Tom is moving away from us and embarking in a career in the military where he will get to throw grenades and maybe walk on Anzac Day and maybe defend this stuff we kinda take for granted. Just quietly I don’t really care much about the medals and the war-stuff — but I would LOVE to throw a grenade. Can’t wait to hear from Tom what it’s like.
In the old days you would just wave a tissue at a departing train as he steamed away. But instead today we made a ride for Tom. It was designed specifically for him. It was essentially a big chunk of the ride we did with Tom the first time we met him. Ryan was also on that ride. That ride Ryan got hit by a car turning over the top of him into a service station.
We had to spend an hour at a bike shop to repair Ryan’s bike so we could continue. But that is another story.
So we had 6 of us plus Dayne who stayed with us for the first 10ish but had shit on so had to peel off.
This is Chris who should come on more rides with us cause he brings the fuckin LOLs. (And too much clothing it should be said).
Tom loves “CREST” signs!
I chose the route and I talked it’s technicality and punishment down to the crew. In my defence it was pretty much 80% new to me, but there were some shitty hills I did not foresee and some serious steep stuff on the way to the Moggil Ferry. I wanted to include the ferry ever since Tom and I did it last weekend. It was so much FUN – and FREE! It was like a drunkard. It weaved it’s way across the river and it never looked like landing properly until the last minute. And then it was suddenly like D-DAY when at the bank the ramp smacked down so violently like you were on Omaha Beach. Maybe subconsciously I was doing this to give Tom some more war-training.
Scott attempting to track-stand the entire ferry ride. He didn’t make it.
At Ipswich Ryan was suffering so he took a short cut to Rosewood — our ultimate destination. Me and the rest of the crew then headed for Harrisville and the long way around. I wanted to gift Tom a few dirt roads in his send-off. Tom gravitates to dirt roads. He seems to have some magnetism to them. Tom will be like, “Let’s go down this road” and without fail the road will fade into epic dirt and rocks.
Putting a plane into the picture makes the shot 100% more awesome. I am just putting that down.
And here is Tom on the first bit of dirt I arranged. It was actually quite a nice decent surface and only once did I think I was in trouble when I strayed too close to the edge where it was like a sandy beach. I guess that was poetic.
OK. So then we got to Harrisville and were a bit intimidated by venturing into their pub decked out in our lycra. So we went to the CAFE for lunch. When in doubt perhaps choose some semblance of civility. But although we were the only ones inside the person in charge seemed to struggle with genuine customers. Genuine and hungry customers. She spent an eternity outside on the phone while we waited at the counter. Then her register had no coin-change and she took epic notes of our orders even though four of us ordered the exact same thing.
But the food was good. All the while I was considerate of the fact that Ryan was already at Rosewood so we had to get going. I promised to smash these last 28kms.
But on paper it looked easy. In reality it was through many. many shitty hills and some more dirt roads and the wind didn’t seem to be helping. Just quietly, those last few kilometres were awful.
I didn’t take too many photos during this period as it was getting a bit of an ordeal and the scenery was nice but not much different. But then pretty soon we arrived at Rosewood and Ryan was there to greet us. He is such a trooper. Waiting over 1.5 hours for us.
This is the Fun Bus. It speaks for itself.
So then we had about an hour of drinking beer and then we got some takeaways that wold be disguised in our drink bottles and headed home on the train.
but then POLICE INCIDENT!
We are not sure what occurred but the train was held up for about 10 minutes just before “Thomas Street Station” by a “Police Incident”. What that entailed we don’t know.
DRAMA.
The next drama was everyone’s bladders about to explode! and some jokes that made my head hurt from laughing to much!
This wasn’t the “police incident” but just normal security at Ipswich train stations during the day. HOLY SHIT!
GOOD RIDE! WE WILL MISS YOU TOM! 😦
DJ GLAD RAPPA 