Cycling the BVRT from Toogoolawah to Fernvale

After throwing a few options in the air for this weekend we decided to go on a cycling adventure, riding a 65 km section of the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail from Toogoolawah to Fernvale.

The complete track is not yet open and will eventually be around 161 km in length, starting in Yarraman and finishing in Wulkuraka.  The other open section is around 48 kms from Yarraman to Moore which I plan to ride at some future point.

The current ride is broken into a number of sections:

• Toogoolawah to Esk;
• Esk to Comminya;
• Comminya to Lowood; and
• Lowood to Fernvale.

As the trail follows the rail line, the climbs and descents are gentle so you don't really need a serious mountain bike for this ride.  There are a number of creek crossings in gullys which you can walk your bike in and out of, or ride if you want the challenge.

We negotiated the ride with a touring bike with a 15 speed internal hub and a mountain bike running 1.25 road slicks.  Next time I would change the road slicks up for a wider Tyre as I ended up with a slash in the Tyre wall requiring a sleeve patch and another blowout through the valve stem - most likely caused by a rock.

Don't do this ride in the wet or after a lot of rain as the ground can get very soft even though you are riding on the bed of rocks put down for the train track.  With the number of gates, gullys, and obstacles you may not raise your cycling average over 15 kms per hour if you want to enjoy the scenery as you go. I am cycling fit so was a bit surprised at the low average given I did a base ride for 75 kms the day before on my road bike with an average around 30 kms per hour.

Winter would be best for this ride.  The valley can certainly heat up during the day so I would rather rug up for the cold morning than struggle through the heat.

It seems it was the start of magpie open season on cyclists today with at least 4 separate attacks, but nothing too serious.

Toogoolawah to Esk - 19 kms

I found this section to be a little frustrating with the number of gates (i.e. nearly a gate for each kilometer).  There are lots of options in Esk for refueling - the bakery had some great food!

Esk to Coominya - 24.5 kms

An interesting section with less gates!  There are some rocky patches on the climbs and some descents to balance out the climbs - all gentle grades.

There is a general store in Coominya where I was lucky enough to pick up a patch kit with some more glue as I had killed two tubes by this point and had no more spares.

Comminya to Lowood - 12 kms

By this point you have broken the back of the ride and the trip into Lowood was relatively interesting with a few road crossings as well as a steep descent and ascent in and out of Lockyer Creek.  This section would be painful in the wet so ensure you choose a dry track for your trip.  Some sections felt like somebody had put your brakes on even though you were going down hill - I was a little tempted to get out onto the tarmac which ran parallel to the track as you left Comminya.

Lowood to Fernvale - 8 kms

This was a picturesque section of the trip, running along the upper reaches of the Brisbane River, past a flying fox colony and through some farmlands that were obviously irrigating from the river.  There is one section of this track that isn't well signposted.  Keep looking for a sign on a gatepost on your left as you are cycling along a dirt track just outside of Lowood.

Gilligans

The last of the showers were clearing away out to see as we took off early for one of my favourite local paddles; taking off from Scarborough and paddling over to a sandbank that is affectionately known as Gilligans.   This sandbank only appears at low tide and is found a couple of kilometers off Skirmish Point on Bribie Island.

This sandbank is a great place for rough water paddling when the conditions are sending swell from the North.  On those big swell days when we have cyclones in the Coral Sea, it can be frightening.  I have found myself airborne in a six meter sea kayak as waves wrap around the bank and meet over the shallow ground pushing you skywards in an explosion of water.  That wasn't today with a gentle meter or so of swell pushed into peaks as the tide slowly reclaimed the bank.

The only thing you need to be aware of is that the waves come from two or more different directions and you can catch a wave from behind, to be hit by a wave coming from 90 degrees to the direction you are going.

This is a nice 26-30 km round trip with a leg stretch and second breakfast on the sandbank (if the tide is right) before paddling the 13kms back to Scarborough.  Best to paddle over on an outgoing tide and back on an incoming tide.  The tide can rip through the channel between Gilligans and Skirmish Point on springs giving an ever changing tidal race if you get wind and swell from the north.

Sea to the Rainforest

I took some time off to visit one of my favourite rain forests with a friend who was visiting from the US.  Lamington National Park was one of our favourite hiking destinations as we were growing up in this part of the world and it hasn't lost any of its appeal.  If we weren't surfing somewhere along the coast on our weekends we would head to the hinterland to hike through the National Parks that protect some of our local natural wonders.

In addition to some amazing rain forest, waterfalls, pools, glow worms, crayfish, etc, it is home to the rare Albert's Lyrebird which made a fleeting appearance again on this trip.  Well worth a visit if you are in the area - just an hour or so inland from the Gold Coast.

Peel Island Reef Platform

From a novice point of view, it seems like the reefs in Moreton Bay are slowly starting to recover.  I am seeing a lot more soft and hard corals make an appearance in what have been fairly dead patches of reef in recent times.

Peel Island sits between Cleveland Point on the mainland and Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island.  It is a comfortable day paddle and a circumnavigation from Cleveland is 20+ kms.  It is a fun paddle back to Cleveland in wind against tide conditions when the wind picks up so novice paddlers should be wary.

Peel Island is surrounded by reef and a low tide paddle can add a few extra kilometers to the journey as the reef platform on the northern and south western sides is exposed at low tide.  Be wary of crossing the reef platforms on an outgoing tide.  The reefs are very shallow and the water can drain off very quickly and we have all left gel coat behind - today was no exception so I need to do some repair work on my boat :-(

There a two camping areas which can be booked through the National Parks website, Platypus Bay and Horseshoe Bay.  Horseshoe Bay can get very busy with the local boating fraternity in summer months when the Northerlies are blowing as the beach faces south and is a great spot for lazying away summer days.  There are some toilets at Horseshoe Bay, but that is the extent of the facilities.

So today was to get back into the zen of kayaking and also some macro photography.  After coming back from North Queensland I hadn't been on the water and was keen to get back out and exploring around our local watery backyard.

There was a bit of southerly breeze about so all the boaties had headed to the north side of the island and had moored in Lazaret Gutter for the night.

We paddled past the wreck of the Platypus (south eastern corner) and headed up to the western end of Horseshoe Bay which has some good campsites and easy access to the exposed reef platform on the south western corner.

The exposed reef platform looks fairly dead at first glance, made up from broken dead coral.  A closer inspection will reveal some of its inhabitants.

I was surprised to find a survey peg on one of the rocky high points of the reef platform.  I'm not sure if there was a structure built here at some point in the past or it was just a visible indicator as to where the survey peg was.

The other side to the island, apart from its history as a leper colony, is the sandstone formations along the base of the cliffs.

I'll be back with my snorkeling gear later in the year to explore the covered reef platform.