My cup of tea sat cooling on the kitchen bench while I contemplated the empty bottle sitting nearby. I felt dreadful. My eyelids felt like sandpaper, my mouth tasted like the bottom of a parrot’s cage and the idiot playing drums in my head was badly out of time and overly invested in his cymbals.
I sipped my tea and wondered how I’d come to be at the bench at all.
The door opened and there stood Dr Dactyl, suave in a T-shirt, shorts and a pair of sandals that would reduce his wife to apoplexy.
“What happened last night?” I asked cautiously.
“Mate,” he said, “you were so enamoured of the benefits of HUBRIS that you mixed a few mls with green cordial and drank it. Your wife locked herself in the bathroom while you ran around the house for 20 minutes screaming and yelling something about green fairies and then passed out.”
Cordial, lest it is called by other names in other parts of the world, is the overly sweet syrup that, when mixed with water, is given to children as a treat. Well, it used to be. Nowadays they probably just rip into the Coca Cola and Red Bull. Red cordial consumed at children’s birthday parties and the like, wires the children like a good snort of the old white powder and brings forward the moment at which the whole tribe becomes completely unmanageable. The descent from the high is ghastly for their parents once they get home.
Green cordial is apparently no good for Cormanus. Or was it the HUBRIS?
“Pass the Coco Pops,” said the Dactyl, “I’ve got some ground to cover today.”
Imagine at this point that you’re watching a 60s movie. The screen is shimmering and Dr Dactyl’s image is dissolving. As the screen gently regains its focus, two CB1100s are heading west out of the Coles Express, Mango Hill, leaving an untidy lake of synthetic 10W-40 motorcycle oil spreading across the apron.
If none of the foregoing made any sense, it’s not your fault. For the back story, see [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5703]here and [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5686]here.
We continue with me looking forward to sharing a few of my favourite roads with Pterodactyl. We have a day and a bit as he needs to be back over the southern border the following day and I have to be home early for another engagement.
Here’s a map of the day 1 ride.
[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zE2kuVEGplwI.kTIaoc7OQjVk]
Google Maps is something of a challenge for the pedantic and simple of mind. Only 10 waypoints are possible in any one layer. Each waypoint has an alphabetical letter, but each new layer restarts the waypoints at ‘A’. Which means, of course, you can end up with any number of points starting with the same letter. That’s not much help if the area is strange to the viewer. However, I’ve tried this time to create a layer of waypoints which has been kind enough to add coloured flags with alphabetical letters on them.
My day stared at Pomona (the red coloured Point A) and I met Pterodactyl at the Coles Express at Mango Hill (orange Point B). Follow the coloured flags ignoring the blue circles with white alphabetical characters and you can see the route. It ends where it started: at Pomona.
Pterodactyl and the bikes at Mango Hill
My riding camera has a temperamental switch and for the two days of this ride seemed rather more random than usual in whether or not it would turn on. There are not as many photos as I would have liked.
From Dayboro © to Woodford (D) the Mt Mee Road is a lot of fun. Plenty of twists and turns to the top and then plenty more down to the bottom. The Pitstop Café near the top was again not open. From a culinary point of view this was no great tragedy, but there are great views down the valley to Brisbane. We stopped at the [url=http://braisenhussycafe.com.au/]Braisen Hussy Café in Woodford for a light lunch.
The start of the Mt Mee Road at Dayboro
A lookout on the Mt Mee Rd—looking north east. The Pacific Ocean is out there somewhere above the tips of the mountains. It doesn’t show in the photo, but it was windy and quite chilly on the mountain
CBs at the Braisen Hussy
The Cosmopolitan time wall at the Braisen Hussy
From Woodford we rode north along a flat, straight road to the foot of the Blackall Range. There are some pleasant curves to a ridge where we turned left onto the Maleny-Stanley River Rd (E). It’s a great climb up the hill until you reach the Postman’s Track (F) whereupon you find yourself on a steep, narrow decent into the valley below. It’s pretty enough, but it’s not a route I’d take if it were not for the excellent ride along the valley floor. It’s narrow, but there’s almost no traffic and it rewards a bit of effort.
Pterodactyl on the road
Postmans Track
It was a Tuesday, not a good day for cafés, so I couldn’t take Pterodactyl to the Bellbird Creek Teahouse, a very biker friendly haunt. So we kept going through Kenilworth (H) and then turned right along the Obi Obi Creek Road to Mapleton (I). There’s a little stretch where the road divides at the bottom of the major climb back up the range. It’s one of my favourite local stretches of road. Indeed, it was so good, and I was so irritated by the traffic that slowed us half way up, that I turned round, rode down the hill and we did it again.
Sadly, being a week day the road from Mapleton to Nambour (J), which has two great sections, was also depressingly full of traffic. But I admired the views out to the ocean. We stopped for petrol at Yandina (drat, I forgot to mark it on the map) I looked down and realised I’d reached another milestone. For those who read novels, the Australian author Peter Carey’s book His Illegal Self is set in part in the hills behind Yandina.
Another pocketful of cash for my friendly dealer. 36,000 kms is a service point. And they get to check the valve clearance. And, since I have the benefit of hindsight, I can add that it cost me a new set of tyres
Some pleasant enough back roads took us to [url=http://www.emilias.com.au/]Emelia’s Café at Gympie (M). It’s a great place. I once ate a plate of scrambled eggs with Tasmanian truffles for breakfast there. It was delicious. Our host, Giovanni, made us tea and we started chatting. I knew he rode a Ducati, but he said he had his Griso that day and disappeared. Moments later he pulled up outside and parked next to the CBs. Muttering something about posting photos of bikes rather than food for a change, he took off outside with his phone. His three photos can be seen [url=https://www.facebook.com/emiliascafe/photos/pb.282649158535083.-2207520000.1431246892./647619052038090/?type=3&permPage=1]starting here. Another bike arrived and Pterodactyl followed suit.
Pterodactyl returns from his expedition
By the time I limped outside, the fourth bike had gone, but these three looked very pretty as Pterodactyl and Giovanni discussed something very technical
Leaving Gympie we rode the pretty Cedar Creek Road (N) to Kin Kin (O). From there we were on the nearest bit of really good road to where I live. I went very slowly for a while to allow the utility in front to get far enough ahead that, when we got to the twisty bit, we’d have enough room for some sport.
From there it was home to Pomona for a well-earned beer, a salmon cutlet and a glass of wine or two. Mrs Cormanus, who had not before met Pterodactyl, greeted him with, “It’s nice to finally meet George’s imaginary friend.”
The following morning, with some regret on my part, we took to the highway to get some quick kilometres under our belts. That way Pterodactyl had a chance of reaching his planned destination that evening.
Last Blast, ready for action, poses in front of a banana tree
My bike’s magnificent and well-worn headers. Not even Optiglanz can touch them now
The day’s ride:
[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zE2kuVEGplwI.krYg9FAKS9sQ]
On the highway—it was a really beautiful day
Finally! I manage to capture a picture of something in the rear-view mirror. Pterodactyl on the road to Australia Zoo
Crikey! There he is again
Leaving the highway near Landsborough, we followed the Steve Irwin Way before turning left at Beerwah. There’s a lovely climb to Peachester and then to the junction of the Maleney-Stanley River Road (G on today’s map and E on yesterday’s). After a short and agreeable section to the bottom of the hill, the road to Kilcoy © is not all that interesting. But, then, sometimes you have to ride less interesting roads to get to the good bits.
Coffee and an Australian meat pie at Kilcoy which also provided this glimpse of a couple of English gems out for a run. Sadly I didn’t get as close as the Ferret [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5700]here, but you get the idea.
It’s a good ride around the ridge beside the Somerset Dam and then a quick and peaceful run through the countryside around the top of Lake Wivenhoe. There was next to no traffic and I spent a little time trying to get a photo of Pterodactyl underway, without the success I would have liked. In my defence: (1) I’m not as good as the Ferret; and (2) it’s hard to frame a shot when you’ve no real idea where the camera’s really pointing.
From Esk (E) we rode to Gatton along a road I’ve not ridden before. It was pretty enough, but not very challenging. Most of it was like this:
At Gatton we refuelled and said farewell. I’m curious to read Pterodactyl’s report on the road to Warwick as it looked interesting on the map.
The screen shimmers again and two CB1100s in a service station are gradually revealed, racing along the flat at Stanmore (just after point G on the map). The black one at the front is trailing a plume of blue smoke reminiscent of a 1960s 2-stroke.
‘Mate,’ I say to Dr Dactyl when we stop for coffee in Kilcoy, ‘I seem to be blowing a bit of smoke. There were times I couldn’t see you in the mirror. Do you reckon the HUBRIS oil isn’t quite right for the bike?’
Dr Dactyl gave me a mighty slap on the back, ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ he assured me, using the words of a now-dead but probably immortal Queensland Premier, ‘HUBRIS is the duck’s guts. It’s just cleaning all the crappy Motul stuff out of your bike. Mine did exactly the same thing for a day or so.’
We continued on. The smoke continued it felt to me like the bike was becoming a bit sluggish. At Gatton we refuelled and I waved farewell to the debonair Dr Dactyl. Was that a faint and maniacal cackle I could hear as he sped away into the distance?
Gatton lies at the foot of the Great Dividing Range and I spent a little time poring over a map wondering whether to ride up the range to Toowoomba and then back down a very pretty road into Esk. Sadly, time was against me.
I climbed onto the bike, turned the key, watched the dials do their thing and then pressed the starter. There was an almighty CLUNK and then nothing. My beautiful CB1100 was going nowhere.
When it comes back from the mechanic—well, if, really—I’ll give you a full report on what went wrong. The mechanic has not idea at this stage. She’s bamboozled. A little voice in my head tells me it might have something to do with the 4 litres of HUBRIS I poured into the crank case, but I can’t believe Dr Dactyl would sell me anything dodgy. Can you?
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