New Life

Have you ever lost your driver’s licence, for 6 months, from a medical statement? I did. I lost mine according to the doctor’s warning words about my aneurysm, but it was taking from me for 6 months due to my stroke. 6 months of not being able to drive – so very hard!

Last week I sat the assessment in the Redcliffe Health office – and I passed it. I am, right now, very grateful to my GP, who yesterday wrote me a little form which doctors are required to, gave me my own driver’s licence, and the form is dated for 2 years. I got home on the bus and I reintroduced myself to my car.

Yesterday afternoon I lay the car seats down, covered the back area with some old covers, and took my dogs out. Most days in the past they can walk by the bay which is close to my Woody Point address, but this time I took them out to the beach between Margate and Redcliffe.

It looks a bit funny with so many tiny jellyfish washed up onto the beach, but I am still aware that they could, possibly, be dangerous. I let the dogs walk along the beach just for a short while, before we took in the wooden walkway. It was lovely – I’m sure they thought so! Both of my old dogs are just happy to say hello to anyone who happens to walk past. Most people don’t ever ignore these two.

We went for a little drive down around Scarborough, and my dogs thought they were so lucky with the windows open!

This morning I decided to go out by myself, and the dogs were left in the house. Sorry guys, today was for me! I started down at the Redcliffe street market, where a couple of weekends ago I had found some cheap clothes and wore them today. I got there just after 8am and it had only started, so it didn’t really seem as full as it was on the past weekends. I had a fairly quick wander through the markets, and just wanted to drive my car.  It wasn’t hard.

I headed up north, taking the road out past Deception Bay, and got onto the M1 motorway. It wasn’t very full, so was probably a good time to get out there. I had printed out my internet maps, showing where I need to get off, so I could do a short – and very steep – walk up Wild Horse mountain. I found the park, and maybe I was still too early, but it was beautiful. There were two other cars in the carpark. One was empty, but there was a woman waiting at the other for her partner. I rather think I was just a wee bit older than her, but I didn’t think the hill was too bad. It’s only 700 metres up there, and some wonderful places to stop and take photos.  This first pic is from about half way up the hill, taken across the M1 at a couple of the Glasshouse Mountains.

 

Carrying up the hill was very slow, even for someone like me who smiles about it. Despite only 700m from the carpark to the top, it seems to get steeper, especially past the halfway. I sometimes think of someone in Wellington (NZ) who lives in such steep hills!

Up the top at the canopy there were steps to the top. The canopy itself has posters all around it giving history of the different views – a full circle. This picture is almost the same of Glasshouse Mountains that I took halfway down the hill, but you can still see the Bruce Highway going straight through, The third picture looks south, towards Brisbane showing the Bruce Highway traffic.

A young family – mum, dad and small daughter – caught me up at the top just as I was ready to walk down. I thought the wee girl had done so well – until dad told me she was sitting on his shoulders on the way up!

I walked down the hill almost at a very quick pace, feeling very ahead of the new (old) chap who was heading the way up. This, to me, looks so much like the steep motorbike roads I used to get used to. They were very steep!

When I got back to the carpark I saw a car which left – they obviously didn’t like the steepness of the walkway, but I felt pretty good with it – only 700m!

Back into my car, I got back on the Bruce Highway, took the Deception Bay exit off the M1, and before the middle of the day I got home. It almost felt like a wee secret drive, which never took me so long. Perhaps, now, I’m a bit frustrated with these sort of Glasshouse Mountains which are now so very close to me than they ever used to be.  Perhaps I just need to go just a wee bit further…