Spyder Road trip Day 2: Tin Can Bay to 1770

By the numbers

2 Spyders

393.5kms

5 hours and 37 mins riding time

 

Today I think proved to the both of us that we were pushing our luck especially on the bikes even though we have given them a decent run from the time we left Tweed to now in the town of 1770. It is good having a ride with someone and exploring the country a little bit. We took our time in leaving Tin Can Bay with the weather looking not very nice and we didn’t know if we should have been wearing wet weather gear or not. I opted for not as I was certain, I would dry off after a couple of hours on the road. It did rain, but not for very long at all. We did stop in Gympie for Nigel to get fuel once we made it that far as he would not have enough for the trip to Childers. It had apparently was meant to be a 3 hour journey to 1770, but that didn’t end up being the case at all.

 

The day became sunny and warm as we tootled along with there being quite a few road works after Gympie and very few lanes where you could overtake other cars. There were very thick white lines and I was tempted to see if the ripple strips made a musical noise when you hit them with the tyres. I thought better and was happy to go at my own pace, although I did get passed by vehicles at times who were in a big hurry. A stop at a fuel station near Maryborough told us that we did not have far for Childers and that I could get fuel there before heading to 1770. By the time we reached Childers the day had become pretty hot and we both got fuel. We were going to eat at the servo, but you could not access the seating area and no shade outside either, so we found the local Maccas for lunch, where we found we still had 2 hours at least to ride. At least we had shade from the hot overbearing sun, although we never explored the town at all.

With the path in mind, we took off until we reached some roadworks and I thought we had gone too far out of town to head towards our destination. We turned around and made out way back into town only to find we were going the right way and took off again. We came to an intersection that said Bundaburg to our left and we wanted to head that way and was meant to be on our right. Luckily there was a nearby servo, where we checked the map again and we found it was the correct turn off. The map said we turned off before Bundy and not go through the town. Soon enough the not going through Bundy ended up being heading through the town. We did stop to check the map, and Nigel jumped the chance on asking the local postie who had just gotten off his bike. He gave us the right directions as we had to head just down the road and there would be a sign. The directions were correct and we were soon on our way heading to the town of 1770.

 

There was at this stage around 145 kms at least to where we needed to be going and the heat was getting to me a little bit, but I was happy to be on our way. It just seemed like that day had become a long day. The wind along the way didn’t help matters as it did feel like it was pretty strong and was knocking us around a bit as well, but the heat could have been part of that as well. There did seem to be many people who knew the roads better than us and we let them go on their own way. I was happy to let several pass me. There were road sealing happening in several places along the way and also lanes that were not marked. The roads were long and everything so far away was an understatement, although I was just happy to be able to find the caravan park even though we had to turn around as we went past it. I had to make sure though. The caravan park was interesting and different to the one in Tin Can Bay. There did seem to be many tourists in the area and from our cabin. A random guy came up to us and told us that he owned a BMW. Also he was riding in a group with a Spyder and it handled really well. Somehow I think his group were deliberately trying to lose the spyder, which is the way it sounded. Did I mention the BMW motorbike? We did head into town looking for some food and ended up with the fish and chip shop where we got some food before it got dark.

 

Deciding that in the last two days we had bitten off more than we could chew and it would be a good thing not to make our way north as it would mean another day of long riding. We would instead ride to Bundaberg and go from there. We booked a place to stay for the night and then slowly make our way south back towards home. This is at least a good learning experience for both of us especially if we are wanting to do something like the Great Ocean Road. Not sure how hard we would push ourselves, but at least now we have some idea and learn about the weather too especially this close to summer.