New Year's Day 2012

I decided to get 2012 off to a good start and go for a bit of a pedal.  Living in the suburbs of Brisbane now, I miss seeing the sea, so decided to go east and see what I might find.

at the top of a hill on Logan Road

I had to get out of the suburbs, so headed off down Logan Rd to Broadwater Rd, then turned east.  Already I was thinking, 'oh dear, hills of course!'  I am getting better at riding up, but still ever so slowly and with much huffing and puffing and clearing of throat!

Soon I was leaving the suburbs behind and into rural areas and even bush! and still more hills! but I was enjoying the down hill stretches.

I turned right onto the Mt Cotton Road and continued east past some beautiful waterways, filled with water-lilies and the still reflections of the melaleuca lining the banks.

A thing I really notice when riding in Australia are the fences - big high stern looking fences, saying 'mine mine mine' - keep out,  no trespassing, private blah blah blah...  so different than Scandinavia - where 'all mans land' rules - and isn't abused...

I turned left and checked out the JC Trotter Memorial Park and found a new picnic shelter tucked within the bush, but no water view as I was expecting.  It was quite pretty country, but dry as.

I eventually got onto Boundary Road and rode on till I came to the Cleveland-Redland Bay Road.  Things get a bit blurred from here on, as I was gagging for a coffee, but nothing was open, so dropped into a servo and bought a cold drink instead.

Then, pedalling north, I zigged and zagged around and as I had my I-Got-U gps tracker on, if you really want to know where I went, go to: http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/93678

I eventually found a bakery that was selling real coffee and being a bakery, they had plenty of energy food on offer, so I stocked up and pedalled on hoping to find a pleasant spot to stop.  I did find a bird hide, but looking over samphire flats, not the open sea I was hoping for - nor many birds, tho one lonely ibis flapped past.

After getting lost in a tacky marina development, I decided to call it quits and rode back west and eventually got onto the Mt Gravatt/Capalaba road and headed for home.

It was on my way home that I saw this rather stunned little Koala that had been probably knocked by a car.  Although stunned, he didn't appear to be hurt - just bewildered.  A wildlife carer had been called and was on her way.

 It had been quite a nice pedal, tho pretty warm.



  I came across this wonderful huge tree

 and a small pine tree that was still holding onto its Xmas decorations






and there were a couple of very peaceful and beautiful stages of bike paths close to the coast but without the sea views I was hoping for.  

I just managed to click over the counter to 80km for the trip - by riding a extra block - couldn't bear to say I had been out for a 79.3km ride!

so a great way to start 2012.