Brisvegas 2.0. Day 6

It was a difficult decision on Friday morning when I was leaving Esk. It was only around thirty-eight kilometers to Lowood, and from Lowood to Wulkuraka was only approximately twenty-eight.

So my dilemma was, do I do two shortish days, or one longer one and a really short day. The other thing to consider was, where could I camp? If I decided to go beyond Lowood were there any places on the trail that I could stealthily set up my tent?

The BVRT recommend that you do not camp on the trail, they don't disallow it, just don't recommend it. There are free camps and relatively cheap camping options along it. But if you're like me and prefer to be 'away from people'...lol, what do you do?

You do have to be careful, as a lot of the trail borders, or runs through private property. I'm not one to impinge on peoples' privacy, or camp on private property, at least knowingly. So, not knowing the trail, I opted to do the first day to Lowood, the follow on the next day to Wulkuraka. If I knew then what I know now however...but hindsight is always a wonderful thing.

I headed out of Esk around 9:30 a.m. and continued south for Lowood. There was no great rush this day so no speed records were broken. I stopped many times, not just for photos or videos, but just for stopping's sake. It was a lovely ride, again with a mixture of terrain and surfacing on the trail. There were more steep creek crossings, some very difficult to push the loaded bike up the other side.

I had only ever seen this neck of the woods via the Brisbane valley Hwy, never by bike, and never secluded from the world like I was. Even though there are times that you ride parallel to the Hwy, you don't really notice it unless you look. But let's face it, with all the great scenery why would you be looking at a road?

The magpies were not viscous but were willing to let you know they were there. In fact the only troubling maggie was coming out of Linville the previous day. For those who aren't Australian we have Magpie Season. It runs for about six to eight weeks around the end of August through to October. It is their nesting season during this time and they can become particularly aggressive. Through this season they become a little like Drop Bears with wings...lol.

I continued down through Mt Hallen and Cooragook to Coominya where I stopped for a while to have morning tea in the shade. I then continued onto Lowood which was quite an easy and flat ride. Actually the trail flattened out well before Coominya. There would only be one more steep creek crossing to tackle today. It still amazed me how the demographics of the landscape continued to change. One minute riding through a well covered area then popping out into a vast clearing of where you could see clearly for miles.

Coming into Lowood I began to look for the showgrounds where I planned to camp for the night. After a couple attempts on Google Maps I eventually found it. My plan was to get set up, have a bit of a walk around town and chow down on a pizza and a couple of tallies.

The showgrounds are adequate, personally I would prefer to free camp somewhere, but for $5:00 for the night including showers, it was alright. There isn't a lot of shade in the main camping area, actually there isn't any. The caretakers were friendly, although I can't say that for others that had set their vans up for the night.

I did, however, find a nice flat shady spot behind one of the grounds sheds and just set a basic camp up for the night. The plan was to only unpack what I needed and get away early the following morning.

I found the showers and washed off, then headed up town and found a nice little cafe just around the corner. A nice strong long black is always my order and I sat down and sampled a piece of carrot cake, it wasn't as good as my wife's.

After my walk I laid down for a little rest. I must have dozed off because I was woken by a commotion. Where I had camped there was a row of houses behind. One of the locals and his partner decided to have a bit of a barney. Now, being a truck driver all my life, I'm not shy of certain words, but anyhooo... I decided to get up and move my tent. It was pretty easy to do and I decided to place it under the awning of the bar area. If you watch Pt 3 of my videos you will notice a difference from where I had set up, to where I was packing up the following morning, this is why...lol.

Instead of pizza I decided to go just for the tallies of beer and use what I had left in my grocery supplies to use them up. I think it was a tin of chicken, a couple of packets of 2 minute noodles and a couple of eggs. So the noodles and chicken mixed together with the noodles and the eggs poached on top. I have to admit, it only looked average, but tasted great. Washed down with a few Great Northerns and I was in heaven.

After dinner I sat up and listened to some podcasts, Freidel from The Travelling Two. She was interviewing a lady who, with her husband, had cycled across from Europe and down through Africa to Capetown. It was mean't to be a twelve month trip, and several years later they are still touring the world. Kind of puts my little trip into perspective...lol.

I also reflected on the trip, this would be the last night I would spend on the trail. I had seen some magnificent sights, met some great people and just had a ball riding some fantastic trails. This is what life should be all about...just taking it slow.