2019 : Our Rides in Words, Photos & Maps

I should have gone for a swim …
2019-10-21-currumbin.jpg

I was about one-third of the way through Monday's Gold Coast ride when I paused here at the mouth of the Currumbin Creek. My ride started beyond the furthest buildings (Ah, ebikes!).

The photo was taken looking north with the high-rise apartments of Surfers Paradise in the distance. From 2005 until 2011 one of those buildings, the Q1, was the world's tallest residential building; now it has been upstaged by several in Dubai and NYC.

The presence of several tower cranes closer to us seems to indicate that this beachfront will soon be transformed into another 'paradise'.
 
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Riding through the sugar cane fields …
2019_10_28_dulguigan.jpg

Tap photo to fill screen.​
  • Dulguigan in the Tweed Valley.
  • Far north of New South Wales, Australia. (24 km on the map)
Ride : 125 km / 2019 : 13,198 km
 
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The Road Less Traveled (with apologies to Robert Frost). Upperville, Fauquier County, Virginia

IMG_20191023_115706238_HDR-756x1008.jpg


The poem entered my mind when I saw this road, but it wasn't until I returned home and looked up Frost's writing that I realized how beautifully his words had echoed my reality.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
 
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Another rail trail waiting to happen?
2019-10-28-bridge-ebr.jpg

Near Mooball – that really is its name – in northern New South Wales.

Just imagine pedalling through that avenue of mature trees on a summer afternoon and then crossing this pastureland. Alas, rail trails cost money and there probably aren't that many votes to be gained.
 
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The Tweed River near Uki …
2019_10_28_tweed_river_uki.jpg

As noted previously, the 'big rivers' of northern NSW are quite short. It took just two hours to ride from the estuary (post #319) to Uki (pronounced u-kai; not u-key) where it is a few metres wide.
 
At your request - a poem to wrap around today's chilly morning ride under a lowering sky and a somber mountain shouldering a cloak of heavy gray clouds that flowed out over the valley and dipped down with wispy fog fingers to brush my hair and face in passing as I quietly, with none but my faithful bike for company, patiently followed 26 miles of autumn dressed gravel roads. With a nod to Edna St. Vincent Millay
IMG_20191029_26-mile-ride.jpg


Renaissance by Edna St. Vincent Millay

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.

But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
 
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I may have to petition the site to ban Dave Berry from posting photos - I am literally turning green with envy. The country is beautiful & the weather is beautiful - it isn't fair!!!!!!

Here's a picture of my ride from yesterday. Temperature overnight was -11 Celsius. When I took this picture, it had warmed to -2 Celsius. Anyway, it isn't a great picture but that is ice forming on the river.

My bike will be going into hibernation soon along with the bears.

Anyway, enough whining from a frozen Canadian. Keep putting on the kms Dave & keep sending pictures.

Bob H.40881
 
Jacaranda time in Queensland …
2019-11-01-bremervale-ebr.jpg

  • Entrance to Bremervale Arabian Stud, Wanora, Queensland.
  • We've met their horses previously in post #290. (I hope I'm right – can't tell a Shetland from a carthorse).
Ride : 29 km / 2019 : 13,464 km
 
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Lovers Walk, Shorncliffe, Queensland …
2019_10_30_lovers_walk_b.jpg

This is a special place to ride – right beside the sea with waves sometimes splashing onto the wide walking and cycling path.

From Lovers Walk it is about 5 km to where the young woman is fishing (post #332) and then another 20 km to the 'Shady Tree for One' (post #333), almost all of it right next to the water. I'll be heading that way in a few hours when the sun comes up on Monday morning.
 
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Cudgera Creek, New South Wales …
2019_10_21_pottsville_a.jpg

On the far side of this tidal creek is a protected stand of mangroves then coastal forest, low dunes and a beach without a hint of development, followed by the enormity of the South Pacific Ocean, clear all the way to Chile.
 
Bare Castle Farm was the trigger for this:


Flattening


Your live heart pumping wind

Pedaling hard off the seat getting it

Cropping curves over a pebbled lane

Vibration a visceral white noise

Hands buzzing molecular, then relief

All praise the smooth avenue cleanly edged

Yet wasn't the rough road where

Flattening the bend you scattered the guineas

Their following racket satisfying


Mulezen
 

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A horse …
2019_11_04_horse_b.jpg

At the risk of revealing a total lack of empathy, I must admit to being surprised by this fellow's choice of pasture. (And the thought of pushing one's throat across a barbed wire fence gives me the creeps!)

Ride : 59 km / 2019 : 13,643 km
 
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Tide's out at Sandgate beach …
2019-11-06-sandgate-aaa.jpg

Last week when I rode along Lovers Walk (post #336 above) hundreds of these blue blubber jellyfish (Catostylus mosaics) were swimming just below the surface of the water. Today the tide was way out and a few were marooned on the sand.

The little balls around them were made by light-blue soldier crabs (Mictyris longicarpus) which outnumber the jellyfish a thousand to one (or so it seems). It was these little fellows that I wanted to photograph but, unfortunately, they have a rigorously observed five-metre exclusion zone and scurry away as one approaches. It's no good trying to outrun them as the tiny crabs are particularly adept at digging themselves into the sand!

Stranded jellyfish can't hide.

Ride : 99 km / 2019 : 13,801 km
 
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