What Will It Take?

Sitting here this morning getting excited and thinking about hitting the road, I began thinking how great it could be if more people did this. Touring by bike, that is.
I talk to some people about my plans and they look at me as though I have just escaped from the asylum.

But what is so bad about it? When you consider it, it wasn't all that long ago in the scheme of things, that people would load up the horse and wagon and take a couple of days to travel the one hundred kilometers from Brisbane to the Gold Coast for holidays. The family would all be loaded in the buggy and off they would go, clip clopping down the road. Or they would travel to Bribie Island, or Cleveland, Redland Bay, Wynnum/Manly etc. It was all about the adventure, the excitement.

Heading off to the Gold Coast

Manly Beach in its heyday

Even here in Bundaberg; Bargara, Burnett Heads and Elliott Heads were all holiday destinations for local people...now these areas just suburbs of a bigger metropolis. There used to be a rail head at Bargara so people could catch the train out to there and back. Not to forget the rail car that would run down from Mt Perry

What happened along this time frame? What happened to our sense of adventure? What happened to getting to your destination as being part of the holiday?
Today we seem to jump in a car and drive overnight, or board a plane and fly to our destination. Holidays seem now to be about the destination rather than the journey.

Has our convenient, over indulgent lifestyle made us just too over reliant on "more modern" forms of transport, and especially the motor vehicle?
Yes it has, in my honest, humble and completely unbiased opinion...lol.

But when you think about it, its not far from the truth. Not only our attitudes, convenience and laziness, but everything leads us to jumping in the car as our mode of choice. Bigger car parks at the shopping center, the continual promise for more roads to ease congestion (yeah, because that has always worked in the past) and even overcrowding, cost and lack of public transport, gears and steers us to jumping in our car.

Not all that long ago we were heading to Brisbane to catch up with some friends, go to the EKKA and to go to a friends birthday party. We wanted to catch the train rather than drive. Let's face it, everyone who knows me knows my thoughts on driving, I hate it. The thought of rushing to jump in the car after work, grab some shitty take-away for dinner on the road and put up with the multitude of moronious dick heads on the road was more than I wanted to bare.
We priced the train, all excited about it, not just a weekend away, but an adventure. It was working out to cost us (a family of five) to be around $360.00 return, and when push came to shove, it was only going to cost us around $100.00 in the car...ludicrous. There went our adventure.

Qld's Tilt Train

Public transport used to be such a cheap alternative. That was before they changed from being public services to Corporate Government profit makers. Sad isn't it? The amount of time I see the Tilt Train pass through Bundaberg virtually empty, I just shake my head.
I can remember, and its not all that long ago, If I wanted to travel (even when I had a car) I would jump on the mail train. Yes it was slow and stopped at every station, but it was cheap. I could travel to Newcastle from Wingham for around $6.00. A whopping $10.00 to go to Grafton to visit family. Even the standard express train was still a much cheaper option than driving, and you usually got to meet some awesome people.

Ahh, ye old Mail Train

In our cities, people complain about the cost of public transport and its continual rise, its over crowding, or its lack there of. I hear now that trains from Sydney to Adelaide will also diminish their budget fares and everyone will be forced to pay first class. Just another way to empty viable alternative transport option and fill our roads with cars.

And cyclists hold you up?

What has all this got to do with cycle touring you ask? Well everything...just imagine if it was cheaper, or comparative in price, for me and my family to jump on the train and take our bikes to Brisbane for that weekend, instead of taking the car!
What if you were able to ride safely on our roads as a family touring, even around your local region just for a weekend, a week, however long?
What if all the oil company subsidies and corporate tax dodges went into public transport, or the construction of bike paths? After all it cost One Million dollars for a meter of freeway compared to the same cost for a kilometer of bike path.
What if you were able to jump on a train from my town to Brisbane and shoot out to travel the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail?
Or whatever....

The BVRT

But alas, as a family you are confined to a congested box where you end up yelling at the kids to keep the noise down because you're trying to navigate traffic. Or you get tired of the continual drone of videos playing in the background, or travel late at night so the little buggers sleep instead of fight...or complain saying the usual, "Are we there yet? I'm bored! Emily is looking out my window". If you're a parent. you'll understand well.

The dramas of car travel...not exaggerated

Well, I want to make a change in the way I think. I want to travel again, but the travel being an adventure, rather than just a destination. I want to be less reliant on my motor vehicle, another sheep in the crowd of singularly occupied motor vehicles.
I want to taste life, smell the roses and take it in as I go, rather than having to find a safe place to pull off the road, and "Oops, sorry kids, we missed it...".

The over reliance of the motor vehicle, as far as I am concerned is reaching its use by date. Not only the use of the vehicle itself, but much of the culture ingrained with it. The entitlement mentality, the mobile phone use, the arrogance and complete lack of care or concern for the safety of all others on shared roads. It has to stop, we need to regress somewhat from our Wall-E styled, sedentary lifestyles.

Don't be a dick

The rising cost in our ever sky-rocketing health system, the continual increase in road infrastructure and repair, the never-ending rise in insurance premiums and payouts which only leads to more expensive registration. And let's not forget the most important thing, the increase in the loss of life or devastating tragedy on our roads. All these can be linked back to our over reliance on the humble auto mobile...
When will we learn? What will it take?

Just dare to imagine...and as always safe riding.