Camp Mtn Railtrail + Goatness

I love checking out new bike infrastructure, and so I was keen to see the freshly sealed rail trail from Ferny Grove to Camp Mountain.

This former railway line was the scene of the worst rail incident in Queensland’s history, almost exactly 69 years ago. 16 people died and dozens were injured.

The train was charted by federal government workers keen to celebrate that Labour Day with a picnic out at Cedar Creek in Closeburn.

It was absolutely laden with people — over 200 — and the driver had never driven that route and on descent into Camp Mountain the train was going too fast and derailed on a tighter bend.

And our route today took us right over the top of that fateful journey. Just about 50m before we turned left onto Camp Mountain Road was where all that awful shit went down. Back all those years there was a train station at that intersection. It is pretty wild to think how things have changed so much in just the living memory of my grandparents.

Anyway. Just while I am feeling philosophical, I should note this ride was a bit like “Waiting for Scotto.” He was meant to meet us at Lifecycles but when he was late Mark texted him and it emerged he had only just left his house way over in Annerley.

We decided to roll away, going slow, and let him catch up. But that was a bit hard cause these were rubbish roads with a lot of traffic so you just naturally want to get through them as fast as possible. But we only had to “Wait for Scotto” for about 15 minutes. Mark started doing laps of the carpark. That looked like fun so I joined him. Benny practised track standing.

Eventually he arrived, looking resplendent in his new Pedla kit —  and we rolled on.

So here was where the rail trail started:

The new pavement has been a tiny bit controversial — as some people loved the dirt and grass and naturalness. And I get that, but if it makes people ride bikes more or just exercise (it was pretty crowded with walkers), then that is a good thing in my book.

We didn’t see any horses to yield to it should be said. Horses seem to be on the very top of the rail-trail food-chain.

Just cause I have been so neck-deep in gravel these past weeks, and have far more on the horizon, I decided to pick out a tiny bit extra on this ride. First was this dead end street traverse:

Then there was this dodgy next section which I had researched on Google Maps, but it was just a hunch that we could get through. Scott and Benny were a bit ahead and naturally missed it because it was hidden down this tiny grassy path obscured by this massive “End of Road” sign.

And they rode left up the bitumen before they realised we were all waiting for them to notice we had stopped. When they saw the route Ben said, “Well that was obvious”.

And this section, though short, had some super-treacherous sandy sections. And the last bit I lost it and did a half crash. I managed to unclip both legs and stay semi-upright. I don’t think it counts as a crash — but my sandy rear-derraileur attests to the fact the bike at least went totally sideways:

Here’s a shot of Ventura smashing through the last of that shitty section:

And here is a shot of a puppy. This is for my fiancé, Dee:

Next was the main road again and then up the Goat Track. Here’s Ventura again:

Scott and Ben talking new bikes

Instagrammin! 

At the top we gently rolled on to the Cafe. Cake-time!

There were several things to note here:

1. On the way to the Goat Track we saw a kid heading in the opposite direction getting motor-paced by a guy on a scooter. (“That’s weird”, we thought.)
2. Then as we were waiting for our coffee’s and food we saw the same kid and the scooter roll past. This time the kid was ahead of the bike and Ben said, “Look, he’s dropped him!” And it seemed this kid had smashed it to Samford then back up the mountain. Impressive.
3. There was a random roadie sitting next to us and he knew the kid from the Coot-tha Burn last whatever. His name is Sebastian Something. He’s only 16.
4. Another teenager then turned up in a very expensive sports car with a very beautiful date. They didn’t stay long and then the two tried to leave. But the poor kid seemed to have no idea how to work the car and took a few minutes and a few gear crunches and even more engine stalls to reverse and then eventually head down the road back to Brisbane. I was too embarrassed for the douchecanoe to even look.

Back to Brisbane and Ventura had a mechanical and so I suggested we fix it at my place. It was a great chance for Scott to be horrified at my lack of, and poor organisation, of my tools! oh well.

It was a good ride. Legs still feel sore from Boonah, but they are getting better. Just need to remember how to suffer more.

Boonah Overnightah — DAY TWO

DAY 2

After getting up way, way too early I killed some time by walking up to the lookout. Boonah was covered in thick mist and looked spectacular.

Next I dragged Scott outta bed, ate one of his bananas and we headed over to the camp grounds. Everyone was taking their time packing up, but the café didn’t open until 7 so that was cool.

Then Bennett was doing a test of his rig when he was like, “Oh shit”. His rear tyre was flat. “At least that will take the heat off me when I start multi-flatting,” I thought. It had been a minor miracle that my tubes weren’t compromised over the 80ks of day 1 but I knew that my luck just had to run out — right?

There’s good and bad things about having three mechanics in your crew. Any issues beyond a busted tube or a broken spoke just might be fixable. And they will be experts at helping you repair even those things. You can learn a lot.

But then again — it can be a little intimidating — something I am sure Bennett felt. Ha! And I am pretty used to the fact that I was reminded by these experts every now and again how shit I am at looking after my bike. My motto is simply this: the sooner you ride the bike into the ground the sooner you can justify a brand new one.

Soon we were all munching on stuff at the café and I got a bit of grief for ordering a can of soft drink with my breakfast. Agreed. It’s not very grown up.

“Puttin’ some gravel in our travel” — Wise words.

BATTERY LIFE

There was an epic side-drama to this trip. Battery or lack thereof. I really don’t know how these guys could chew through so much batt. Everyone was complaining about their percentages. Ryan had bought (and brought) one of those portable phone chargers just for this trip. So he was sorted. But Scott was on Tinder so much his poor phone was literally dead by the end of Saturday night. Bennett was all about the instagram. I had wisely brought an iPhone charger and though I gave it some extra juice while I napped at the motel — I didn’t even need it. My phone never dipped below 85%. I even brought a cable to charge the Garmin but that went unused.

So at the cafe everyone was scrambling to use this spare powerpoint they had sussed out while all the staff weren’t looking. Because I was the only one who had brought one of those little bricks that convert the AC powerpoint to the end of a USB cable they all had to share — so it got a bit “suspicious” around this tiny power outlet.

I had this idea to document everyone’s rig in profile but I only got around to doing my own. Soz.

Eventually everyone was satisfied they had enough charge (and a few had done a sneaky number two) and we got rolling. Finally!

It was now 8am and I did the maths and we had plenty of time to make the 11:05am train from Rosewood back to Brisbane. If we missed that train it was another hour to wait for the next, and then another hour for the one after that.

After a slight route-fail we realised the way home led straight up that 20% hill to the lookout. Again, I chose to walk the bike when it got nuts rather than cook my legs so early in the day. I had no trouble keeping up with Scott.

This picture does no justice to the extreme gradient ahead.

The sign at the bottom had said “No Through Road” and I was starting to get a bad feeling when the road ahead really did just end at some bushes and what looked like a fence. There seemed to be no way through. But then a gate became clear and the terrain beyond it was long, dewy grass and a stupid snake-ish semi-path down losing all that altitude we had just battled to attain. I knew it would be suicidal for me to attempt this riding so I jogged the bike down only arriving at the bottom just a few seconds behind. Now the path looked more legit but it was so overgrown that the big rocks were virtually invisible. I somehow managed a few pics, but then tucked the camera away knowing that would only end in tears.

Here’s Scott starting that decent. Ryan just ahead. I h=was completely stationary — ready to run down after this bullshit was documented.

CRACK

Meanwhile, despite the very audible rumble of jumping up and down this path, I heard and felt this creak, which was more like a “CRACK” and I knew this was my seat-tube topper slipping again. I forgot to tell you all in the Day 1 section that that had happened three times that day while tackling the more crazy terrain. But on inspection the saddle didn’t seem to have moved so I just crossed my fingers and ignored it. Again I had to just plow on. I didn’t think a roadside tightening of the bolts with a dodgy multi-tool would be wise.

Ahead all these dogs started barking. Like maybe 20 or so and on the left it was apparent we had stumbled on some puppy farm. But this was Boonah — so maybe these all belonged to one crazy dog person. Who knows. I heard a woman’s voice trying to calm everything down but 5 bike riders crunching past must be a novelty to these animals.

All those dogs were just beyond this mesh. I could not help but think they were all so nuts just one might just need to get out and attack us. But I worry a lot.

Hands were shaking/jumping-around too much to get this shot in focus

Glad of the gate so I could catch-up.

Here’s Bennett taking a photo of me taking a photo of him

Ryan smashing it

After two gates — like the gates on the Brisbane Valley rail trail — (see above) we were uphill on brown dirt and then on bitumen up the Hoya climb — the longest climb of the day. Halfway up Bennett signalled that his rear tyre was flat again and we stopped in the shade in someone’s driveway. After changing the tube and zapping it with CO2 it immediately went down again. The mechanics all chimed in. “Take the tyre off and check the inside.”

Sure enough there was a bit of the wire bead that was loose and once that was removed another CO2 zap and then bang. It went down again. Now the mechanics were like, “Just use a hand pump.” And that got the tyre to a pretty decent stiffness. Thinking the drama was over Scott and I pushed on and at the top turned around and Bennett and Gypsy and Ryan were no where to be seen. We waited in the shade and about 5 minutes later they came through. It seems Bennett had tried to put a bit more CO2 in and that had failed.  Oh dear.

A three person effort just to get this tube change under control

Having spent about 30 minutes now on repairs that 11:05 train looked impossible. Ryan joked that the 1:05 was looking more realistic.

But the next 10ks were on rolling bitumen and our average speed improved. Which wasn’t hard. After 10ks I looked down and the Garmin said our average was just over 12ks/hr. Ha! Smashing it!

That’s Bennett well ahead of me smashing these rollers. 

So we’d go down this long straight stretch and then only have to really push once we were fairly high up the next hill. A bit more gravel heading west and then more rolling gravel heading north again. In this section there was one climb (on gravel) that got quite steep and we had a 1 minute rest at the top. More calculations were done and we started to think we were back on track. It would be tight but.

Here’s Bennet and his stupidly excessive, or stupidly inspired rear cassette. Wow. Meanwhile my camera had got this bit of dirt right in the middle of the lens. Sorry about that.

Gypsy had forgotten to fill up his water bottles so we had to detour to a park in Harrisville to fill them up.

Spot the super-smudge on the lens. (HINT: it’s not Scott’s filthy second-day shirt.)

Did I tell you that Dan/Gypsy didn’t wear a helmet the entire trip? With his washing-basket at the front and his ghetto-rig underneath he looked like a homeless person we had picked up on the way.

And Gypsy-Dan did look just a bit like Dicky-Knee. See if you can tell the difference:

Just saying. 🙂

Here’s where my camera succumbed to sweat and all the road-grime. I was trying to get one of those LOL pics. oh well. FAIL!

LAST LEG

And then it was a short 1km smash along the Cunningham highway (thankfully only one big truck whooshed past giving us plenty of room).

Then we had one final section of gravel. At this gully and dry creek crossing the road became a rocky sandpit and I emergency unclipped and went, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” as I desperately tried to stop as the bike got dangerously close to washing out. But I made it and then walked a bit to avoid all that rubbish. Back on bitumen and the sun was really baking us now. I could tell the humidity was far worse than on Saturday cause I was super drenched in sweat. I could feel all this chafing in my thighs too. Yuck.

This section was turning out to be the toughest. I’d take a drink but the feeling of dryness in my mouth just wouldn’t go away.

THE TRAIN, THE TRAIN!

So I thought everyone was on-board with the plan to smash it a bit at the end if we had a chance of getting that 11:05. See I was keen to get home cause I had so much work to do to get the blog sorted — it takes hours and hours. But everyone else (except for my co-conspirator Gypsy/Dan) were keen to take it easy. And I secretly thought that this would make a great end to the blog story. Maybe like this:

We were all super-suffering, the heat was intense, the weight of not just our bikes but the whole two-day-adventure suddenly became oppressive. But we dug deep. The passion flowed and we pulled out all stops just to make it to Rosewood in time. And we had exactly seven minutes before it left. Just enough time to grab supplies at the IGA and bolt back into the carriage just as the doors were finally closing. (Like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy scrambles under the stone door.)

And it did go almost exactly like that — except that wasn’t the vibe of the trip. Not in tune with the slow and easy and “take it all in”. This wasn’t a credit-card-tour. Those guys had stupidly heavy bikes and were too polite to call me out on my shit.

I get it now, but at the time I just got a bit excited. A bit selfish. I am so sorry guys.

This is where Ryan and Bennett are “Lathering up” with moisturiser just to soothe their epic skin damage. It was only about -10% sexual. 

Ryan’s “speed-sleeve” now matched his skin. Kudos. 

THE BESTEST

Sometimes you can ride in a way to appease the fact it will be a tiny bit “public” — whether it be by Strava or Instagram or by a blog like this. And that’s rather than just ride naturally and anonymously and savour these bestest times with a bunch of the bestest people who will only know the detail and the minutiae and the very authenticity of this true story. This is a story only we will remember and we will remember it well into our old age — but everyone else who wasn’t there will have long forgotten.

I asked everyone to tell me their highs and lows and everyone was too excited about the adventure to really pin down any specific low. Ryan said it best when he said he thought the whole deal was a highlight and I agree. There was this article by Andy White in RIDE MAGAZINE just last month or two and his riding partner said something like, “A ride doesn’t need to be fun to BE FUN.” And I think what that means is that all the challenges, all the suffering, and all the unexpected, and even all the absolute bullshit, just makes it so perfect. I reckon if everything went to exactly to plan I would be super-disappointed. And you know what — so would our ghost-rider Brad! Hi Brad!

FINAL THOUGHTS: “ON TOUGHNESS”

So at work today I was asked about the toughness of this ride — mostly cause I had to remind everyone I had just survived this Boonah adventure. And everyone pretended to remember what this was all about. All Friday I was fretting so much making sure everyone knew how EPIC I thought this weekend would be. Ugh.

Well personally this ride was easier than I thought in some aspects, but tougher in others.

1) I certainly expected to get at least one puncture. I certainly have super-faith in the Maxxis-Re-Fuse. It seems to be a very, very tough tyre. I put those two bad-boys through hell.

2) I didn’t anticipate the agony in my hands. And I underestimated how the gravel could tire you out and be so evil, but be so fucking beautiful at the same time. That 6.8k stretch was actually so painful but so amazing in exactly equal parts.

3) But then on even the shittest bitumen I could recover. At least give my brain a break from super-concentrating on the terrain. (I cannot tell you how bullshit it is evaluating and judging every single metre of the road ahead). And I have crashed about a dozen times on a bike and I don’t want to do it again.

THE REST OF THE CREW

I cannot really speak for everyone but I will just try to assume:

The guys with panniers found climbing when out of the saddle impossible (for Scott) and super-challenging (for Ryan and Bennett). Ryan said he had perfected this technique which involved a “straightness” when out of the saddle. You can’t throw the bike from side to side. You gotta be aware exactly where the weight is distributed. But if Scott left the saddle the entire backwheel would lose traction.

They obviously found smashing in a paceline ridiculous. See above.

And I would imagine any hills would have been rubbish with all that extra weight. I have never ridden a bike so laden with stuff so I wouldn’t know — but I can imagine it meant a lot more planning when a hill came up. A lot more dedication to the momentum you get from a downhill when you are faced with a serious uphill on the other side.

BALLAST

And you know what? I bet the balance of the bike would have taken some getting used to. It would be like getting used to a wheelchair for the first time.

BONUS PICS (courtesy of Ryan)

Boonah Overnightah (PART 1)

Traditionally, well in my experience, overnight tours have been about being super-minimalist. Basically these following “rules”:

1) Keep the weight to only what is truly necessary. They call it “credit card” touring.
2) Ride hard and fast with the Garmin on all the time on the smoothest route possible to maintain an impressive average speed.
3) Drink, sleep and eat at the local pub (or sleep at a cheap motel if you really have to).
4) Remember: if you think you just might need something — well you won’t. Leave it at home.
5) Lots of beers and dodgy pub food make sleeping easier so you can just jump out of bed and get a super early start for the limp home on day 2

But it seems there are other people out there in the world who do things decidedly differently.

1) They take an inordinate amount of stuff so they can be almost totally self-sufficient. Camping gear, cooking gear, most of the food and spares of almost everything.
2) And they ride the rough and dusty way. The slow way.
3) They might visit the pub but only for a counter meal
4) They leave their Garmin at home (Wait – what?)
5) Not so many beers and thus a very long and relaxed and super casual start on Day 2 – and that’s even before they even get on the bike.

And this was one of those overnighters. A very, very different experience for me.

ODD ONE OUT

Because I am only set-up for the former I rode this overnighter just like I would normally. Crazy huh? So I was *that guy*. I was riding a carbon bike with a dodgy seat-topper and a pretty much just a credit-card in my back pocket. I would be the one that would get ALL THE FLAT TYRES and maybe worse and slowing everyone down and be generally useless. Story of my life.

Plus I was the only one with a Garmin rolling and super-interested in its results. (Ryan’s doesn’t count cause that was ostensibly just for navigation).

The only thing I did to perhaps help my argument was to change my tyres to a set of 25mm Maxxis Re-Fuse. Scotty assured me they were bomb-proof. (So a little wider and heavier than I usually use). ASIDE: On that Killarney ride back in 2014 we met some old veteran overnighters and they said they don’t let anyone come on one of their rides unless they are rolling with the Maxxis. True story.

As it turns out I wasn’t “that guy”. Various other people thankfully took that mantle. More on that later.

THE RIDE

This is one of those rides where you get a train at the start and a train at the end. This can be a bit awkward cause maintaining conversation for 1.5 hours at the start of a ride (at 6am when you are a bit blergh from just having woken up much earlier than usual), and then the inevitable 1.5 hours of conversation at the end (when you are super-tired and dehydrated and have spent literally every waking hour with these people and so you have NOTHING left to talk about).

Anyway. This trip out wasn’t so awkward. I got to meet a dude called Ryan — not to be confused with the other Ryan. So this ride’s “Ryan” I am dubbing “Planet Ryan” cause he’s a mechanic/bike-builder at Planet Cycles and not the Ry Ry from many other bike adventures. Planet Ryan is also a Ginger!

Also with us was Bennett, our leader — then Dan (not Antmandan), Daniel Licastro (AKA “Gypsy” in times gone by) and Scott. So six of us — though Dan was joining us just for day 1 and then riding back to Ipswich. All of those guys were rocking tyres no thinner than 40mm (even Dan). The other overnighters were also carrying 8-10kgs of extra stuff on top. Maybe even more.

SECRET SEVENTH

And then there was this secret seventh member of our crew. A ghost rider ready to maybe judge us once we had uploaded our Garmin data. See this ride had been proposed, mapped, tested and then ridden (a few months back) by one Bradley Norman. Brad of Queensland Cyclocross fame. So we were essentially following his directions — even though he wasn’t there because he had to work this weekend.

Brad’s imperatum, and the fact that Bennett didn’t print the map out, meant we were kinda wedded to his plan. It was Brad or Bust. I stupidly suggested a slight variation to the last stanza of the Day 1 route but no one was having any of that shit. That idea got shot down in nano-seconds. Brad or Bust.

ROLLING

Off the train at Rosewood we went to the bakery and had some pasties and a toilet-break and then we were heading south. The gravel started almost immediately. On a road bike gravel means this:

1) You have to swim about the road like a drunkard hopefully avoiding any stones larger than a Jawbreaker.
2) And in doing so you are concentrating on the road-surface 100% of the time. Vastly more than you’d usually do.
3) The excessive vibrations mean your hands get very sore and you’re constantly shifting positions to get some relief.
4) You don’t get excited for downhills. Any speed above 25kms/hr is adventurous so that basically meant I was constantly on the levers trying to keep my speed in check on the backside of any hill. But in saying that when everyone else smashes past you at 40+ you eventually get a bit more relaxed.
5) The 90 degree turns are the worst cause that’s where the gravel has been washed over by traffic and seems to congregate like it’s a gravel-party — so you are slushing through much more junk.
6) Uphill is where I felt the most stable — cause it was so much slower. See point 4.
7) Downhill on grass I just had to get off the bike and run with it. True story.

So we were a bit clueless as to the route but luckily Ryan had this brand new super-fancy Garmin 1000 which he had pre-loaded with Brad’s route and we were sweet. I mistakenly believed I knew the turns but we would have been fucked if the crew had relied on my directional skills.

The next 30ks was a variation of dirt, gravel, bitumen and various previously undocumented road surfaces which were quite refreshing. The views were great and we mostly had the road to ourselves. The terrain was rolling but no serious pinches.

DOG

At about 15ks in I was about 100ms in front and I saw this dog on the left start getting nuts and barking and carrying on. He stated sprinting towards me and I was zen, assuming the fence would secure him. But then s/he was suddenly ducked under the fence and was on the road-verge charging at me and I heard this massive growl. The kind of growl that only means, “I want to fucking BITE you”. My heart jumped about 20 beats per minute and I jumped out of the saddle and sprinted away as best I could. Luckily it was on a downhill incline. Once the the dog was no threat I looked back at the crew having no chance to verbally warn them. But they seemed fine. Later everyone was like, “the dog was just playing with you.” But in my heart of hearts, that dog was only a bit more civil faced with a crew of bikes rather than just me on my own.

ROSEVALE

It should be said that there were no shops or water opportunities for these first 65kms. But there was a chance at a place on the map called Rosevale which was a “maybe”.

At a gully/creek crossing about 20ks in Dan’s only full water bottle jumped out and he lost all that water. So we stopped at the Rosevale hotel but it was deserted. We saw a tap but it was protected by a fence and a “beware of the dog” sign. But eventually we realised this place was empty — the “foreclosure” sign helped. We jumped the fence and got this shot with an old train carriage in the background.

The next section was all bitumen and Dan said to me, knowing I was a bit worried about my tyres being compromised, “It looks like you might be alright.” Meaning I had dodged a bullet with respect to gravel. But then almost as soon as he said that there was a sign saying “Gravel next 6.8ks”.

And this gravel was very “AUSTRALIA”. So ginger. It spectacularly contrasted the super green of the vegetation. And the main range was now so close and so beautiful. There were cows everywhere and I love dairy cows, and there was a bit more shade — but my hands and arms were suffering from constantly cushioning the road surface on my body. Steadily I was starting to feel a bit shit — in the “can-I-do-this?” sense.

I did my best job of keeping that to myself cause everyone else seemed to be smashing it.

Meanwhile I was doin the maths trying to calculate when the gravel would end and suddenly it did about 800ms before it was meant to. And the country opened up and now we were so amongst the majesty of the northern section of the Main Range National Park. And I just got a bit excited and sprinted ahead amongst all these views and smooth bitumen and sweet downhillness.

A MISSED BRAD SPECIAL

About 8ks later Ryan couldn’t figure out Brad’s map. It seemed to be sending us down a no-through-road. And we collectively decided that this was a Brad Special and not obvious enough for us goobs so we would all stick to the road. Admittedly we were all really hungry. Supposedly Brad’s special side-tour involved a creek crossing. I am just about 20 per cent disappointed we didn’t explore that. But then getting lunch 20-30 minutes sooner was magical. Just saying.

KENT’S POCKET

After a decent lunch at Aratula at the BP truck stop where we saw a douchecanoe pull in with a number plate that effectively said, “MY ASS” we headed up the highway. It was a bit hairy when massive trucks smashed past but thankfully only about 2ks later we were on side-roads again. Skirting around Mt French we hit the main road to Boonah and soon we were at the fabled sign that said, “Kent’s Pocket Road”. I won’t bother you with an explanation of why this event was so meaningful in a LOLOLOL kinda way. But it did mean we KENTS spent an inordinate amount of time perfecting this crew-shot.

The Kent’s Pocket road was a detour. An extra few kilometres over rocks and sapped our arrival time at Boonah by at least 20 minutes. But it was all worth it. Great scenery and at least one untethered and un-fenced cow standing inches away from the road which I did my best to avoid but Scotty tried his best to seduce.

Photo by Bennett

Aborted timer-shot photo

Timer-shot I nailed!

The beauty of Kent’s Pocket Road

BOONAH

At Boonah I was just absolutely ecstatic that I had not flatted (or caved in any other fashion). I was pretty chuffed with myself. I had successfully rolled 80ks without being “that guy”.

To celebrate we got some brews from the drive-thru and went to the park to relax but the sun and the ants made that a bit shit. I headed back to the motel where I was staying. I would have stayed at a hotel but there’s no way I would do that if no one else was doing the same. Meanwhile Dan headed back to Ipswich on his own making his total ride over 130ks. (that was an extra 50s).

As it turned out Scott was bunking with me cause he couldn’t source a tent. I don’t think I have had a friend stay on the bottom bunk for like — maybe 20 years.

It was a bit daunting, but it worked out ok. He snored a bit, but then I had to pee in the middle of the night and I woke him up super-early.

WEIGHT

To be honest I think Scott won the WEIGHT AWARD. His bike was so super-loaded. Indeed he seemed to purposely overload it just for lols and maybe for a bit of ballast. I am sure Bennett would agree. Scott was constantly offering us all the excess food or water he had lugged. And then he was like, “Do want my spare tyre?” “What about this bean-bag and flat-screen I stuffed in there too?”

And for all the shit Ryan and Bennett carried — they forgot the sunscreen. WHAT? And they payed for that! More on that later.

NAP

I managed to get a 30 min nap while Gypsy and Scott lounged in the Boonah Motel pool. Meanwhile Bennett and Ryan set up camp at the Boonah Showgrounds. Thankfully they got a section a tiny bit more secluded. After I woke I was a bit sleep-drunk and made Gypsy and Scott ride up to the lookout just above us up this 20% climb. “TRUST ME — THIS WILL BE GOOD” I said and Scott was like, “No one who has ever said, ‘TRUST ME’ has come up with the goods.”

But I think I nailed it. You can judge by the pics. We could see all the major peaks, the entire town and the gliders getting towed up.

Panorama from the Boonah Lookout

DINNER (and camping)

So after my nap, and Scott and Gypsy having a swim we went over to the camp grounds just in time to see Bennett cook his dinner.

Here is Bennett (with his epic sunburn) cooking his baked beans

After unsuccessfully trying to destroy Bennett’s tent by constantly tripping over his main anchor line, we headed for the pub.

We went to the Dugandun pub about 1k down the road on Scott’s insistence. It turned out to be an inspired decision. It was a beautiful old pub and it was just a bit lively. Crucially — at least for Gypsy — they had at least 6 different types of parmy’s on offer.

While Gypsy chose the traditional parmy, Scott and me went the “Nacho-Parmy” which Bennett described as “Bogan-Fusion”. And he was right. It was shithouse. But I just wanted sustenance. Here’s me and Scott getting our meal:

Look I learnt a lot more about Tinder than I needed to know that evening. But that is another story.

COURTESY CAR

So after seeing a sign saying there was a “Courtesy Bus” that became a “thing” or a “challenge”. I was always like, “Dudes, it’s only 800ms back to town.” But I was voted down. The van was there and I just wanted to get in just to document the adventure. Here’s the photo:

And here is Bennett winning $31 on the pokies!

DAY 2 coming later!

Here’s some bonus pics via Bennett: