Day 5 Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Ulmurra to Broadbeach Gold Coast
I was contacted last night by Tyrone and Ash, two mates, Queenslanders who have taken part in previous wall2wall rides. They roll up to the pub on their cruisers. In typical fashion, we’re instant friends with a common purpose. They’d like to ride with us for a while. No worries. We fuel up the bikes and head off , 8 strong now. Down to the ferry and cross the river to take in Summerland way, the road snakes through very rich country and follows the river before we turn off at near Maclean and travel on some great back roads to the road to Casino highway 91.
Setting a nice pace it’s onto Kyogle and turn west, some linesmen have the road blocked and it’s hot sitting on the bike so we take a short cut through the back blocks, avoid the traffic jam and have good run to the turn off to Lions Road, that private road which is something special as it snakes through and over little creeks, under ancient viaducts and eventually opens up to pastures with lazy well fed cows who lay by the road chewing on cud looking very contented with their lot.
We stop at the border and everyone has a grin from ear to ear. Clearing Lions road we mooch into Beaudesert and lunch at the local RSL. Tye and Ash leave us here but promise to be at the Queensland wall tomorrow morning. From here it’s a short run down the highway to Canungra and down to Nerang and finally to our rooms for the night at the Burleigh Beach Tower. The girls on reception are expecting us and make a fuss over 6 hot and sweaty bikers. They know about our journey thanks to Braydon Murphy and have stocked our fridge with 6 bottles of beer. Bless them.
A shower, walk on the beach, a few quiet beers and a seafood meal overlooking the Pacific ocean…. Life’s good.
Day 6 Thursday 23rd May Broadbeach to Roma
We’re all up early, loaded the bikes and out on the street to meet Sergeant Braydon Murphy and his team on marked bikes for the run up to Brisbane.
People are out early walking and jogging along the foreshore as we grab a quick coffee. A young boy with his mother and father is taken with all the bikes. Braydon puts the young fellow on the marked up police bike. It looks great with all the wall to wall insignias. There are four marked bikes and the six of us. We have a good run to start with on the freeway to Brisbane, John Eacott, a retired Vic Police Helicopter pilot and spokesperson for motorcycle issues joins us for the escorted run to the new Police memorial in the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens. There’s about 50 people milling around, about a dozen marked bikes and Commissioner Ian Stewart.
Mr Stewart has been a big supporter of the wall2wall ride and concept. The new memorial looks fantastic. Braydon introduces me and I outline why we are doing this. Mr Stewart responds and is glowing in his praise. He is retiring this year. We wish him well and hope to continue to see him at the Wall2wall.
We have another escort, led by Braydon with quite a few other riders joining us including Qld representative on the National Committee Andrew Frick who was ‘press ganged’ into it by Braydon. We trickle around the corner to a Maccas and a petrol station for food and fuel.
The road deteriorates the further west we go. There’s heaps of road works that are obviously needed out here. The road trains a very heavy and chop the road up.
Then it’s on the long run out to Toowoomba on the dual lane freeways. We decide to make as much distance as we can and roll into Dalby…. Just on 300 kilometres from our last fuel stop and Broadbeach… Huddo on the Harley must be really low on fuel. Another Golden Arches and we’re off again, to make sure we get to our overnight stop at Roma. We make it just before sunset so I go for a ride out of town for a sunset shot. After the recent rain it’s green but I wonder if this is what they call a ‘green drought’. If they get more rain the farmers will be happy.