Interesting bike paths — achieving the impossible …
The old road to Brisbane Airport, Kingsford Smith Drive (KSD), was squeezed between cliffs and the river. Every bit of space had been used up. KSD was one of those horrors of modern cities, a winding road with two dangerously narrow lanes in each direction and a continuous line down the centre as a reminder not too smack into oncoming traffic. Between the road and the river there was a path so narrow that pedestrians meeting on it had to stop and edge past sideways.
So what was to be done? Tunnels and an elevated motorway took care of traffic to the airport but the traffic on KSD continued to increase. Solution: straighten the road, increase it to six wide lanes and expand that oh-so-narrow pathway to what you see above.
Charles Kingsford Smith, Australia's most famous aviator, was born across the river from where this photo was taken. Smithy led an extraordinary life best remembered for a long list of record-setting flights. (The details, like going to school in Vancouver, BC, tend to be forgotten!)
His exploits in his beloved Fokker Trimotor, the
Southern Cross, made him famous. In 1928 Smithy, with a crew of four, left Oakland, California, bound for Australia which they reached after just two stops – Hawaii and Fiji. But where had they crossed the coast? Down below was a wide river and a tiny town. The Richmond River… and Ballina, of course! They flew north to Smithy's hometown and plonked the
Southern Cross down a grassy field known as Eagle Farm which is at the end of the road that bears his name. And there, to this very day, one can visit the first aircraft to cross the Pacific.
Did you notice? No blue sky; blurry shadows! Perfect cycling weather (26 max).
