A big day on the freeway. Headed out for a run this morning at 6am, down the Byron beach, nice course sand with a rising sun over the bay and a few people out and about and enjoying their morning coffees. A few people walking on the beach and one person out swimming, but no-one surfing. I guess from the action in the town the night before that they are all too hung over, or maybe the surfers are all off to work, perhaps it was too early? Packed up the bikes had some breakfast then northbound again. Pretty much straight onto the freeway an headed north in three to four lanes of traffic. Peeled of to have a look at Surfers Paradise. This place has gone from being surfers paradise to party going and shopping paradise, oh and there is a beach. Heaps of High rise buildings sprouting up out of the sand, must be a rock base down there somewhere for the foundations. It has been 32 years since I last saw Surfers and there are a few more high rises, but even 32 years ago it was all about high rise hotels as I recall. Did not stop, just rode through and headed north again aiming for the sunshine coast. Over a very high Gateway Bridge as we bypassed Brisbane. Stopped for a Coffee at Sandgate. Turned off into Mooloolabar (very nice) and rode along the sunshine coast to Noosa. The heavens opened again and it poored down as we rode along through the”Sunshine Coast”. A very nice area and much less touristy that the Gold coast. Stopped at Noosa for some lunch. Headed North again after Noosa, determined to achieve the target of at least 500km, nice leafy suburb heading out of Noosa. The light faded and we kept riding as we were out in the middle of an area with no towns it seemed. It certainly is a long way between towns even in this relatively populated area. It got dark pretty quickly but we kept riding, I hear all of my Australian friends tut-tuting as they read this but we hadn’t seen any Kangaroo, Koala or Wombat warning signs for a couple of hundred km’s so figured that there was a limited chance of wildlife strike, or maybe they just ran out of signs. To be safe we tucked in behind a truck and pushed on, figuring that the truck would take out any stray wildlife leaving the road open for us to follow through safely, we effectively attached a truck Roo bar to our bikes. Got into Childers and felt like it was time to stop. Found a motel , “Have you got a vacancy?” “Yeah Mate” “ do you have a twin for my father and I?” “oohh you want a Motel room Mate,… Yeah Mate” “Oh Sounds good.” Yeah Mate” …. On and on. Put all of our clothes in for a wash because we are smelling pretty high at this point. The high humidity combined with motorcycle gear makes for a pretty sweaty day. Had a beer at one pub asked if they had any food and they sent us to the next pub, very cooperative. Pizza on the bar while we had another beer. The thickest pizza toping I can recall seeing. Dad struck up a conversation with a few controversial comments about Aussies which seemed to go down OK but then we were sitting on our own for some time after this with all three staff having made themselves scarce. Maybe it didn’t go down so well. The barmaid later told me that the industry around here is farming and drinking. Apparently there are as many pubs in this town as there are farms. They farm Sugar cane, avocado, tomatoes and Peanuts. We have been seeing heaps of sugar cane since coming into Queensland. Oh well our milage is getting to were it needs to be.
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