This had been a long time coming so I was trying to make sure I was well and truly ready.
I'd given the bike the washing of it's life on Wednesday, then rode to work Thursday, somehow evading the lines of showers and storms that peppered the area all day, arrived home that night, stowed the bike in the garage and put the jug on. It started pissing down before the jug had boiled. That was close! Stole Neriel's car on the Friday, as I just didn't want to get the bike dirty before the big day. It payed off handsomely. It chucked it down in the morning, but the bike was in the garage nice and dry.
Saturday morning, around 9ish, I’d done my tyre checks then stowed the last of my gear in the panniers and wheeled the bike out so I’d be ready to go when Geoff arrived. Got a hell of a shock when I went to move the bike over to its launch pad under Neriel’s shed annexe after seeing the thick black mass of clouds closing in on our place from the west. That was just what I needed to see.
A few minutes later, I heard the familiar tone of Geoff’s bike reverberating through the hills so I went out to meet them. I noticed them glancing up at the sky as they dismounted and I couldn’t blame them. It looked really ugly up there, and they would have been riding towards it all the way from Bundaberg. The greetings quickly done, a discussion about the storm was struck up, and it was decided to have a coffee and check the BOM radar to see what was happening out there. The way south was clearly being hit as we looked so it was no point in trying to leave now as we’d run right into it. It’s one thing to come encounter a storm when you’re out on the road, and you’ve nowhere to hide, but to leave a nice dry house and ride out knowing it’s going to hit you like a ton of bricks just down the road isn’t an option if you don’t have to go there and then. With a nice fresh coffee warming the bones, we had Michelle man the computer and check the radar. The map showed a bad front about 50 klms deep which stretched right down to the sunshine coast with lots of red areas surrounded by big patches of yellow. It was intense, then, but was moving quickly and would clear out to sea quite rapidly, so we sat it out, like sensible people.
^ The direction we were supposed to be heading.
The conversation was naturally about bikes, and the weekend, and me accusing Geoff of jinxing the show again and we ran some ideas about holding a rally here. It was positively teeming down outside now with plenty of wind and lightning that justified the decision to wait it out. I didn’t last too long though, and the rain abated to a steady rate within a few minutes. Neriel took Michelle out to her workshop to show her the latest glass creations while Geoff and I talked lights’n stuff. I showed him this new LED headlight bulb I’d got from China which looked the goods with only 5w current draw but failed dismally when power was applied to it. My dolphin torch puts out more light than that bulb, but it shows potential for when they get their act together. I also have some H3 LED’s that seem much brighter, but won’t fit in the H3 holder as the bulb is physically too big. I’m going to hit an old light with my dremel when I’ve got some time just to see what they are like.
^ looking a bit green as well
Time was ticking away, though, and we couldn’t stay in the house all day, so Geoff & Michelle chose to go full wets, and I picked intermediates, as I thought the wet stretch wouldn’t last for too long. It was quite entertaining watching Geoff putting his rubber overboots on (secret’s safe with me, mate) but when he tried getting his one-piece suit on while standing up, well let’s just say I wished I had a video of it.
Finally we made our move. The short hop down to the highway was taken very gingerly, then we turned south and headed for the Show.
A short stop at the Buxton servo topped the tanks (no ducks this time) and the rain eased by the time we’d reached Maryborough. Traffic was generally well behaved, too, so we motored on in a leisurely fashion. The road turned fully dry by Tiaro and the tempo rose accordingly. Had a fuel and lunch stop at the Golden Nugget roadhouse at Gympie, where Geoff and Chelle caught up with some of his “other Family” from his days on the road.
Tummies filled and bladders emptied, we set off again, now in bright sunshine, endured the infuriatingly slow 90kph zone patiently, then stepped it up a notch or two when we finally got to the “safe’ stretch past Cooroy. Upon reaching the Mudjimbah/ Mapleton exit, where last time we had to veto our planned twisty run due to the storm visible on top of the mountains, Geoff waved me past to lead them up the hills. I negotiated that first roundabout with restrained exuberance, and just that short run into town had more curves in it than I’d seen for quite a while.
We tiptoed through the hospital zone, then the road out of town began to curve and wind its way through the hills, had a few heartstoppers negotiating the tight, twisty bit, with water seeping across the road in places, in the most critical spots, remnants of the now distant storm that had ripped through here a few hours before.
Geoff had his RH filling my mirrors through this stretch obviously revelling in the unusual feeling of having the bike cranked over for a change, but we kept the speed to a semi legal pace and motored up the hill to Mapleton..
It’s an interesting run across the top here as the scenery out to the left is absolutely breathtaking and one could easily come unstuck if you linger on the view too long, and there’s always a left or right hander coming up to catch the ones not paying attention to the road. We just motored along taking it all in till Geoff beckoned me to pull up for a piccy near Maleny. We’d passed many excellent grassy verges coming through Montville and Flaxton Village, but I hadn’t thought about getting photographic evidence then, but when we wanted to find a spot to take a photo, do you think I could find one that was reasonably nice? Best I could do was someone’s future driveway, a bit of bitumen covered in loose gravel that threatened to send my bike plummeting to its demise at the slightest gust of wind. Photos taken to mark the event, we set off for more twisty bits.
^ That driveway! We didn't stay there long.
I’d planned on pulling up at Maleny to top up tanks, but the servo had “No Fuel” signs out so we kept going. I’m still used to how my bike used to drink a lot until Geoff found the broken carb post, so habit was to fill up whenever the opportunity arose.
The run along Stanley River Road was a blast with long undulating sweepers that suits the XS to a tee. I just gave Geoff a couple of quick dabs on the brake to warn him of bends that were tighter than the rest and just went with the flow. We ranged up on a Goldwing and K1200LT that must’ve been out for a Sunday afternoon cruise (on Saturday!) and got stuck behind through the choice bits near the junction.
Still stuck there through the range coming down to the Woodford flats and finally extricated ourselves on a rare straight bit of road. (I’ve got a thing about double whites & no vision = I don’t think about it) As we rolled through Woodford, I saw that the war memorial had something there I hadn’t noticed before. Most memorials have the odd cannon or machine gun etc, but Woodford’s got itself what looked like a Chieftain Tank, complete! Stopped at D’Aguilar to fill up finally, then headed out west towards Mt Mee.
Just short of the base of the climb, Geoff pulled over for some reason, so I turned the bike around to go back and see what was going on. As I neared him he waved and took off! Cunning bugger must’ve wanted a clean shot at the hill so he feigned a problem to get me behind him! Good one mate. To say it was a spirited run to the top would be an understatement. Oddly, his touring peg mounts send off showers of red sparks, not gold as in the norm. Bypassed the lookout and ran straight across to begin the descent into Samford valley. Had a dream run through here with no cars to impede us and no Sportbike riders to scare the beejeesus out of us either. The latter have a knack of arriving behind you suddenly and passing where no sane person would want to try it. Besides, getting stuck behind us for too long would hurt their lap times. Trust me, I’ve heard the conversations at the Tea Room on Glorius and they do time their runs around here. Hence the high accident rate for the area.
Motored through the township of Dayboro, and began the transit run to Samford. It’s still a nice stretch of road, but nothing compared to what lays at each end of it. Coming into Samford, I noticed that Geoff’s bike was casting a shadow from my headlight on the street signs in front of him. I thought that shouldn’t be happening as he’s got a HID in his too, albeit a different heat colour, so I assumed his light wasn’t working and signalled him to pull into the servo to check it out. He’d had a niggling problem with it since his bike fell over a while back, firstly breaking the HID bulb that was in it at the time (same as mine) then since removing the RH fairing bracket, it occasionally just flickered for a while when first switched on, indicating that there was some problem with the wiring. It was getting a bit dusky late in the afternoon and we needed to get his light sorted before heading for the hills again.
A bit of prodding and pushing on the harness under the headstem got it lit. He switched the bike off to get his gear on and when he went to fire it up again, it flickered, then went out. A couple more manipulations got it go again, but as it was getting darker by the minute, I told him that we’d better get going, but not up the hill at this time. The road running up Mount Glorius and then across the top of Mount Nebo is not one to try if you’ve got a problem like that and it’s getting dark.
So I took the shortcut and led them into the back of Keperra and over the little hill to the Gap. At least there was streetlighting here if he had a problem.
We followed Waterworks Road all the way in to Milton, where we turned down Hale street and onto the Captain Cook freeway. I signalled Geoff to lead when we reached this point, as I’d known the roads up to this point, but he knew our destination, so I’d follow him from here in now we were on the home stretch.
The run down the M1 was a bit of a challenge in trying to keep a buffer from the cars which seemed intent on running right up your backside (Yeah, I’ll bet They feel safe doing it!) so a bit of lane swapping back and forth kept them at a safer distance. About Springwood, I saw the first flash of lightning in the sky, at which Geoff instantly upped the tempo a bit. A few more good flashes coming from the general direction of our destination saw the pace rise again so we were no longer at risk of being rear ended at least. I saw the Beenleigh exit loom up and was thankful that we’d make it there before this storm hit, but oddly, Geoff just kept going South.
It wasn’t till we reached the Yatala turnoff that his indicator flicked on, so we peeled off down the off ramp and dived into the roundabout at the bottom. There’s actually three of them in quick succession just here, and we had the XS’s cranked up coming through them and we headed off west, destination unknown to me at least.
This road has been done up a fair bit since I was last down here, with lots of nice new hotmix replacing the bumpy, rutted surface that you used to deal with. We ran past the Darlington Park raceway exit, and the road reverted to its old self. Geoff gave me a triple dab on the brakes to warn me of the extra bad bend coming up (it really is a 30k turn) but I was ready for it and we roared up to the Beenleigh- Tamborine road where we turned ……South? Geoff had told me his brothers’ place was at Beenleigh, hence my confusion. The lightning was coming thick and fast by now so we took off and had gotten nearly to the base of Tamborine when his indicator blinked on, left, thankfully, away from where that storm was coming. A bit of loose gravel on top of the bitumen on the intersection gave me a moment accelerating up the hill, but my bike sorted itself out then we ran for Ian’s place. A couple of klms of ups’n downs and twists’n turns on the narrow road and we pulled up at the gateway to our refuge from the coming storm. A minute late, we had the bikes stowed under the rear of Ian’s shed and were carrying our gear up to the house.
I was then introduced to Geoff’s’ Sister in law, Colleen, who produced some nice hot coffee, and we settled on the front verandah to watch the light & sound show as Geoff recanted our trip details to our hostess. A couple of strong wind gusts, followed by the rain being blown in under the awning saw us retreat to the safety of the interior, where Colleen served up a delicious hot meal after which we settled in for the night.
^Ian and Colleen's retreat on Sunday morning. Clear blue skies.
