Saturday morning Nudgee Beach preview

This ride follows the Kedron Brook path all the way out to Nudgee, then on the return, instead of coming all the way back along Kedron Brook to Royal Parade, we exit the path at Widdop Street (near Clayfield) and ride on the roads directly south all the way to Kingsford Smith Drive. Cross the road, pick up the path that takes us over Breakfast Creek, through Newstead Park and along the river to New Farm. Then take the road route up to the Story Bridge, down Ivory lane, along Riverside, past North Quay, Go Between and home.

Overview:

We're looking at about another 9kms of flat path after the Shaw Park point where we have previously turned around. There is a small section (see where the marker 23 is below) that looks like we have to cross Sandgate Road on foot and go through a shopping mall...

... but other than that it's a straight path all the way to Nudgee. You can see from the map above that the red line also heads south. We will only have to negotiate the shopping mall once as this is the turning point for the way back....

As you can see it's about 3.5kms of road riding. I've gone along the path a couple of times using Google Streetview and it looks like it is an established bike route. For some reason my route mapper did a weird loop there around the 50/ 51 mark just ignore that bit. I've painted it out in the detail below (bit messy!)

So it looks like there are a couple of roads to go on in this transition section but then bikepath all the way to New Farm Park...

...around the botanical gardens, back along hthe river and cross at the Go Between. Hooray!!

Again on Streetview you can see here the place we can stop for a break...

Be prepared for a few hours in the saddle. I'm thinking maybe 9/9/30 return??? Not sure. We'll see....

Pray for good weather! xxx

Dodging Bullets

West End to Toohey Forest via Yeronga-Moorooka bike path, back via Norman Creek Greenway. 40km.

Apparently the raindrops around Brisbane yesterday morning were like bullets.  It must have been really localised. When we got through the forest and into Mount Gravatt, the roads had puddles everywhere. When we rode towards the city, the sky was like a big bruise and as we cruised home into West End, there was water on the roads and the trees were dripping. Luckily we managed to avoid all of it bar a fine mist around Tarragindi. The mist was very welcome as it was humid as hell.

I managed to turn the flash off this time for a forest pic:

and one with me...

I look like I have a little Bronwyn-head stuck on the top of my helmet.

A good turn-out, as you can see. 40kms double weekend: tick.

Mary and Phoebe put in the hard yards

 It really was baking hot by the time we arrived at the Market just after 9. Our spot from last week was taken so we trudged through the crowds, eventually settling on a spot around on the Jane Street side next to a kindly jeweller who let the girls set up under the shade of her umbrella. (well...Mary was in the shade)

The girls' moods lifted almost at once as they hadn't even been playing for a minute when some generous soul threw $5 into the hat!

They exhausted their repertoire and then played through again and again. Mary's verruca was hurting so she stood on one leg. Then Phoebe stood on one leg too. Then Mari (who was joining in with her shaky egg). I think this got even more response from the crowd. We should have got another small child going past on a unicycle, juggling. Next time, next time.

We plied them with Market snacks and drinks and they continued to play for about 2 hours in total in the heat.

It was a sterling effort with a total of $78 takings!!! Then when they told Elaine, Katina's mum, she gave them 2 dollars to make it up to an even $80. Top busking, girls. And thankyou to everyone who donated today. The girls are over the moon!

This morning's ride to Seventeen Mile Rocks park

Glorious weather this morning - bright, crisp blue skies and sparkling sunshine. It was a good ride but I think the heat was quite draining. Everyone was well and truly knackered by the time we got home.

Riders: Kirsty, Michelle, Bron, Cara
Distance 45km

We did manage to stop for a few snaps which is always nice to brighten up the blog so here goes...

Photo shoot!

Well first off it was great to see everyone out for the ride yesterday morning... oh no wait that was just ME! Luckily we had an overwhelming turn-out for the photoshoot for West End magazine. Infact, the only one missing was Jacqui Walters. What a shame!

We took turns around the roundabout, posed infront of the Citycat stop, rode down Hoogley Street, hung out, candid style, under the fig trees. It was great fun. The lovely Stayc was the photographer and she risked life and limb standing in the path of buses, cars and far more serious cyclists than us in order to get a good shot.

It's not very often that we are (nearly) all in the same place at the same time and I was kicking myself I didn't take my proper camera as Rae was there and she could have snapped away. I did have my mobile and turned the flash off this time. Thanks Mary for being photographer.

And one which I have lifted from the "behind the scenes" section of the West End magazine website ....

Sunday 40kms to Toohey Forest

So there's a bit to catch up on here. Let's go back to Sunday and it was a good turn-out.

Riders: Katina, Michelle, Kirsty, Bron, Cara and then Emma met up with us en route.

We traversed the length of the Yeronga-Moorooka bikepath, scooted around that big mountain in Tarragindi and hopped into the forest via Toohey Road. The time was considerably shorter than the day before. I took this crap photo:

It would have been such a good one!
Note to self: turn off the bleedin flash.

After thios was taken, we met up with Emma at the Cracknell Road turn-off of the S.E. Freeway Bikepath and had a nice sojourn through the Norman Creek Greenway, coming back through Mowbray Park and South Bank along the river.

I think this was a good ride for everyone. Particularly in that the majority of hills were out of the way in the first part of the ride. It might be nice to do this route again and stop at Lady Marmalade for a coffee on the way home. Like Sunday, folks!

This weekend...

As I am probably not going to be in Brisbane for the next 2 weekends, weather permitting I'm going to do the double-up weekend this coming weekend (23/24th). I'm going out on Saturday night so I expect to be quite shabby on Sunday ....but I shall ride through the pain!

I'm thinking Saturday: along Kedron Brook to Nundah (about where Emma and I reached the last time we did it). That's around the 46km mark. OR...

A trip to Jindalee with an extra bit each end:

So instead of crossing at the Go-Btw, we cross at the Goodwill

We take a ride further along the river to Rocks Riverside Park at Seventeen Mile Rocks then hook around to the lake we stopped at before.

Sunday: A repeat of last weekend's Toohey Forest ride with a stop for coffee at Lady Marmalade???

Fingers crossed it doesn't rain!

Most sensational, invitational, celebrational wine-cheese-taste-unnell!

The ball is definitely rolling for our Wine and Cheese event. I refer you to the invite below. Tell all your friends, then tell them to tell their friends. 2 hours of child-free sophistication guaranteed not to encroach on your Saturday morning OR Satuday evening commitments!

Deffo got up off our arses today!

Whew it's been a busy day so far!

Celia and I met up at 5.30am and embarked on a reccy ride to boldly go where no WEWW has gone before... i.e. Toohey Forest via the Yeronga-Moorooka bikeway.

Here's our route:

 

Heading up from the CityCat stop to Dornoch Tce and up Highgate Hill then around to Dutton Park, under the Green Bridge and along the Corso. The turn-off for the bikepath is about halfway along the Corso and marked with yellow bars. It takes you through parks, across Fairfield Road and up Park Road, across Ipswich Road, through more parks and eventually ending up in deepest Moorooka. Mayfield Road to be exact.

Almost exactly opposite the end of the bikepath is a road leading up to Toohey Forest Park. Well it's actually more of a track and Toohey Forest is actually a mountain from this angle. So it was a hard left as Celia skirted around the outside of the park looking for a realistic access point..... it really is quite hilly around here! We hit Toohey road which is a main road but it led us to where we wanted to be - inside the park on a sealed track.

Once inside the park, the smell is amazing and it takes seconds before you feel like you are really away from things. You are really high up at this stage and if you peep out between the trees, you realise you are on a high ridge.  Time for a quick piccy, courtesy of a passing dog walker...

We followed the track which led about 2.5kms through the forest and ended us at the Nathan campus of UQ. After that, we were able to zip around the deserted university ring road and pick up the S-E Freeway bikepath all the way home.

Total distance: 30km
Total time: 2hrs 8mins (LOTS of faffing about, map reading and general head scratching - the lady on Map My Ride sounded more and more like she was hiding a smile when she announced our steadily decreasing average speed)

What else? Mary and Phoebe!! They took their clarinets down to the market and (with Mari's excellent help page-turning and thanking donors) really hit one out of the park for us. Total takings for about one hour of playing : $53.55! Kaching!!

Well done, girls! You did us proud. There's talk of another session next week so watch this space.

Next up... Cheese and wine meeting

Today at 12.30pm we met up at Donna's and nutted out some details for the up and coming Cheese and Wine tasting on March 23rd from 4-6pm. Invites coming shortly. Tickets $20 cash on the door. It's going to be a really lovely afternoon. We've got Tim from Chalk and Cheese and a manager from one of the featured wineries to come and talk about the wine and give us tastings. Then we've got Lou who is a cheese expert and she's going to hand pick some cheeses for us to go with the wine. It'll be a chilled-out kid-free zone in the garden with Alvin (hopefully!) playing some smooth grooves from his extensive record collection.

Donna has all the details of what needs doing and will be sending out an email soon.

Finally... I pimped my ride!!! DING DONG that bell is begging to be rung.

I know she looks like she's being strangled but my zip tags were too short to go around her waist. We'll see how she fares tomorrow. Riders, see you at 5.30!

Pressies for the bike!

There's a couple of interesting objects waiting to be attached to my bike.

1. I give you: my enormous bike bell courtesy of Michelle!

 It really is a giant bell and has a dual "DING DONG" tone guaranteed to grab the attention of the most avid ipod listener. AND... next time a MAMIL starts giving us sh*t he's going to get the ding-dong treatment from me. Probably should have removed my plaster for this shot.

 2. Introducing: Wonder Woman Barbie!!!

What a find. Thank you Kirsty! I don't even want to take her out of her box she really is in mint condition but she would look good on the front of the bike like a figurehead. Darryl suggested sitting on the helmet but it's really not a very aerodynamic idea. This weekend I may have to pimp my ride.

Kirsty and Michelle on their ride along Kedron Brook this morning...

What a great shot! You don't get smiles like that by sitting on yer arse!!

Kedron Brook this morning

It was just Emma and I for this ride. We took it fairly easy particularly on the hills as Emma's gears have been playing up. The weather was perfect. Cool with occasional sunshine  and the odd misty shower - not enough to get wet, just to cool your face and arms. I had to stop and take these two pics of the brook looking really good. There are parts of it where it's difficult to believe what was happening here a couple of weeks ago...

We stopped at the duck pond, saw an egret and that black thing up in the tree - not the crow the other one. I want to say moorhen but I don't think that's right. Anyway one of them...

Then we decided, instead of doing our usual loop,  to go back the way we came, cross over the road that separates Mercer Park (the one we were in with the duck pond) and Shaw Park, and take the bike path east just for a little while to see what it's like. It is really beautiful. One side of the creek becomes a wall of rock for a while. You can realy see here just how far the brook must have risen - it looked like 10 metres or more! There are lots of trees around. One big one was blocking the path...

We could get around it ok but we took that as a sign we should probably turn around before we ended up in Nudgee Beach!

Total distance for me: 46km
Total distance for Emma (with the journey to and from her house including Gladstone and Dornoch): about 60km!!!

West End magazine interest...

This is Kayla from West End magazine who came around to Bron's yesterday and talked to us about the ride...

She is going to put a photographer in touch with us and with any luck we'll be in the April issue. Yeeahah!

Route refresher for Saturday (44kms)

Looking forward to Saturday and just incase you wanted a reminder of our route up to Kedron Brook and along as far as Shaw Park, here it is, starting first with an overview of the whole ride:

Next up, here's where we start out, along the river and over the Kurilpa Bridge:

 Then it's through Roma St. Parklands and Victoria Park, along Herston Road and down to Enoggera Creek...

After that, we weave our way through the back streets of the Northern suburbs.... Baradine, Lind, Greene, Burnley, Erneton, Wilston, Murrell, Alderson, Moran, Fredrick, Wakefield, Waterford, Alderley, Park, Hall, Hoddart, Campbell and finally to Royal Parade which leads us to the Kedron Brook bikeway heading east...

The last leg is along Kedron Brook, crossing over and turning on the road that sperates Mercer Park an Shaw Park. We do a circuit of the park stopping off at the duck pond. This map shows the way we went the first time when we got a bit lost and ended up going along the streets! Subsequent rides saw us remaining in Mercer Park all the way back to Kedron Brook...

And then back again! It'll be a good ride and the weather looks like being nice and cool. There are some hills. One in particular on Greene Street on the way back is always a challenge.

Another hardship will be in inevitable smell of cooking breakfasts as we ride through the streets of the northern suburbs. It will be a test of endurance and will power but I think we are up to the task!

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