Ride time - 5 hours 28 minutes
Distance - 90 kms
Climbing 525 m
View the ride here:
Great day for cycling - blue skies, cool, no wind.
Caught an early train from Taringa to the 'switch'. The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail starts at Diamantina Boulevard in Bassal. There'd been some rain over the last few days, the southern part of the trail was quite soft. The section thru to Fernvale was pretty rough, but makes for good mountain bike riding. The surface can range from mud to sand to road base, but is mainly the ballast that the line originally sat on. The surface overall is OK, towns are evenly spaced so there's plenty of food and water, the gradients are gentle, there's no cars, it's quiet, you can camp for free, you see a lot of heritage and it takes you thru some nice bush. It's an excellent place to ride.
It's very slow going though.
There are dozens of gates, grids and quite steep creek crossings that really slow you down. There's even a dozen or so of these pine log contraptions that that make it really hard for anyone towing a trailer to get thru at all.
It took seven hours (about 70 kms) to get to Esk, rolled in about 2pm. I had the shits by then.
After a world class pepper pie at the Esk bakery, decided to take the main drag thru to Toogoolawa - sick of those pine log things. The highway is safe enough, generally enough verge, just need to keep your wits about you.
Arrived about 3.30 pm and camped at the Showgrounds. Hospitable people and a top camping spot!!
3 pub options to choose from for rehydration. It's a small town, don't know how they can support so many, they all seemed pretty quiet. Had a few beers at the Toogoolawa, to wash down my rump steak and chips. Crikey, it was good.
Straight to bed after that - buggered!
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| Early Start |
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| This is where the trail starts |
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| Good surface |
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| Dozens of these things. This one had a gap you could cycle straight thru, so not sure of the point. |
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| Brisbane River |
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| Doesn't show but some crossing must be 30 or 40 degrees in and out. Flat out pushing the bike and trailer out of them. |
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| Typical of many of the bridges along the way |
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| Nothing left here anymore |
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| A pine log contraption to stop motorcycles and other vehicles using the track, Just about impossible to get over these with a trailer. Had to unhitch in some cases. |
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| Nice spot for morning tea |
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| Do you have an alcohol problem when you take a photo of your first beer? |
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| What would you have ordered? |
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| Home for the night |
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