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(G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
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Elipten Offline
Road Warrior

San Antonio, TX
Posts: 2,087
Joined: Nov 2013
Post: #31
(G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
I agree completely. Man missed his calling but there is still time

Current inventory

2014 CB1100 DLX
1990 BMW K75RT
06-13-2016 07:48 PM
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Cormanus Offline
Moderator

Queensland, Australia
Posts: 20,660
Joined: Dec 2013
Post: #32
RE: (G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Day 7—On which Pterodactyl hits another snag

İmage

The gentle patter of rain on the tent woke me. It’s a pleasant enough sound, although it’s not particularly welcome when I have to pack the tent and get on the bike. Luckily it was very light and didn’t last long at all.

Another look at the Waratah Hotel in the light of day confirmed the night’s suspicions: the place was run down and showing signs of benign neglect. The grass needed cutting; the equipment–like lawn mowers—looked in need of TLC; there was detritus around the property; generally, the place felt just a little sad. It was hard to know how they made a living. Mungungo is barely a hamlet 10 km or so outside Monto. I doubt there’s much local trade and the road didn’t seem at all busy to me. But the owner told me they were in for a big weekend with a couple of tours coming through, including a large group of motorcyclists who’d be camping there.

As usual, Pterodactyl and I followed a curious morning ritual—coffee for him, tea for me, after which we cooked our respective brews of rolled oats. Then we packed up and took to the road again. We could have made it Brisbane easily, but decided instead to backtrack a little to take a look at the Cania Gorge just north of Monto. It was good to be back in country where there were at least a few twists and turns in the road and we had an agreeable sprint to Cania Gorge.
İmage
Riding into the gorge

There’s a dam and a couple of caravan parks. The one nearest the dam is substantial and offers a range of camp sites, recreational activities. It also sells food and wine, important considerations at the end of a day in the saddle.

We took coffee at the camp ground before heading on the dam for a quick look. I was just easing the bike into a right hander when I saw an eastern brown snake making its way into the middle of the road. It gave me a bit of a start, but happily it turned and left the road in a hurry. I have no desire to be bitten by one.

Sitting down in the surrounding hills, the dam is very pretty and we took a moment or two to stretch our legs and take a photo or two.
İmage

İmage

İmage

We retraced our steps to Monto and refuelled for the start of the run south.

I’m the kind of bloke who rushes things. We’d say in Australia, ‘She’ll be right, mate.’ I’ll put my helmet down without worrying too much about how stable it is, because my poor tormented little head is racing on to the next thing.

Pterodactyl, on the other hand, is a careful man. He always takes an extra couple of seconds to make sure his gear is safely stowed before moving on to do the next thing. So it was uncharacteristic of him to rest his helmet on the seat of the CB while he did something else. Of course it fell off. And off course—because what with tyres and malfunctioning headphones, some little things were not going too well for Pterodactyl this trip—the visor hit the ground first and put a huge scuff mark on it at exactly the point that Pterodactyl looked through it.

With remarkable presence of mind he cleaned it methodically; took to it with some Mr Sheen I had with me; adjourned to the hardware store and bought some very, very fine wet and dry sandpaper with which he tried to rub out the worst of the mark. Sandpaper, toothpaste, Mr Sheen, all made some improvement to the screen, but he was stuck with an ugly and inconvenient mark on his visor for the rest of the trip.
İmage
Cleaning the visor

Pressing on south through the pretty country of Queensland’s North Burnett region we rode past the town of Munduberra (Queensland towns have great names) and on to Gayndah which bills itself as Queensland’s oldest town. I confess to being underwhelmed as we rode in. All I could see was a service station/roadhouse/motel and an unprepossessing house or two opposite. Why they needed a motel in such a miniscule outpost defied comprehension.

We refuelled and bought some lunch at the roadhouse. Lunch, as I recall, was nothing gourmet or worth raving about, but neither was there anything wrong with it. It was wholesome and tasty. The woman who served us asked us to like the place on Facebook. I thought Pterodactyl would fall of his chair as he’d been looking at a review of the place on some website or another. It was so bad he’d been moved to read bits of it to me. Phrases like, ‘the worst service I’ve ever had’, ‘avoid like the plague’ stick in my mind.

Full of food and fuel we remounted, pointed our noses south, turned a corner, crossed the Burnett River and discovered a large and interesting looking town which offered an array of cafés and other places that may well have provided a much more interesting spot for lunch.

Ah, well, next time.

İmage
Looking south over the South Burnett region. This was the last road photo of the trip.

We rode on through Goomeri and back into country familiar to me—places I went occasionally on day rides from my former home in Pomona. The day got cooler and the cloud thickened as we rode on, and we were spattered with the occasional shower.

I’d decided we’d stop in Yarraman where there’s a caravan park from which we could walk to the pub for dinner. For no reason I can fathom, it’s never been my favourite place—I prefer Nanango a little to the north. My brother-in-law is very fond of Blackbutt, a town a bit further along the road from Yarraman, but I had in my mind that there was little more than a community hall in Blackbutt.

By the time we got to Yarraman I was getting cold and cranky. As we rode past it, the caravan park looked fit for mountain goats, and we were in the middle of a heavy shower. We refuelled and decided we’d go and stay at the pub.

There was parking around the back, beer, red wine and good pub food. What more could a couple of riders want?

Day 8—On which we make a triumphant return to Brisbane

İmage

It had rained a good deal in the night and looked slightly forbidding. While it would be an easy ride to Brisbane, we decided to get an hour or so under our belts before stopping for breakfast.

There was something subtly wrong with my bag, but I thought little of it. We loaded up and headed south east along the D’Aguilar Highway.

As we drove out of Yarraman, we left the road we had entered after lunch two days before. The road that starts life as the A5 and becomes the A3 is more easily identified as Australia’s country way, stretching nearly 1,400 kms from the Tropic of Capricorn to Newcastle just north of Sydney. It takes a southern turn at Yarraman and becomes the New England Highway which is where we left it. Pterodactyl and I have spent a little time on the New England Highway—memorably a miserably cold evening and following morning in the winter of 2014 (see here). Great New South Wales biking roads—the Bruxner Highway, the Gwydir Highway and the Oxley all find their way to this road when they reach the top of the Great Dividing Range.

Predictably and to demonstrate the deplorable state of my memory, Blackbutt turned out to be bigger than I remembered, sporting a camping ground, a pleasant looking hotel and a couple of interesting looking cafés. It would probably have been a more agreeable resting place than Yarraman. C’est la vie. Although a bit chilly it was a pleasant enough morning for a ride and we enjoyed a pleasant enough trip to Harlin where we stopped for breakfast.
İmage
Breakfast and the day’s sole photograph! If I were more observant and less hasty I’d have made sure my Honda wing key fob was turned over.

In keeping with his more methodical nature, Pterodactyl keeps an eye on his GPS much of the time. I like to wing it a bit, particularly in the country where I figure it can’t be that hard to work out where you are and where you’re going. My wife has a theory that it’s good for ageing brains to have to think about these things and not rely on a machine to tell you what to do. She may be right, but my failure to make better use of the GPS is just another indication of the extent of my delusions about my age and capability.

As a result, I sailed past the first turn off to the Brisbane range. It wouldn’t have mattered as there’s another turn some way further along, but I saw the sign and was spooked. So we turned around and made our way back. It was worth it. A quiet, fast country road which took us south to the Esk-Kilcoy Road. We followed that for a bit, becoming tangled up in a cycling event, before turning south onto the Wivenhoe-Somerset road. The weather was improving and we had a quick run along it. While not winding or challenging, it’s a pretty road making its way through gently undulating grazing country alongside the dam that’s the source of Brisbane’s water supply. An occasional raptor graces the sky, the road surface is good and there’s not too much traffic.

The occasional faint whiff of bovine fæcal matter simply enhances the appeal.

Better than that, as the road starts to head into the bush wind a little, you come to the Northbrook Parkway, one of my favourite rides in close proximity to Brisbane. There must have been some sort of bash—a motoring event like this one as there were a good many bash-type vehicles heading in the opposite direction. Only one made a slightly desultory attempt to run me off the road.

Just after we turned onto the Parkway, we were flashed enthusiastically by a passing car. It’s a road loved by Brisbane’s motorcycling fraternity. A certain subset of it loves to don its full racing leathers and see what sort of time it can make up the hill. Not surprisingly, it’s often patrolled by police (often on motorcycles funnily enough) so I made sure to watch my speed as we progressed along the twists and turns leading to the final sharp ascent to the top of the range.

İmage
This picture gives some idea of the entertainment to be had on this 21 kms of road. The detailed map is here.

As it turned out, it was not a policeman we were being warned about, but a large, brown cow ambling along the middle of the road. Actually, I thought it looked ever so slightly unhappy. Who could blame it? A quiet Saturday morning stroll constantly interrupted by cars and bikes.

Passing the cow, we had a pleasant ride up the hill, although the road was still wet from the previous night’s rain and in the upper reaches we were caught behind what appeared to be a novice rider and his mate who took many of the corners very slowly indeed. They stopped for coffee at the top of the hill which improved the run across Mounts Glorious and Nebo and into Brisbane.

Pterodactyl parked his bike in the back of the garage of the house and, in one last feat of derring-do, braved Brisbane’s traffic on the back of my CB while I took him to the airport so he was back with his family in good time.

Later, as I unpacked my bag, I realised what had been niggling me about it when I’d loaded it in the morning: it wasn’t quite as full as it should have been. Why? I’d left my sleeping bag out of it at Yarraman. Oh, well, I’d just have to go for a ride one day and collect it.

Epilogue
Pterodactyl returned 3 days later complete with a new visor and a replacement for his noise-cancelling headphones (kudos to Bose Australia in which I have no interest at all). He stayed the night and set off the following morning so as to be back in Sydney for the weekend. I’d hoped to ride with him for part of the day, but life rudely interpolated itself.

Still. Can’t complain. The rest of the ride had been excellent. And on a great bike too. If I could have a bike for every occasion, I may not use the CB to tour on. I don’t have that sort of money and I’m a one bike bloke, so it has to do. I have no complaints. It gobbles the miles easily and cruising at the Australian speed limit all day is effortless. It doesn’t feel impeded by a heavy load; indeed, I barely notice it. I feel lucky to have been able to secure one of these versatile machines.
İmage
This is the map of my trip. My odometer said I covered just under 3,400 kms. This map can be found here if you’re interested in more detail.
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2016 10:18 PM by Cormanus.)
06-13-2016 10:17 PM
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Elipten Offline
Road Warrior

San Antonio, TX
Posts: 2,087
Joined: Nov 2013
Post: #33
(G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Fantastic!

Current inventory

2014 CB1100 DLX
1990 BMW K75RT
06-13-2016 10:49 PM
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Cormanus Offline
Moderator

Queensland, Australia
Posts: 20,660
Joined: Dec 2013
Post: #34
RE: (G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Thank you all for the very kind words.
06-14-2016 01:06 AM
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noroomtomove Offline
Running Like a Top

Australia Victoria
Posts: 665
Joined: Dec 2014
Post: #35
RE: (G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Have you started new employment with the Australian Tourism Commission Queensland Division, great write up.

-2c here this morning, could feel the heat radiating from your photos.
(This post was last modified: 06-16-2016 04:37 AM by noroomtomove.)
06-14-2016 02:11 AM
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'64 Offline
1st Service Completed

SE Florida
Posts: 78
Joined: Apr 2016
Post: #36
RE: (G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Great story Worship, thanks for sharing your words and pictures from down under.
06-14-2016 06:03 PM
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Flynrider Offline
Been There

Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 3,233
Joined: Apr 2013
Post: #37
RE: (G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Bravo, Cormanus! Another masterpiece!

Phoenix, AZ
2013 CB1100 - Big Red
1993 CB750 Nighthawk - Tahitian Blue
06-14-2016 09:26 PM
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curlyjoe Offline
High Mileage

Massachusetts
Posts: 1,323
Joined: Jul 2014
Post: #38
RE: (G)Rumblin’ through Queensland—or (P)Terodactyl’s Terrible Trip
Great ride and prose Cormanus! Thanks for sharing. Thumbs Up

2013 CB1100 ABS
2008 ST1300
06-15-2016 02:49 PM
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