Cycling the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail - Pt 2


Location - Sth-east Queensland, Australia
Ride - Lowood.
Distance - 25 km
Terrain - Quiet country back roads
Difficulty - Flat and easy.
Highlights - The wonderful winter weather



This is Day 2 of our ride along the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT), done a couple of weeks ago. Day 1 is described in the very first post in this blog. I am laid up with a ski injury so I have finally got around to editing and publishing this post.

Just a note of caution in relation to the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail, the official BVRT website is no longer supported and is consequently seriously out of date.






View Larger Map

Plan A was to cycle Lowood to Coominya starting from the Coominya end and turning around at the point we got to on the first day.

Plan A lasted for about 10 minutes. We came to a dead stop at an old railway bridge just south of Coominya. The bridge had clearly been closed for months, if not years. There were some very serious "DANGER - NO ENTRY" signs coupled with locked gates and a wire fence. The wire had been cut by previous visitors less timid than ourselves, however D is not good with heights and I have a serious law-abiding streak. We decided to give the bridge a miss.

A chat with a couple of guys who arrived to check a nearby re-cycled water reservoir confirmed that there was no go-around option. The trail had run for the last couple of kilometres past a quiet country lane so we decided to explore the lane instead. About 500 metres further on we were stopped again, this time by a concrete barricade across the road. D is a lot less intimidated by concrete than he is by heights. I silenced my inner wimp who was shouting out -' there isn't much difference between climbing a barricade and going through a locked gate' and we hoisted the bikes over the obstacle.  About 50 metres down the lane it was clear why the barricades were there. Almost half the road had been washed away and fallen into the same river which our earlier bridge had crossed. We were in no real danger but kept our distance from the washout nevertheless.


The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail
The washout.

The lane ran past an abandoned orchard whose trees were heavy with overipe fruit. We think they were grapefruit but being total cityslickers we couldn't be sure.  There was something about the orchard which made it look like it had been ear-marked for subdivision and when we stopped to chat with a local farmer he confirmed that many of the surrounding farms had been broken up into five acre blocks.

The rest of the ride was picturesque but uneventful. When we ran out of quiet back roads and hit the highway we turned for home.

The Brisbane Valley Rail Trail - BVRT
We rode beside this river for quite some time.

For all my posts on the BVRT click - here

No comments:

Post a Comment