Thursday May 8, 2014

We followed the recommended route out of Tweed Heads to Surfers Paradise. The route was primarily on off-road cycle paths following the coast.  We had a couple of turnarounds due to poor signage when the off-road cycle route came to an end and no further signs were there to show us which way to go.

Along this section of bike path we spotted the giant koala.  Very difficult to spot as he was in camouflage garb.  The koala was one of 21 sculptures produced for the \”Animals with Attitude Gold Coast Sculpture Trail\” to raise awareness and funds for the Currimbin Wildlife Hospital\”.

We had lunch in Southport and once again picked up the Old Pacific Highway all the way to Helensvale and the Warner Brothers Studio (Movie World Park).

Robyn had given us a couple of maps from Brisbane Transport and I had picked up an updated Gold Coast Cycling Guide at Southport which showed the V1. The V1 is Veloway 1 from Warner Brothers Studio (Movie World) all the way into Brisbane following dedicated cycle ways – some of road, others on-road but dedicated cycle paths.

We managed to get to the start of the V1 relatively easily and picked up the signage for the V1 straight away.  Yeah we could stay off the motorway – actually we had to stay of the motorway as bicyclists are not allowed.

Then the problems started – the first major roundabout, no signs as to where the V1 continued.  We eventually found another sign and we were off again.  We had to go under the motorway to pick up the V1 and again there were no signs as to which way to go.  This continued for the next 22 kms.  We would head off on the cycle way, see the signs and then they would disappear.  At major intersections there were no signs, but if we carried on up the road for a while we would find them again.  Or, discover we were on the wrong road and had to turnaround, it was incredibly frustrating.

We eventually got in to Beenleigh at about 3:30pm.  Beenleigh was supposed to have a caravan park.  No, it closed down 8 years ago.  We found a motel that had no vacancies.  However, the owner did call another motel which was on our route and they had vacancies.  We had to cycle another 5 kms to get to this motel.

We were both getting tired and very frustrated and this is where Ralf came of his bike.  We were trying to negotiate a big roundabout, I was about to set off when a van came onto the roundabout and indicated that he was going to take the next turnoff (after ours).  I stopped and Ralf ran into the back of me, bounced of my panniers and landed on the road in front of the van.  The van driver checked to see if we were o.k. and then carried on his way.  Ralf was annoyed at me because I had stopped, but as always it is the person that does the rear-ending that is at fault, not the person that has been rear-ended.

We stayed at the McNevin motel, it is on the Old Pacific Highway and parallels the new motorway.  It has a restaurant but the food is very expensive, so we ate our emergency rations of freeze-dried chicken masala, yumm.  We are having breakfast here (room service), as we really can’t start cycling without breakfast and we don’t know where the nearest café is for breakfast.

As we are cycling along we often see road-side crosses.  Most of the time it is only one or two a day, sometimes we don\’t see any at all, then occasionally we see something like this.  Five crosses (a memorial) three with the same family name.  It is very sad to see this kind of thing.  This memorial was set up on the Old Pacific Highway.

As we cycled a couple of days ago we counted a total of 12 crosses, but the highest number of crosses counted in one day was in New Zealand on the A1 coming from Ashburton to Christchurch – 16 in one day, very sad.