The Cormanus Chronicles: Carnarvon Gorge

[GoldOxide_imp]

The roo is well hidden.

[Cormanus]

Day 4

[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1YPdFl_mvKBKzDOjC1qPJKOqvhs6Fs--r&usp=sharing]Map here

As I struck my tent and set about packing my bags, the mystery of the chewed muesli bars was solved. I’d rolled the top of the bag and tucked it under the fly of my tent, but that hadn’t stopped some enterprising rodent eating its way through the bag. I was quite impressed. It’s quite thick and probably not all that tasty.





Heading out of the national park

I said my farewells to Valvoline, JoshKTM and CC who were making their way back to Brisbane and set out north in search of a road Valvoline promised had actual bends. I was a bit amazed. How had the Pterodactyl and I—who have twice ridden in this otherwise flat-ish neck of the woods—not discovered this gem?

The road north to Emerald via Rolleston (where I refuelled having emptied the 5 litre container into the tank at Takarakka) has many a flat aspect.


But there are some interesting hills and mountains to keep one interested. I particularly liked this range near Springsure.




At a place called Anakie, I had encounter with the Big Emerald, another of [url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%27s_big_things]Australia’s Big Things.


At Cararvon I’d found a small, plastic child’s toy on the ground. Apparently it’s called an ooshie. It had a rubber suction cup on the base and I stuck it on the headlight of the bike. I thought no more about it. After something to eat and a tank of petrol at The Gemfields, I was surprised to notice it had survived cruising speed on the CB1100.


Valvoline had reported well. Just outside the Gemfields, there’s a right …


… then a left …


… then another left …


… then a right …



… then a left.


It’s hard to describe the joy experienced both by rider and the sides of tyres when they encounter corners in this part of the world. It’s not completely flat, but there aren’t many hills either and mostly the road travels straight or through corners so long as not to present a challenge of any sort.

Day 4 will return briefly later.

[pdedse]

Cool animals! What great luck to see all those guys on one trip. Enjoying the trip from the great indoors.

[Cormanus]

Day 4 cont.

I rode the rest of the way to Capella. Arriving on the outskirts, I nearly kept going down the long straight road back to Emerald as, after the corners, the road hadn’t been that exciting, but I decided to ride it again as I’d missed an important photo opportunity.


I’m pleased I did. I enjoyed the ride more on the way back. The corners were also more fun when I wasn’t preoccupied photographing them.


I also found another Australian Big Thing, although I managed to miss the Big Engagement Ring a little further down the road.

Back in Emerald, I stopped to refuel, get a cup of tea and find somewhere to stay. As I arrived I noticed a woman climb aboard a heavily laden Kawasaki KLR650 and ride out of the petrol station.

I found accommodation at one of those places where you book online and they send you a code to get into the place and into the room. Having asked specifically whether they had a TV that received the full array of free-to-air television, I was more than a little irritated to find the TV would not get the one channel I wanted—the one broadcasting the MotoGP. I rang the man and he gave me the code to the next door room. It had been used so I rang him again. Third time lucky.

I walked up the road to get something to eat before the GP. I was sitting in the Irish Village pub, catching up on the forum or something and minding my own business when someone said, “Excuse me.” I looked up to find a young woman. She asked me whether it was me riding the bike in the service station earlier. It must have been the CB1100forum.com t-shirt that gave me away.

I’ll call her KLR_Al as she did want me to reveal her name was Danielle. She’s French, spending time in Australia—and probably happily stuck here thanks to COVID—and had been working on stations in far north-west Queensland. She was now riding south to check out Noosa before setting out on a circuit through northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia. As my route home would take me near enough to Noosa, I offered to accompany her the next day.

We agreed to make contact in the morning and I retreated to watch another of the extraordinary MotoGP races that has characterised 2020.

Day 5


[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1YPdFl_mvKBKzDOjC1qPJKOqvhs6Fs--r&usp=sharing]Map here
By the time I realised KLR_Al had sent me a text, she was under way. We’d agreed that she might start earlier than me as, having a larger capacity bike and carrying way less gear, I’d be likey to catch her during the day.

And I did. In spite of taking photos of ridiculous trucks for my grandson …


… and photos of ridiculous big toys …

I think they’re called minions

… I caught KLR_Al at the first fuel stop at Blackwater. As promised, the bike was well laden.


Refuelled, we proceeded at a more leisurely pace than usual largely due to the KLR labouring under an inordinately heavy load. It did ok, although hills were challenging.

The KLR under way

It was an uneventful trip except for a moment in Biloela. Our route require a right turn at a set of traffic lights. Realising KLR_Al hadn’t realised the need to turn, I passed her quickly and then came to a stop as the right turn light was red. Moments later, KLR_Al passed me to the left and turned right aiming directly for the place where the side of the car proceeding through the lights would be when she got there. There was a moment when I was sure it was going to be an almost perfect T-bone with all the attendant grief that would go with it. Miraculously she missed the car by millimetres. Did the driver see her and speed up? Was she going more slowly than I judged? I’ll never know, but she missed it and, unharmed (bar my shattered nerves) we chugged along happily for the rest of the day.

We stopped for the day in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayndah]Gayndah, a pretty town. An attempt to settle at the local camp ground failed to elicit any response from the proprietor, so we found a cheap motel with a couple of rooms and settled there. It turned out the husband of the proprietor was something of a motorcycle enthusiast. This specimen sat in the shop.

[Cormanus]

Day 6

[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1YPdFl_mvKBKzDOjC1qPJKOqvhs6Fs--r&usp=sharing]Map here

The day’s plan was to deliver KLR_Al to Cooroy where she oped to find cheap accommodation in reasonable proximity to Noosa, a premier Australian resort town. When I bought the CB1100 and joined this forum, I was living in the hinterland of the Noosa shire. I miss it. The local riding was so much better than being in a city.

We left Gayndah reasonably early and, again, had an uneventful trip.



View of the South Burnett Highway. The last is a great view as you begin the descent to the plain.

Well … almost uneventful. A short while after we turned off the A3 onto the Kilkivan Tansey Road, a passing 4-wheel drive spat a rock at me. It hit me precisely on the end of the middle finger of my right hand. Hard. It hurt. A lot. Is it shameful to confess I wanted to stop the bike, sit by the side of the road and blubber? As it turned out I didn’t as KLR_Al was in front of me and there was nowhere to pass. Anyway, what good would it have done?

We kept going to Gympie a town of which I am not hugely fond except for Emelia’s Café. I’ve written of it before in these chronicles, having been there with both Pterodactyl and GrahamT. The proprietor, Giovanni, was an Italian gentleman and rider of a Ducati and a MotoGuzzi. He was often grumpy, bit always happy to talk motorcycles. Last time I was there with GrahamT, I learned he’d died tragically.

Giovanni and Pterodactyl outside Emelia’s Café in 2015

What with the finger and not having had breakfast and all, I was really looking forward to Emelia’s. But, of course, it was not to be. First there was nowhere to park. Then it looked like the café had changed hands. Whatever, it was clearly being renovated.

Hungry and exceedingly grumpy by then I suggested we push on along the lovely ride through Cedar Creek. It was a glorious change from the flat, fast South Burnett. The grass was a glorious green, the water in the dam sparkled and corners abounded. KLR_Al commented on how different it was to the previous day’s ride; much more like France.

At Kin Kin we stopped at the Black Ant Café which had undergone something of a transformation since I was there last. The food looked delicious and I was looking forward to a ciabatta roll of some sort until the officious proprietor told us they were available only to be taken away. We could not buy a roll and a cup of coffee and sit and eat it in the café. Apparently we could have a table only if:
[li]we were prepared to order food from the a la carte menu; or[/li] [li]we were having coffee and a cake.
[/li] Coffee and a cake: OK. Coffee and a roll: No. Go figure. Even now, sometime later, I can’t find any logic in the rule. Somehow I managed to swallow the indignities of the morning and made do with a coffee and cake. The roll would have been much better.

The twisties in the middle of the stretch of road between Kin Kin and Pomona were every bit as much fun as I remembered and we soon arrived intact in Cooroy. I refuelled and said farewell to KLR_Al. I pointed my nose to the hinterland, and some fabulous roads on the final leg home.

There’s only one photo: from the steep and glorious descent on the Bellthorpe Range Road.


Epilogue
Another enjoyable trip on the CB1100. As it turns out it was the final one in this strange, COVID-afflicted year, 2020. I guess I did well to manage 3. An injury will keep me off the bike for the rest of the year, but I’m hoping to get rolling again later in January 2021. Pandemic permitting, of course.

For the numerically minded I travelled 2,286.4 kms; used 125.17 litres of fuel at an average of 5.06 L/100kms. You can’t reduce fun to a number.

[Rocky_imp]

Great ride report. I loved all the pictures

[Blockhead_imp]

The roo is well hidden.

Looking at the moth picture, I see a pair of eyes resembling a human face. Does anyone else see it or am I having some weird epiphany or something?

[Vic_imp]

Enjoyed 'riding' along with you Cormanus. Fun to see the big things and big trucks.

[Lord Popgun]

Sure, I can see it. Isn’t that eye thing part of their defense against predators?

[GoldOxide_imp]

So much fun reading Cormanus.

Love the headlight on the CB1100 (similar to the Guzzi Griso) ...



It is amazing something like that hangs in there.

But what is it? A naked RLET?