Old roads

On my V-Star in 2009, visit at Nimbin

A few years ago, between 2005-2011 after we'd moved to Aus and joined the Mt Lindesay Ulysses riders group, Stan and I had ridden our motorbikes along many old roads around the SEQ Brisbane area. Today I decided to go over some of the old roads and see if I remembered them.

At the start, I drove the back way from Waterford to Park Ridge – a road which I'd already done years ago. We got into Park Ridge and had to head north along the Mt Lindesay highway because there was no road I would remember which would have taken us to the BP. We got off the highway at the Greenbank exit, went under the highway and got back onto it heading south.

I took Jordie to the dog wash at the BP which is just off the highway – possibly it's called the Regents Park area. A few years ago, when I used to take Jordie and my English bull terrier Bundy there, after their bath we used to walk from the BP a short way north, then up onto the footbridge across to the other side of the highway. Jordie seemed to remember the area, and her bath cooled her down. Even though I used the drier, I'd taken some towels to wipe her over with – they were needed!

The Browns Plains – Beaudesert roads didn't look any different than they had years ago as we drove on roads I had ridden on. It wasn't quite lunch time, so we didn't stop in Beaudesert; I'd only previously had a stop at a pub for lunch, very little that I'd seen anywhere else throughout Beaudesert.

We drove on to Tamborine and decided to go up to the top. That place I've been to a few times in my recent history, but this morning we drove around the South Tamborine instead of the North Tamborine I had been through years ago. We stopped at what seemed to be the main village, and I shouted Jordie a bottle of water and an ice cream. We didn't taken the main village road because I knew that would be very busy during holidays. I had seen cafes and wineries where I wished I'd been able to stop, but I couldn't leave Jordie alone in the car – in the heat!

As we passed another pub I'd been to fairly recently, I wanted to go down the very steep road to the Gold Coast road but decided to go back the way we'd come up. I felt pretty good about my own driver behaviour - I sat in 3^rd, little braking necessary, going down that hill behind a car which was probably automatic and needed lots of brakes.

At the bottom was the Dragon pub, where I'd been around 2008 and had my pic taken with a snake hanging over my shoulder! Nowhere there that I could have taken Jordie, and no shady parking, so we kept going.

The roundabout looked like it had changed. Years earlier, I had already driven on the Waterford road, so I chose to go on the Tamborine-Beenleigh road. I drove some old roads, thinking I'd never been on them, and yet after I saw a bridge going to Yatala from that road I knew I'd been there – years ago with the Ulysses group I'd ridden across the bridge from Yatala and turned left to head towards Tamborine! I went through Windaroo too, which I hadn't remembered from my history, but I saw an old yellow building which was a cafe with a carpark which we (the Ulysses group) had already been to – which I can't even find on a map! (Had I imagined it?)

Beenleigh looks very familiar, mostly because I now live in this area and have very recently driven around Mt Warren roads. I drove today for nearly 3 hours, and I knew how to get us back home. I hope to do this sort of drive again, because reminding myself where I've already been is ongoing recovery for me. Jordie and I enjoyed it.