The Cormanus Chronicles: Looking after a mate's mental health

[Cormanus]

As a working stiff (an American expression I like a lot), GrahamT, member and occasional poster on this forum, needs to take the occasional day off to get his head straight. A mental health day, as he calls it, must involve his CB1100. Because his head apparently isn’t straight on these occasions it’s incapable of thought and so I have to all the work of planning a route and guiding him on his way. In return his wife manufacturers some splendid sandwiches for us to eat somewhere along the way. See, he really is a mess.

26 January is Australia Day—or Invasion Day if you’re an indigenous Australian. It’s a public holiday. This year it fell on a Tuesday. Conveniently for GrahamT, his mental health deteriorated to the point of collapse on Monday 25 January—an event he foresaw with remarkable prescience.

Monday 25 January dawned overcast and, as I was pondering heading out, it started to rain. While I’m not too concerned about getting wet, I object to having to put on my waterproof onesie before I set out unless I’m embarking on a longer and unavoidable trip. So we delayed the start for a bit as the forecast was for rain to ease. Which it did and we got underway at around 0930.
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Awaiting GrahamT’s arrival

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GT is ridiculously tall and makes the CB1100 look like a toy

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Regular readers of these nonsensical chronicles know the drill: click on [url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1OSKb0-Oet6sHzgAeleZUQ3ThFjXfRZ4O&usp=sharing]this link to play with the actual map and make more sense of it all

As can be seen from the map, our route took us south with a stop at the top of Mt Tambourine. Where, of course, it was raining gently. My plan was to go down the mountain towards the coast and then up and down another before climbing a third before lunch, all to maximise our corning practice. However, as I drank my coffee and GrahamT his tea, a study of the radar made clear that the rain was hanging around the coast and in the higher places on my planned route. It was time for a new plan.

I can’t begin to say how annoying that was. I usually wing it, but this time I’d done an enormous amount of work to program a route into my Sygic app. All for nothing.

We went down the mountain in the rain and headed inland to Canungra where, as planned, it became dry again. Improvisation was the name of the game at this point and I took us along what turned out to be a very pretty back round thereby avoiding both traffic and mild boredom. There was a kilometre or so of well-made gravel road, but that was no problem. Fun even.

Then it was through Beaudesert and on to Laravale. I’d always wanted to have a look at Christmas Creek Road so we took that for a while before turning back towards the Innisplain Road which leads to the Lions Road. I’ll go and ride the rest of the Christmas Creek Road one day, but I’m pretty sure it loops back to Beaudesert which is a great place to pass through.

The countryside was unusually stunning. The grass is usually brown and the ground parched, but there’d been more rain that usual and the paddocks were green and lush; so, too, the roadside grass was long and green. It was altogether a delightful day for a ride.

COVID restrictions meant the road across the border was closed; in any event, if we ventured across we’d need a pass to get back assuming we could as we would have run out of fuel somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I figured on finding pretty spot beside a creek where we could stop and eat our sandwiches. As we crossed a bridge, I spied a place and, without any thought to how we might get out again, I led the way down a bumpy and rutted track. It was pretty enough by the river. We even saw a fish or two. And the sandwiches were excellent.
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The sublime and the ridiculous: one dwarfs the CB; the other is dwarfed by it.

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A eucalypt hanging on by the creek

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At the time, the route up from the creek looked steeper and more threatening than it does in this picture. This path was better than the heavily rutted alternative that we came down.

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Having escaped the light rain, it was a glorious day and the hills beside the Lions Road were lush and green.

After lunch we made our way back to Rathdowney for fuel. Fail. The service station was closed. GrahamT, who has not yet consumed the cool aid relating to [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=11741]Noroomtomove’s first law of motion and fuel consumption was alarmed by this development. After a quick look at the map, I—who had less fuel—was sanguine and we made our way 12 kilometres up the road to Tamrookum where there is a petrol station/store and very little else.

After refuelling, I took the opportunity to tighten one of my relocated indicators which had shaken itself loose.

The original plan had contained a comfortable stop at the café at O’Reilly’s resort where I would program the GPS for my planned ride home. That hadn’t happened and so, although I had a plan, I wasn’t sure exactly where we would head from Tamrookum. It proved hard to program Sygic without being able to look at a larger map on the screen of my laptop.

When we arrived at my turning point we were greeted by dirt. I had no idea of its condition or how far it went, so I elected to change our plan—GrahamT just shrugs when asked whether he has any preference—and ride home over the mountains behind Brisbane, even though that would make us a bit later than I’d intended.

What I didn’t realise was that my phone was not charging and the GPS was joyfully draining the life from the battery. When, a few kilometres later, I stopped to check the route because I didn’t like the general direction in which we were heading, I realised I had only a couple of minutes until the phone died. It’s irrelevant really, but a good clean of the pins at the phone end of the cable appears to have resolved the problem.

GrahamT took over navigation and whichever of Google or Apple Maps he used also insisted on taking us way from where I was pretty sure we really wanted to go. After GT slipped up and took a wrong turn, we abandoned any pretence of riding on, bumped elbows and shortly after took divergent routes home. I confess I was pretty pleased, realising when I got home that I wasn’t really ride fit and that I’d had enough.

All up another excellent day on the CB1100: good company, a pleasant ride, escape from the city and an excellent sandwich. 315 kilometres on the clock.

Thanks GT.

[Jfro5687_imp]

Lovely write up. By the time you read this we will be past 110,000 lost to the virus which is terrible. Hospitals are all rammed with very poorly people. I think it’s affecting most people of a certain age (self included) badly and highlighting our fragility and mortality too. This forum is a big help because it pulls people from all over the world together. How else would I read about two guys in Oz having a great day out?

[Cormanus]

Thank you Jfro5687. My wife has a daughter and grandchildren in Scotland so we monitor the progress of the virus in the UK pretty closely. It seems to be very active there. Stay as isolated as you can and stay safe.

We're lucky here.

[Rocky_imp]

I love reading these stories and seeing the pictures.
Another great one

[Cormanus]

Thank you, Rocky.

[GoldOxide_imp]

It reads like comfort food Cormanus - being hung up in the wintery cold season of Canada. Nice.

[the Ferret]

I like the way GO put it.

Your face has gotten white fuzzy my friend. (mine too I'm afraid)

[Houtman_imp]

Thank you for the nice write up , some of my friends mental status is beyond help , made worse by the Covid situation .

[Gone in 60]

I want to go on more rides like that! Thanks as always for sharing.

[Bazbro_imp]

Thanks for taking us with you on a great days ride, Cormanus. In the middle of a winter lockdown here in waterlogged UK, I was still able to have a little "circuitous" ride to and from my mechanic, on my little Yamaha... a breather for me, with an excuse to "get out"! Your write-up is the icing on the cake! Thanks again.