The Wild Geese

Haigslea Bike Museum
Any Thursday 12th May

At 8.45am or soon after, a gaggle of eight geese and guest in the form of Joe Eastmure left Forest Glen servo heading for the museum at Haigslea. When I announced that I had the route on the GPS there were a few groans of depression and mention was made of the chances of getting lost altogether! Undeterred, I led the way and almost went the wrong way on the first corner!!

The fabulous weather made for a very enjoyable start and although the temperature was a little on the brisk side, we soldiered on bravely. Basically the route started down through Old Gympie Rd. with a few detours to avoid the main drag and onto the D’Aguilar Hwy. at Wamuran for about 100 metres of westing before turning up Campbells Pocket Rd which is like the Obi Obi uphill road on steroids! 12 kilometres of this brought us out on the Mt. Mee Rd. after a few near misses with fallen branches and oncoming tanks! We turned south (still more twisty bits!) with the intention of joining the Mt. Glorious Rd., but first a stop for filling stomachs and emptying bladders (too much information?) at Dayboro bakery. After that leisurely repast, we rode further south until the Mt. Glorious Road led us west toward the shores of Wivenhoe Dam. What a ride that is! Demanding full focus all the way with lots of shadows, fallen leaves & twigs to spit the front tyres to the side on corners, but thankfully not too much traffic, the entire length of the run was an uninterrupted succession of smooth swinging from one corner to the next.

Once on the road south towards Fernvale the riding was much more relaxed as we waited for the stragglers to catch up and then, at Fernvale, we struck the first of our troubles. Where are Ossie, Rod and Jag? They were there a minute ago. Back up the road to the servo. Nothing. Check the side roads and finally in the spirit of unified comradeship, we all voted to pretend they didn’t exist and push on! Fortunately, the GPS was okay with the instructions except for the moments when that lovely Garmin lady would decide to not speak soft little words into my ear telling me when to turn & left it to me to notice at the last second that the bloody turn had just happened! Eek! A nice little swoopy ride through the hills finally led us to the museum after a brief error when I did not listen to the lovely voice in my ear (blush). Just as we were about to enter, two bikes rode up (not three!). Ossie was mounted as pillion as his bike had stopped and refused to start due to an electrical problem. So, it was parked at the servo at Fernvale and here he was.

If you have not been here, it is heartily recommended to attend at your earliest chance. There are much bigger bike museums like Nabiac, but Haigslea has a very large collection of quite rare and unique motorcycles of all classes from tiddlers to superbikes. The NEW Vincents were stunning and all of us had severe nostalgia attacks as we strolled around the exhibits. From veteran to the ultra modern and everything in between.

An hour or so later we mounted up and took the more sensible and shorter route back to Fernvale so that Ossie could jump start his bike. Have you ever tried to push start a sports bike in hot sun whilst dressed in maximum winter riding gear? After two attempts that showed just how much compression a Benelli 1130 has, Joe eventually shorted the starter terminals and away we went. Home via Esk this time and then up the Somerset Dam road, Kilcoy and Peachester, etc. All in all, a great day out for all. My total for the day was 528klms.

See you at breakfast. Col

And a very informative ride report it is. Thanks Col