April 22, 2024
Day 4: Burleigh to Ipswich (with rail assistance)
Goodbye, GC
Yesterday's weather is so yesterday. After nearly two days of inactivity (if you don't count running 5km sandwiched between two short bike rides), we're keen to get moving again. It's a shortish ride though so there’s no desire for an early start. Eventually 9am rolls around, we load up and wheel the bikes through the gates - and cycle just around the corner to a small coffee shop with a view of the beach. No hurry, I said. We watch the sun trying to break through clouds over the crowds of runners and dog walkers and mentally pack our jackets away.
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Stage 1 is the trip to a train station, a repeat of the ride to parkrun two days ago. Avoiding that crazy busy main road this time, we're soon on (painted) bike lanes that take us through Gold Coast suburbia - and away from the busy, brash beachy surroundings of our last few days. Varsity Lakes station is as bike-friendly as the others we've experienced on the greater Brisbane transit network - efficient platform lifts, extra-wide turnstile access and clear signage.
It's most of an hour to Altandi on the express service, enough time for me to use up my free wifi allocation and then become engrossed in my e-book - so there's a scramble to unleash the bike, check nothing's been left behind and roll off the train. Bruce, more organised, patiently waits.
The ride is a mixed bag. TL has mapped a route based on Google's so-called superior knowledge of cycle lanes. We are on main roads initially, where there are indeed white lines and pictures of bikes painted on the road, and sometime green paint has been liberally applied as well. But then . . . nothing. Queensland Roads Inc giveth and Queensland Roads Inc taketh away.
Eventually things improve. We ride through light industrial and big-box retail zones, eventually finding an OK café (in that it has seats and sun umbrellas, as well as food) for a break.
I am about to record Tour Leader eating lunch (for some reason) when a lady sitting two tables away insists on taking a photo of the two of us instead. She orders TL to smile - and it works!
The last segment involves riding on quiet roads alongside a railway line and later on good cycle lanes beside an expressway, sometimes crossing from side to side on proper pedestrian/ bike bridges.
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Tonight's accommodation, Cumquat House, is a heritage-listed, two-storey brick house built in the Spanish Mission Revival style. It's also very comfortable.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 127 km (79 miles)
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6 months ago