Day 2: Ebor to Brisbane
13 February 2021
Master Map
Realizing I wouldn’t have a chance of a decent ride for a while, I decided to extract as much riding pleasure as I could from the trip home. The road to Grafton I’d ridden the day before never palls and no alternative route remains as entertaining for as long, so I did it again.
My CB and letterboxes
Along the Armidale – Grafton Road
It was uncrossable in January 2020
February 2021: a bit more grass but the bridge is still broken
Then it was along the peaceful Summerland Way (or, as a fellow rider calls it, the 'Slumberland Way') to Casino where I turned off and took a quiet, pretty back road or two to Cawongla which set me up for a ride along the very best bit of the Murwillumbah – Kyogle Road: the magnificent corners between Cawongla and Kyogle.
Approaching Cawongla
It was a glorious day and after refuelling at Kyogle, I paused for a moment.
'Holy bush babies, Batman'
Happily, the Lions Road was open for the ride over the border to Queensland. Many sections on the NSW side have been repaved which was a treat.
Along the Lions Road
After that I took a detour to explore a road GrahamT and I had ridden a little of on a recent ride when I was looking after his mental health. It was a pretty detour on the way to Beaudesert from where I trod a familiar path home.
Another ride mucked up by COVID. It hardened my resolve to confine my riding activities to my home state until Australia’s vaccination program is sorted. But, hey, even if it was only for a couple of days, it was good to get away.
Epilogue
Before I left on this aborted ride, a friend from Tasmania came to stay for the night while he inspected a sailing boat he and his wife were thinking about buying. It was good to see him and I like looking at boats so it was a happy visit. As usual, it stimulated an always-present, low-level desire in me to buy another sailing boat, but logic won and I soon had that insane craving well under control: after all, when the madness of my wife’s current work was over, we planned to buy a 4-wheel drive vehicle and head for the tip of Cape York — the northern most point of Australia.
My friends decided the boat was not quite what they wanted as it might prove a bit of a handful for the pair of them to sail without help. That was that.
Just before I left they rang again. That wasn’t that: they’d changed their minds and were both coming to look at the boat. I was going to be away riding, so I wished them luck. But then COVID drove me home so I was able to go with them both to look at the boat again. At one point during the day we were talking to a bloke on a jetty about boats and the desirability of doing things while you can. He looked at us. “I keep telling people,’ he said, “you have to sail before sunset.”
After our friends had gone home I was telling my wife about this bloke. She looked at me and said something like, “When we’re older and not able to move so easily we’ll still be able to drive. We may not be able to sail. How about it?”
So we bought a sailing boat.
