10/28/2005 - Day 5: Byron Bay to Redcliffe

We had another gorgeous day, but it kept getting hotter the further north we went. It was a little harder riding today – more city type traffic – not very pretty scenery in my opinion – it reminded me a lot of Miami – tons of beachside condos and hotels in the Gold Coast area, but they all looked alike after a while. Not very interesting architecturally, and lots and lots of stoplights – yuck!

We rode through Surfer’s Paradise, but didn’t get to see much pf the beaches since they were in the process of putting up barricades along the roads for the Indy races.

We stopped at another dealership for lunch and were lining the bikes up along a fairly busy road, when a car rear-ended another car that had slowed down to look at us and the bikes! Crunch…no one hurt, but the cars sure didn’t come out of that very well. Oops!

After lunch we headed up through Brisbane (the 3rd largest city in Australia) – during rush hour – again, not very pleasant riding, but sometimes you just have to do it to get where you’re going. We ended up in Redcliff at an interesting old resort for the night. I ended up rooming with Cathy for the night and it was fun to spend more time with her.

I had talked to Rhonda a few times about switching bikes with her for a day or so. I loved my Bob –but without having a way to stretch out my legs while riding, my knees were starting to bother me. Rhonda was having trouble with the forward controls on her bike so as soon as we got our gear stowed in our rooms, we swapped bikes to go for a ride. It felt good to get on her Softail for a change and so we agreed to swap bikes for the next day.

For dinner, one of the aussie girls had arranged some great food for a bbq from a local caterer. Another rain storm drove us inside to finish the bbq indoors – a first for me – grilling inside! But great food and great fun.