Tailwind or headwind?
View attachment 78714
Newport•
Redcliffe Peninsula
Maybe I wan't such a good idea to head up the bay today. The wind was fresh and from the SSE, which is to say behind me. Of course, sea breezes are fickle so there was little assistance for the first hour or two; however, when I crossed the three-kilometre viaduct to the Redcliffe Peninsula the vibrating slats on the cycleway's safety barrier were humming a warning which was reinforced by the thorough buffeting meted out as the trail arced around the southern, that is unprotected, end of the peninsula. Uh, oh!
The photo above was at the northern protected extremity. Despite just a few ripples on the canal, the ketch's Blue Ensign indicated what lay in store if I chose to return the way I had come. More significantly, when I reached my usual turning point at 60 km the Homage's computer cheerfully predicted that my range (distance remaining) was a little over 200 km. Alarm bells! The only way one gets that sort of reading is by having a boisterous tailwind on the outward leg; turn around – should that be the more nautical
go about – and switch to a higher assist and suddenly the prospects are not so good.
I headed inland,
tacking at 45º to the wind along the Redcliffe Rail Trail. Fortunately this is not a rails
to trail but rails
with trail; in other words a rail trail that had been built alongside, and at the same time, as the railway. After an hour or so, I 'accidentally' rolled onto a station platform and took the next train back to Brisbane.
* Newport on the Redcliffe Peninsula was named to commemorate what happened in Rhode Island in 1983: the so-called 'longest winning streak in sporting history' of 132 years came to an end and the America's Cup was taken to another continent.
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