CnC TravelBlog

Being the sometimes adventures of Clint and Charleen Lovell, motorcyclists
of Brisbane, Australia

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18-04-10

Around Oz

Where we are in 2010
Hint: select All Days

18 April 2010

After a while of no official AWRA Rides, it was good to get back to meeting up and riding again.

Checking emails before leaving, I found an apology from Bevan for he and Therese as well as Thommo and Val. They had been cleaning up the shop until late in the evening. Thanks for the info.

Charleen and I arrived first and had a bit of brekkie. Soon after, bikes began to appear and we had a rollup of 9 and a half bikes. The half being Wayne riding what was left of a Yamaha when all the panels are taken off.

It was also good to see Craig and Julie, still holidaying in these parts, join us for the day. Another surprise visit was Mike and Maree who are now pretty much locals having moved from Emerald to Landsborough.

Off we went and the very first thing I did once on the road was miss the first turn-off. Luckily, my new CB has not yet arrived so I didn't have to endure the jibes. OK so next turn-off and make our way diagonally back to Caboolture and on the the D'Aguilar Hwy and head west.

If you ever wondered about the name D'Aguilar, I looked it up. The highway is named after the Range of the same name which runs from here south to near Brisbane. The range was named by Major Edmund Lockyer in 1825 after Sir George D'Aguilar, with whom he had served in Sicily, Spain and India. Lockyer was the first person to sail a sea-going boat up the Brisbane River and explored 150 miles inland by small boat, naming rivers and mountains as he went. The actual name D'Aguilar is Spanish and means 'of the eagles nest'. Maybe Lockyer saw some local wedgies that made him think of his friend's name.

At Woodford, I took a favourite short-cut through Mt Archer along Neurum Road. It isn't actually shorter, but is usually a lot quicker due to less traffic. This time, not quite quick enough. We were slowed a bit by some very rough and loose gravel on some roadworks then probably a bit slow admiring the backwaters of Somerset Dam, currently quite full. Upshot was, about half of us got back on to the D'Aguilar just before Kilcoy, but the rest were stopped by a couple of slow moving caravans, being followed by about a hundred or so Harley Davidsons. We front-runners pulled up in Kilcoy and let the whole lot overtake us so we could all be together.

Fortunately most of the caravans pulled over in Kilcoy and the Harleys roared off. We were contemplating overtaking problems when we caught them up, but as we got close to the rear of the group, they thankfully all turned left on the Brisbane Valley Hwy. That gave the road pretty much to us which always makes for a good ride.

We had a nice run up over the range and then in to Yarraman where it was time for morning tea. Well, those of us who had brought it with us as the ride calendar had said.

Here, Wayne said his goodbyes and headed back. He only intended to do a short run and a couple of hours up and back was enough. The rest of us headed off to Nanango and did a nice run on the Burnett Hwy up as far as Goomeri.

Ever take a look to overtake a B-Double and decide there is just enough room for one to get by if you really gun it? So I did and as soon as I got level with the rear I saw cars oncoming. No worries - plenty of time. But these were two police cars. I had an instinctive reaction to back off the throttle just when I should have been winding it right on. The resulting delay made it a close thing and is probably the only time I have accelerated to over 140kph heading towards an oncoming Highway Patrol. And got away with it. Luckily Eric, right behind, had correctly decided there wasn't room for two on that passing manoeuvre.

The rest of the run to Goomeri was not nearly so adrenalin-pumping, but pleasant. We turned right on to the Wide Bay Hwy and only about 25km up the road was our destination, Kilkivan Pub. One of two pubs owned by Fred Brophy of tent-boxing fame.

They have a rather pleasant beer garden and the weather, which had dampened up from time to time was now lovely. We all had a good chuckle at the European waiter attempting to announce our names.

After an leisurely lunch during which "Pheel" won the raffle, we headed off for a short run to Gympie where we fuelled up and decided who was going to go visit Rusty and Marie. There were a couple of problems. Eric needed to get home for family matters, Craig and Julie had a longish way to go and Neville had developed a worrying bubble in his rear tyre. So Larry and Annette went with them straight down the highway to make sure they were OK.

The rest of us went to visit Rusty and see how he is bearing up after his mishap in South Australia. We got all the stories on how and what happened and it turned out Marie's story of trying to get from Perth to Adelaide to be with her injured husband was much more entertaining than the crash itself. Quite a saga and she was put through some trying times.

It was getting late, so we split up there and made our ways home.

Thanks to all the riders and pillions for making the day a thoroughly pleasant ride in the country with good friends.

25 March 2010

Just completed a tour around Australia of about 16,500 kilometres. Click the Around Oz link to the right to get the full story.

17 February 2010
Heading off in the morning for a long ride with a few aims. First is a Meet In The Middle event with AWRA members meeting for the weekend in Coonabarabran, then down south to the Superbikes at Phillip Island. Then it is across to Western Australia and meet Charleen in Perth so we can travel down to Albany for the Ulysses AGM annual party. From there, after dropping Charleen off at the airport, I head north to travel home the long way.
You can follow my SPOT locator at this link.
So long as I am in mobile phone range, the GoldWing is now equipped with wireless broadband.
Check the menu at the right for updates.

9 February 2010
FarRide #12 done and dusted. What a great weekend. See our tracklog below and the link to the story is in the menu.

5 February 2010
Charleen has decided to ride after all. She'll be on the CBF with me on the GoldWing.
Watch the link below for our progress.

4 February 2010
FarRide East #12

Time again for a FarRide, starting out the FarRiding year with a run to Nambucca Heads, NSW
Only problem is some idiot ran into the back of Charleen on her CB1300 this afternoon and she has probably overdone it while trying to hold up the bike while the car was pushing. Low speed prang but we are not sure how much damage to the bike yet either.

We will make a decision in the morning whether Charleen will do the ride to Nambucca.
Here's the link for the FarRide track. It'll show USA until we get started.

Sorry for long time no blog, but since our USA trip we have been busy with a lot of other stuff and little time to post.

Things are now pretty much back to normal (if that is possible). We managed to sell the USA bike fairly easily and the money went straight into a new bike for me. A shiny red Honda CBF1000, known as The Biffer. Fabulous little bike and terrific replacement for the Blackbird which has now gone to a new home in Tewantin under the expert care of Tim, No1 son and mechanic.

We have decided to ditch the old Blogspot pages and use our own as updating on-the-go is a little more difficult in Australia. Internet is not as freely available as some other countries.

On with the travels.

Click on a link to the right to catch up on our stories.

Clint's Biffer	Charleen on CeeBee
CnC's GoldWing
The USA GoldWing