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Published: September 21st 2018
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Long Dayyyyy...,,
Up at 5:45 and down in the garage by 6:30. The lift at the MARRIOTT to the garage level was broken so I got a guided tour of the maintenance areas of the hotel to get down to my bike. The MARRIOTT Brisbane -BTW-was a great choice if you decide to visit Brisbane. Excellent location and great rooms and staff.
I'm going keep this blog a little short and talk more about the two day combined ride in the next blog.
Once I loaded up the bike I was on the road by about 6:45 but it took 45 minutes to get on to the M1 and eventually the A1 and out of the City. I covered only 12 miles in those 45 minutes. Brisbane may only have 2.5 million people but the city goes on and on. There was bumper to bumper traffic 25 miles outside of the city heading back into town. I'm glad I'll be done with the big cities for a while I like the smaller and more remote areas.
The temp starting out the day was 62 - the high temp for the day was a balmy 98. I went
through three different top clothing arrangements over the course of the day. When it hit 98 I wondered how the Aussie drivers would cotton to a 4th shirtless option ? I wisely decided that the Aussie’s (nor anyone else) were ready for that scene.
The road (The sunshine highway/The Pacific coast highway/ The Bruce Highway) was primarily a two lane road with various overtake zones where it went to 2 lanes for passing. The speed limit was 100 kph and apparently strictly enforced via cameras or radar. Other than passing, I rarely went more than 3 or 4 MPH over the limit. When larger semi-trailers went by I could feel the side wash moving my bike around a little, this was one of the reason's I decided to ship my bike over. The smaller 1200 cc just aren't nearly as comfortable as my 1600 CC 6 cylinder baby.
One of the highlights of the day was stopping for lunch in a small town that had a store the publicized "home made Pies". .
When I saw the sign for pies I'm thinking Apple, Cherry, etc... but a pie in Australia is a meat pie. ( similar to a Irish beef pie or a chicken pot pie.) You can see from the pictures these ones are more like the Chicken pot pies we used to buy back in the day for late night snack or what we'd eat if Mom wasn't fixing dinner. I ordered two and they were delicious. On top of that I gave the owner my cureduchenne card and she said she wanted to make a donation. I told that was very nice and asked if she would do it on line.
I checked in at the Empire Apartment Hotel which had a beautiful river view and full kitchen with patio. I ate down at the RibsandRumps which was awesome- I think I had 5 different people waiting on me through out the meal. Great service -I just wasn't sure who to flag down for the bill 😊 I should have taken a picture of the cider beer I had with dinner because my wife would really like it.
I've got another long day tomorrow - hopefully there won't
be as much road construction.
P.S. The picture with the coins are a quiz. See if you can guess which coin has what value starting from left to right. I'll put the answer in the next blog.
Thanks
Jim
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