Yarraman — Brisbane
30 April 2016
Master Map
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 southeast 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.
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 whiff of bovine faecal matter simply enhances the appeal.
Better than that, as the road starts to head into the bush and 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.
This picture gives some idea of the entertainment to be had on this 21 kms of road.
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 could get back to 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 three days later complete with a new visor and a replacement for his noise-cancelling headphones (kudos to Bose Australia in which I have no financial or other interest). 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.
