losing weight on this trip however with the size of her home cooked meals i'm not going to need to eat until Cape York!

I departed Mooloolaba on Thursday headed for Deepwater National Park (just south of Agnes Waters) this was meant to be a quick run west over the hills via Maleney, back roads to Gympie & on to Woolooga for a coffee (the further north I get the more coffee turns into a dash of coffee with a pint of warm milk.... these guys have no idea.)

Had a blast on the road from Woolooga via Biggenden to Gin Gin ~ the road was a mix of fast dirt & rough tar - which suited the bike down to the ground.

This is of course with 1 exception... after having reliable grippy tar for most of the rd, it was bound to happen.. I found the only loose bit of surface coming uphill on a slight bend after a narrow bridge crossing with me wound on at full throttle, this resulted in the best power slide I have ever had on the tar. Needless to say I scared the s**t out of myself as the bike has quite a bit of extra weight & snapped back fast ~ lesson learnt (it's about getting to the tip not getting there fastest, I slowed down a little after that!

Gin Gin has the best pie I have ever tasted... Chicken Caccatori ~Nice

North of Gin Gin was a disaster! A total of 6 U turns on different dirt trails were made due to my GPS & map not getting along... after half an hr took the long way around & joined up with the main rd & headed into Baffle creek (the entry to deepwater N.P)

This is where my knee was slightly re injured.

It was ankle high soft sand & my bike is HEAVY with all the gear on,... after coming around a corner & having the bike try to buck me off in a high side manouver, I had legs going every where & some very impressive steering to stay on, however I felt my knee "pop" again bringing on a hot patch on the inside of my knee cap....not happy.

I set up camp & went for a walk down the beach with a nice Bourbon to sooth the pain....Cheers.

Lets go for a quick drink .....

Well I currently have a major camera problem so photos will take a couple of days, in the mean time I can tell you that after performing some Incredible White Boy dancing I now proudly have a torn Medial Ligament in my left knee... more on this later

The story starts with a mad dash around Reds place trying desperately to grab all my grear & ride to the ferry (which is due for departure in 3 minutes) - The ferry master let me on, as he was about to pull out from the ramp... Very lucky as timing was tight for the day & the next ferry wasn't for 2hr20min!

On to Mt Glorious, This ride was reccommended by Red & was a great trip up & over the hills past Wivenhoe & Somerset dams coming out at Beerwah & heading on to Phils place in Caloundra.
Now when Phil suggested a quiet drink & dinner I knew as well as he did that it wasn't going to end there... We had a nice Thai dinner & headed up to the EVIL place commonly known as The Caloundra RSL.

More tomorrow...... with pics

Edit 14/6/09 picsa have been lost as memory card fried.... sorry

Fishing off Coochie

Just a very quick post as I'll leave it to the photos & video...

Pike, Pike, Pike, Pike....... Spotty Mac

Took reds new boat over to goat island & got into plague amounts of pike, these on light gear were fun & actually pulled some bigger models up to 45cm!

We both had 3 or 4 clean bust offs from something larger then Red got a run with dinner

Goat Island

The race to Coochie

Well the rain continued through the night - I know this because of how many time i woke up off the side of the camp mattress... prior to leaving sydney I thought it would be a good idea to downsize to a ultra compact mattress.... worst idea I've had.

The full size deluxe matt is currently on it's way via care package (thanks mum)
Anyway after a bad nights sleep with about half my gear wet & more rain forecast I packed up & ran out of Byron. ( I tried to get a photo of camp but my memory card decided to pack up... grrrrr.. what else could go wrong....)
At this stage of the trip i was wet, smelly & tired but determined to make a mile today & head for a dryer area.

The ride through Bangalow out to Nimbin was fairly fast but pretty slippery with the roads in really bad condition... I did have a funny expierience when riding out of Nimbin, I rode through a "funny smell", only to find it lasted about 2 minutes, this was until I overtook a car doing 40 in a 80km zone to find the female driver with a joint the size of a cigar.... they do get away with anything up here!

After a bad night & a wet start to the day I pulled up at Clarrie hall Dam just out of Nimbin to change memory cards on the camera & have a break... this is where I met Morgan. (camera shy) Morgan was on a day trip with his carer Nick, who explained he is Autistic but would probably like to shake hands & look over my bike
This was the turning point of the day for me as spending 5 or 10 miuntes having Morgan play with everything on my bike & teach me some sign language, gave me a appreciation of what we all take for granted & had a smile back on my face instantly....

Next stop was a rest area on the banks of the Tweed river, I toasted up some muffins & tried out my camp gear before pushing on over the mountains of the Border ranges national park.

Todays Trip - bring on the bends!

1080 km to the border crossing

The Natural Bridge just over the QLD Border.

I think the Nimbin experience was still effecting the camera.





The afternoon consisted of great roads that were drying out & apart from having to straight line off into the gravel to avoid a P plater trying to impersonate Brock coming down one of the ranges it was great riding (hence no riding pics)

I stopped off at the old Tramway tunnel to break up the effects of numb bum

Rosins Lookout over looking Numinbah Valley towards the Gold Coast

Mount Tambourine ~ Looking West towards Beaudesert

It was at this time I rang Red to find out if he would house the needy & he informed me I had around 35 minutes till the last car ferry (around 58km to go)
Now I like a challenge however at this time of the afternoon there was no way I could make up that time so I headed off to the local shops at Victoria Point picked up the 3 important items (Wine -Kylie /Iced Coffee - leigh & Boubon 4 Me!)
I caught the passenger ferry over with all the gear I could carry off the bike & set about getting clean & dry.... Thanks Red & family!
Total so far 1248km / Numb Bum stops so far 5