42
NOVEMBER 2020
By Tony Gray, Member #3905
C
harlie Brown wrote in the September club journal of his near miss opportunity to take a flight in a World War Two B17 bomber – the renowned Flying Fortress which powered the USAF bombing missions over German occupied Europe during the 2nd World War. This month it was our turn to stage our own B17 event – the B2B #17. What has this to do with Charlie’s aircraft adventure – absolutely nothing! But now that I have your attention you may as well continue to see what otherwise normal suburbanites get up to on one of these weekends away from normality. Don & Kate were true novitiate’s in the B2B (Back to the Bush) game when they boldly volunteered to organise a club run over the Queen’s Birthday (yes we Australian’s will take any opportunity for a day off) October long weekend. This weekend also heralded the start of Daylight Saving in the southern States and the end of the school holidays in Queensland. There is a lot of preparatory work to be undertaken to make a weekend like this successful – doubly so this time as it was to be a two night event. Accommodation and eating venues have to be selected and tested, bookings arranged and interesting routes planned. These are not led ride events but invariably small groups do form to ride together either following the offered routes or varied to suit their own circumstances. B2B#17 was also a bit different as some joined for the first night only and others for the second night only so there was some ‘new blood’ introduced along the way. Sadly our esteemed Journal co-editors and regular B2B’ers, Cindy & Duncan had to withdraw at the 11th hour due to family reasons. Their misfortune fell in favour of Ian & Alison who quickly snapped up their Sunday night room booking at the Hotel. Suffice to say the ‘Inn is full’ sign was displayed in Goomeri on Sunday night. Jane and I hooked up with a group of the ‘usual suspects’ at Dayboro on Saturday morning for the first leg of the journey to Maryborough. It was obvious that anyone who owned a motorbike in the greater Brisbane area had dusted it off and was out for a ride that morning in glorious warm spring weather. There were bikes
BACK TO THE BUSH 17 aplenty. We had our jacket vents open from our 8am start from home and they remained like that for the three days – never too hot but never cool enough even in the mountains to close them up. As sure as a seagull will chase a hot chip, we could be certain that the esteemed members of the QPS would be active with that many bikes and holiday makers on the road. Recent reports unfortunately highlighted the increased incidence of bike accidents on the Mt Glorious and Mt Mee roads. It was expected that the Police would respond to this worrying statistic so care was required. Mt Mee and the Stanley River Road were enjoyable despite the traffic before our first pit stop at Mary Cairncross Park. The Café and picnic areas were very busy as was the carpark. Fortunately Cameron was legally able to park his K1600GTL in one of the only available Large Vehicle Bays so like sucker fish the rest of us gathered in around the Mother Shark.
Oversize Vehicle Parking at Mary Cairncross Park All was good. Rested and coffee satiated we continued on the triple M ridge ride (Maleny, Montville, Mapleton). No matter how often we ride that road we remain in awe of the views of the Glasshouse Mountains and the Sunshine Coast beyond. The vista is truly spectacular and world class. We dropped down the range from Mapleton (what a great section of sweeping bends) and avoiding the Bruce Hwy wended our way to Kin Kin via Yandina, Eumundi, Cooroy and Pomona. The ‘Country Life Hotel’ was to receive our lunchtime patronage and fortunately we arrived just before a
