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Wynnum to Cleveland with No Lift

October 12, 2020 by Les

We left home early and headed for Brisbane Central station. This time to take a train to the coastal suburb of Wynnum. It’s an easy few hundred-metre ride to the station but accessing the platforms with heavy, electric bikes can pose a challenge. Usually, we just use the thoughtfully provided lifts and we had no problem doing this on our outbound journey. Unfortunately this would not hold true later in the day.

Wynnum has three stations; Wynnum North, Wynnum and Wynnum Central. As we approached the first of these Tracy suddenly had the sudden desire to disembark, not at Wynnum Central as originally planned but at Wynnum itself. Once off the train, we realised that to exit the station we would have to carry our bikes over a bridge. Superman wasn’t around and the station guard was heavily pregnant so we strugglingly helped each other with this task.

Once over the bridge, we rode a few hundred metres through tree-lined streets to the coastal bike path which forms part of the Moreton Bay Cycleway (MBC). After a short stretch on the MBC, we headed inland again towards the library where we had arranged to meet the librarian and drop off some books, with a view to conducting a talk there in the future. On the way, we spotted a cosy looking coffee shop and decided it was time for a break. We were pretty tired after 40 minutes sitting on the train and riding about 2 kilometres. The coffee shop turned out to also be a bookshop so I delivered my standard sales pitch to the friendly barista and will doubtless be dropping off copies soon.

Following a successful meeting at the library, where books were gratefully accepted and offers of conducting a reading when Covid-19 is over we headed out of town again back towards the MBC. On the way, I spotted an old-fashioned cordonnerie (shoe repair shop) called The Shoe Doctor. Synchronicity strikes when you least expect it. In need of a key for the bike lock and replacement batteries for garage remotes, I entered the artisan’s workshop. It was a step back in time. Adorning the walls and shelves were numerous artefacts and religious texts. The cobbler himself called out from his workshop, hidden behind gently flapping , fly-strip blinds, “with you in a minute”. As I waited I wondered how long the shop had been there. Quite some time I imagined, judging by the faded decor. When the shoe doctor appeared he was friendly and helpful and I left with a new key and replaced batteries.

We continued following the Moreton Bay Cycleway via a short stop at the Information Center on Manly Wharf. It was set in a lovely spot over the water and the person inside was enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Following her instructions, we had a lovely ride, along the water’s edge past mangroves with a powerful, but not unpleasant, scent of decaying seaweed. We passed by bushland with very tall trees where there was a good chance of seeing koalas. These critters are notoriously shy and difficult to spot at the best of times and despite craning our necks and risking a tumble we were unsuccessful in seeing any.

We’d ridden past a number of quaint looking restaurants but now that we were hungry and ready for lunch, there was nary a seller of victuals to be seen. We continued on, avoiding the swooping magpies, towards Cleveland, where, on the edge of town, we spied a cafe in a small group of shops. Elaine’s Cafe was a top spot and we took a table in the shade. Some of the other customers took an interest in us, or more accurately, in our bikes, and we happily answered the common questions about battery life and range.

We took the opportunity of an impromptu sales pitch for Soft Nut Tour of Burma and handed out literature while explaining we were on our way to Cleveland Library to drop off copies. We had had a similar experience at Wynnum Library when an older couple had admired our bikes and talked about their daughter and son-in-law in Japan, who also had electric bikes.

And so, we pedalled on to Cleveland library. We saw plenty of signs but the library building itself proved shy in revealing its whereabouts. We backtracked a few times and eventually headed up a winding walkway to find the building. Had we followed the road signs correctly, we woud have ridden in on the correct route and not risked a fine by cycling on a pedestrian pathway where bikes were prohibited. We’ll know next time.

I decided it was Tracy’s turn to front up to the reception desk and pitch our literary wares. During her visit she discovered there is a complicated hierarchy in libraries and, after four referrals up the line, she found someone happy to take our books. She was also given the name of the all-powerful being who was responsible for organising presentations and readings at the libraries of the Redland Shire Council. A successful trip on many levels.

We headed back to the station with 10 minutes to spare before the city-bound train departed from Cleveland Central. As I dozed on the journey home I wondered why Tracy kept rifling through her bike bag, taking items out and then sitting down again. Later she told me she had seen a lady reading a Susan Howatch novel. (Susan Howatch is a British author. Her writing career has been distinguished by family saga-type novels). This was a great opportunity to engage a possible customer, but Tracy’s coyness overruled her keenness and the fine line between friendliness and annoyance was not breached.

As we disembarked from the train Tracy spotted another lady whom she thought was an old friend she hadn’t seen for 25 years. But again, shyness got the better of her and she didn’t approach the woman.

We both envied those who seem untroubled by any sense of embarrassment or reserve, and who will happily talk to complete strangers on public transport, or approach those they think they recognise and engage them in conversation.

We had little time to dwell on our inadequacies as we discovered, much to our chagrin, that we had arrived on the platform where the lift was out of order. We faced this new challenge valiantly and steeled ourselves for the more physical task of hefting our bikes up yet more stairs to begin the short ride home.

Brisbane to Santiago via “North Straddie”

October 2, 2020 by Les

If you were to head east from Brisbane you’d eventually make landfall, 11,574 km later on the coast of Chile. On the way you could stop off at one of the picturesque islands that help form Moreton Bay. There’s the attractively named Coochiemudlo Island (The name Coochiemudlo is the English language version of the Yuggera words kutchi meaning red and mudlo meaning stone – Wikipedia). Further north there’s the not so attractively named Mud Island. The largest of the islands is called North Stradbroke and this was our destination for a day out recently as spring arrived in Australia.

Of course, we wanted to take our bikes so we headed for the station and took a train to the suburb of Cleveland where ferries depart for the island.
The train takes about an hour and wasn’t crowded. We secured our bikes using the thoughtfully provided straps located in each carriage. These are really for securing wheelchairs but they work well for bikes. Had a wheelchair user boarded we would have moved them immediately. We wondered what the buzzing sound was that seemed to be set off by every little movement of the train. We soon realised something was amiss, but not before a slightly annoyed driver had asked “the people with bikes” to move them away from the emergency contact button, an alarm linked to the wheelchair space should assistance be needed

Alighting at Cleveland station we discovered that Tracy’s travel card was no longer valid. The staff were very friendly and helpful but had that swimming in treacle attitude that is so often encountered in country areas. The slow purchase of a new card and detailed directions we received after enquiring how to reach the ferry terminal meant that the one scheduled to link up with the train’s arrival had departed by the time we arrived.

On the upside, we had time to enjoy that important morning ritual, a cappuccino. The cafe at the terminal probably hadn’t changed much in 50 years. All manner of deep-fried food was on offer, including the famed Chiko Roll, and to the side, a selection of white bread sandwiches. We sipped our super hot cappuccino and I was rightly admonished by Tracy for pouring most of mine into a nearby flower bed.

After a short wait we boarded the ferry and were on our way to Chile via North Stradbroke (everyone calls it Straddie). There was a keen wind blowing and the small catamaran rocked slightly as it crossed the bay, not a trip I’d like to make on a stormy day. Most of our fellow travellers seemed to be residents returning home with trolley loads of goods and supplies from the mainland.

There aren’t many roads on the island, so planning our route was pretty straightforward. The ferry docks at Dunwich and we disembarked and headed north towards Amity Point. We realised pretty quickly that not only is the island under developed, so are most of the people who visit with their overpowered 4 wheel drives packed full of fishing and camping gear. There are no bikeways and for the most part, very little consideration for cyclists on the roads. We arrived at Amity Point hoping for a delicious lunch at a restaurant that had been recommended. But, as is often the way, it was closed. Perhaps because it was Monday or perhaps because of limited business due to COVID-19. We looked around for alternatives and eventually struck lucky by snagging the last two pies in the general store. These we enjoyed al fresco seated on plastic chairs at the front of the store.

Sated, we remounted our bikes and headed for the fabled Point Lookout. But we never made it. Along the way we both became aware that the batteries on our bikes were fast being depleted by the number of hills and the relentless headwinds. A few kilometers shy of the lookout we realised that if we continued we were risking dead batteries and we still had an 18 kilometer ride back to Dunwich and the ferry home.

I was reminded of the time in Nepal when my trekking companion, Paul, and I had set off early one morning from Jomsom, the main town in the Kali Gandaki Gorge with the intention of completing our trek to the fabled town of Muktinath, 10 kilometers further north. We’d been on the road for about two weeks by then, surviving on rice and dahl with the odd, ever more expensive chocolate bar, as a treat. After 20 or 30 minutes of slogging along the slippery, rock strewn trail through the cold sleety rain we looked at each other and silently agreed that we’d had enough. We returned to the relative comfort of our cheap hotel and spent the remainder of the day in front of a roaring fire, drinking Nepalese rum. Around 6pm two trekkers appeared in the doorway, exhausted and frozen to the bone. “Where have you come from?”, we asked, “Muktinath” they responded, “it’s a shithole”.

With judicious use of battery assistance we made it into Dunwich and pulled into the local bakery where, we were pleased to spot two unused power sockets. We asked if we could recharge our bikes for 20 minutes while we had a drink, and were delighted when the young girl behind the counter said yes. We sat at another plastic table chatting to the locals who told us that, had we headed south, we would have encountered fewer hills and probably seen some kangaroos.

George, Tracy and Me in Myanmar

September 6, 2020 by Les

George Orwell and I have a lot in common. We both worked in dull, badly paid jobs in hotels; him as a plongeur in Paris and me in a similar role in, among others, The Dolphin Hotel in Herne Bay. There it was just called dishwasher and lacked even the vaguest air of romanticism. Orwell also spent long periods wandering the grimy streets of London, as described in his books Keep The Aspidistra Flying and Down and Out in Paris and London. I too had my share of peripatetic wanderings in the UK capital during the times I lived and worked there.

Sadly one experience Orwell and I do not share is much experience of travel in Myanmar. Almost 100 years ago Orwell spent five years living, working and exploring, what was then still part of the Great British Empire. The country has changed dramatically since Orwell’s time. Freed from the yoke of the Empire by independence in 1948 it went through a period of political turmoil and various, mainly communist-inspired, regimes. In 1962 a military coup took place and the Generals stayed in power for many years. Their tight grip on the country and its people began to loosen as early as 1990 but real democratic reform did not start until late 2011.

For some years now, crossing from Thailand to Myanmar and back again has become easier due to the increasing number of land border openings.

Crossing the Thai/Myanmar border near Myawaddi

So it would have been timely indeed if I had been able to accompany my wife, and a small group of friends, on a cycling tour of the less travelled roads of Southen Myanmar in early 2020. Sadly this was not to be. I injured my back a few weeks before departure and was forced to stay home while she flew off to experience the exoticism of South-East Asia firsthand.

She rode the often rough and always dusty roads between Hpa An and Dawei while I reclined on the sofa between bouts of physio and stretching, watching Netflix. We both recorded our experiences; hers sometimes physically demanding but always enthralling, mine often mundane but reflecting real life.

You can read our different takes on our trials and tribulations during two weeks in February, just as COVID-19 was starting to change everyone’s life, in our recently published collaborative book The Soft Nut Bike Tour of Burma.

Two diaries. One trip. A thousand memories.

Available from Amazon.

Riding the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT)

August 9, 2020 by Les

The BVRT or, as it is better known, The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail is a 161 kilometre recreation trail which runs from Wulkuraka to Yarraman in Queensland, Australia. The trail follows the old Brisbane Valley railway line and is open to walkers, cyclists and horse riders. It is the longest rail trail in Queensland. Best not to tackle it all in one go then.

We planned to take the train to the southern starting point at Wulkuraka, about 1 hour from Brisbane, from there to ride to the next major point on the trail at Fernvale. This involves a change of trains at Ipswich.

Although there was a connecting train to Wulkaraka 30 minutes later we made the, in retrospect, disastrous decision to try and ride the 5 kilometres. Paul Heymans who runs the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail Association advises against this due to the confusion of negotiating the Ipswich one way system. If only we had heeded his advice.

Once you arrive at Wulkaraka the trail is well signposted and starts right outside the station. The first few kilometres are paved and take you through some pleasant bushland skirting a few new housing developments before arriving at the start of the true off-road experience.

The trail was still perfectly rideable on our Leitner electric bikes and doesn’t really require a mountain bike although I would not recommend it for anyone with a road bike. Some sections were a bit rocky but for the most part it’s either compacted earth (so don’t attempt it after rain unless you like mud) or light gravel. There are also a number of cattle grids to stop the cows from wandering too far which can be daunting the first time you cross them.

We adopted a slow pace giving us time to enjoy the surroundings which, apart from the beautiful countryside and wildlife included a number of quaint memories from bygone days.

After about 2 hours of leisurely effort, we arrived at Fernvale and made our way to the legendary Old Fernvale Bakery and Cafe where we’d arranged to have lunch and recharge our bike batteries. While we waited for our delicious Aussie Burgers (it has beetroot in it) Tracy chatted with Bill Rose the affable owner who revealed himself to be the font of all knowledge about the town and surrounding area. He was also an early advocate for the creation of the trail.

After lunch we headed back along the trail to Wulkuraka station and home. Strangely there seem to be direct trains from Wulkaraka to the city although there are none (at least we could not find them) in the other direction. To avoid waiting we boarded the Ipswich train and after changing platforms at Ipswich took the train back to town enjoying a well-earned snooze along the way.

Next time we plan to stay the night in Fernvale and ride on the next day to Esk which is about the halfway point of the 161 km trail. Maybe one day we’ll do the whole thing!

Sales are up, here’s how

July 29, 2020 by Les

Out on a ride last week I came across a bookshop I had never seen before. The Clarence Corner Bookshop and Cafe is a coffee shop that also sells books. Or it might be a bookshop that also sells coffee.

The following day I packed a few copies of My Brother’s Bicycle into my panniers and paid them a visit. The friendly owner happily took a consignment of books and they are now proudly displayed for sale.

This sales success inspired me to call into the other shops which have stocked my book and I was pleased to discover they had all sold a few copies.

Also this month an ex-colleague of mine who has his own vlog on youtube asked me to appear as a guest and talk about the story behind my book. He posts videos from his trips in different parts of the world. Because of the Covid situation his travels have been limited so he was looking for another entertainment source.

The video is about 15 minutes long and covers life in Brisbane plus a few tips on how to become a best-selling author. You can view it here Interview with Lou

This seems to have started a trend as next month I’ve been invited to present, virtually of course, at a UK branch of the Men In Sheds group.
Men in Sheds is a global organisation providing community spaces for men to connect, converse and create.

The invitation came by way of an old friend of mine who has been living in the Manchester area since we both went there seeking fortune and fame back in the 70s. He got married and stayed on. Of course, you can read all about this in My Brother’s Bicycle

More details on how it went next month.

We Can’t All Be Winners

June 17, 2020 by Les

Last month I talked about my top 10 influential albums so it seemed only fair that this month I take the opposite tack. Here we go – Five albums/artists that strike me as being unworthy of the adulation afforded them. What a positive way to channel all that festering, lockdown negativity.

Here’s my first choice. Yes I know it’s one of the most popular albums of all time. But, for me, there are too many weird noises and the lyrics are nonsensical.

So pretentious were they that Pink Floyd even omitted to write *Dark Side of the Moon* on the cover.

Number 2 in my list of popular albums that I don’t like. I give you this, annoying in the extreme and all over the airwaves in the early 80s. You just couldn’t stop it, unfortunately.

Whenever I tried to play one of my Jackson Browne albums to woo back the girl I was losing, this garbage would be played by someone else. As it was 1981, probably on cassette.

And 3rd in the, mercifully short, list of popular albums that got my goat. It’s the drum machine tapping, synth poking, shiny suit-wearing Duran Duran. As if one Duran were not already too many. I wish they’d stayed in Rio.

Ironically I shared a London flat with a girl who looked similar to the one on the cover, she was just less attractive.

4th on the list of where’s the mute button (answer, nowhere in 1975). Freddie was a force of nature to be sure and Love of my Life is a corker. But the main culprit here is the ridiculously overwrought Bohemian Rhapsody. Irksome in the extreme (my wife disagrees of course). Especially if you used to work for a company called Galileo.

The 5th and final of my musical nemeses. I love Bruce as much as anyone, although I’m more a fan of his pre “hey baby” skinny Bruce period. This isn’t a bad album as such. I just feel it could have been so much more if he hadn’t just released the C90 cassette he had in his pocket.

On the bike front this month, I was pleased to be a runner up in competition held by a local company specialising in electric bikes. Electric Bikes Brisbane asked for details of how riding an electric bike had changed peoples lives. I duly shared my experiences and was awarded a $250 gift voucher for my efforts. I spent this on the purchase of a pair of very spiffy Ortlieb bike panniers as shown below.

Unfortunately, our painting of Jimi Hendrix is obscured in this snap, but the bags match my shirt.

If you want to know about my musical predilections or cycling experiences look no further than My Brother’s Bicycle.

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