Ocean View is a quiet place high up in the hills near Mount Mee. I thought I’d go for a ride there this afternoon, and try my luck at some steep descents and one horribly steep climb.

Some of the homes around here have amazing views over the forest and farmland towards the coast.

I followed one of the roads looking for this track that just disappears over the edge of the mountain and heads steeply down to Rocksberg below.

Thornhill Chase – the steep road down to Rocksberg was an intense ride. I skidded most of the way down this 2km road and had to walk the final bit to make sure I didn’t skid into the gate at the bottom of the hill.

Rocksberg was originally settled by the Zillman family in the mid to late 19th century. It’s the source of the Caboolture River which crosses the road at places with fascinating names like “Cockies Crossing”, “Ten Bob Crossing”, “Zillmans Crossing” and this one, “Five Pound Crossing”. The old photo is from the State Library of Queensland and shows some of the Zillman family playing in the water at “Five Pound Crossing”. Incidentally, “Ten Bob Crossing” – just a few hundred metres down the road, is still a great place to swim on a hot day.

Unfortunatley, what goes down must eventually come back up, and I had to start the long climb up Mountain View Road. This gravel road is a challenging climb. I rode all of it except for 150 metres which were in the middle of a bush fire (that was my excuse) and also happened to be a bit too steep even for a hill-o-phile like me. This view at the top is a panorama stitched together from several photos overlooking some pleasant farmland on the edge of the hill.

I made it back to Townsend Road just as the sun was going down over the D’Aguilar Ranges. As I saw it, I said out loud “Now THAT’s bloody beautiful”, and then happened to notice an old bloke at his letterbox looking at me. I think he agreed with me, so I didn’t feel too embarrassed.

All up about 24km with 750 metres of vertical climbing and 1,530kcal burned. I’m going to give this one 10 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. The descent was precarious, I was by myself, and it took all my concentration to stay on the bike. The climb was the toughest I’ve done – 4km with some sections having a gradient well in excess of 30% (according to my Garmin track log). It was pretty hot (over 30C) and smokey from bushfires, so in my judgement this short ride really pushes the envelope.

If you can ride Mountainview Road from the bottom (Moorina Rd Intersection) to top (Oceanview Rd Intersection), please let me know. I live in hope that this monster of a hill can be beaten!

Well it wasn’t a race, like other Tour de somethings, but it was a tour on a bike, and it was spectacular.

The Glasshouse Mountains looked stunning today in the early summer weather. Whatever happened to Spring? This is a really special place. It’s even more special when you think about the Gubbi Gubbi / Kabi legends of the place as you move around it. Basically they’re an ancient family, with a mum (Beerwah) a dad (Tibrogargan), lots of kids (the other mountains), a baby on the way (Beerwah is looking pretty big), and a long dramatic history. I won’t recount it here, but if you ever visit the place, it might be worthwhile reading up on the legends beforehand.

Here’s Mount Beerwah from a couple of different angles. There are some fun downhill tracks near Mount Beerwah. Like many of the dirt tracks in the area they have ruts from the many four wheel drives and motorbikes that use the area, which makes riding it on a mountain bike a bit of a challenge.

The downhill trails near Mount Coonowrin are really steep too. I was very thankful for good front shock-absorbers. If not for them I’m sure I would have gone over the bars in a couple of places.

I had to ride along the bitumen for about 4km to get to some more trails, and was delighted to come across Bankfoot House. It was built in the 1860′s, and was used as a stage post for the Cobb and Co service for people travelling to Gympie to “strike it rich” in the gold rush. This road is called “Old Gympie Road” and is part of an old road stretching from Brisbane to Gympie through places like Kedron, Petrie, Kallangur, Caboolture… At some places along the route it’s still called “Gympie Road” or “Old Gympie Road”, but you won’t see many stage coaches on it these days.

More info about Bankfoot House.

According to Gubbi Gubbi legend, Father Tibrogargan has many children, with one on the way. He reminds me of the cares, responsibilities, joys and sorrows of fatherhood.

With a hunched back like that, you’d think he had a lot of worries!

All up about 38km and 2,400 kcal in just under 3 hours. This one rates 8 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter because of one or two gnarly climbs, and one particularly knuckle-whitening descent near Mount Coonowrin.

10 out of 10 for views though

I spent a few hours exploring out the back of Dayboro today. It’s a delightful town surrounded by green farms, areas of thick bush, and a backdrop of imposing mountains.

A causeway over Terrors creek, south of Dayboro.

According to local historian, Leith Barter, the creek was named after “Terah” – a grey Arab stallion owned in the 1850′s by Captain John Griffin of the Whiteside Run. In fact the whole area at one time was called “Terrors Creek” but the local postmaster didn’t like the name, saying it sounded too much like “Torrens Creek” so the name changed. The only authentic spelling of the name “Terah” I can find in town is the restaurant “Terah’s” on the main drag. I expect you wouldn’t get far naming a restaurant “Terror’s” would you?

The wooden pylons are remnants of a bridge that was part of the old railway line between Dayboro and Ferny Grove.

I think the funny looking hut with cream paint and a red roof is related to the old railway line but I’m not sure.

You can read more about my exploration of this railway line here.

A causeway at Lees Crossing across the North Pine River just out of Dayboro.

I followed Woodward road to see where it ended up, and discovered some steep hills, friendly people and great views along the way.

This old road actually used to lead from Dayboro to Esk over the D’Aguilar range.

I’m hoping to see if I can retrace it sometime in the next couple of months – at least as far as the top of the range.

On the way back I ran over some glass which cut my tyre. Tubeless sealant sprayed everywhere, but after about 5 minutes it sealed up of its own accord, and I was able to pump it up and keep riding.

I originally took this pic as a mental note so I knew where to check for damage when I got home (it’s a new tyre), but I thought it was pretty cool to demonstrate the way the tubeless system works.

I think I’ll dab some “Shoe goo” on the scratch from the outside and top up the sealant. Hopefully the tear will stay fixed. Thank goodness for “Stans No-Tubes”!

All up about 39km with about 770m of climbing, and 1900cal. 6 out of 10 for toughness (It was pretty short, and the only steep climbs were on bitumen). I’ll be back to explore this area again!

 

Old Gympie Road

 

This road was blazed in the 1860′s because of the Gympie Gold Rush. Every man and his dog packed their picks, shovels and tents and headed north from Brisbane to strike it rich. Some accounts even speak of people piling their meagre belongings into a wheelbarrow and walking from Brisbane to Gympie.

Before then, parts of it were actually an old aboriginal trail used by the Turrbal and Kabi / Gubbi-Gubbi people as they walked the area between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

This is part of the same old road that passes through what is now modern-day Strathpine, Lawnton, Petrie and Kallangur. It’s just further north along that same road.

There were no horses on it today, or wheelbarrows, just a few trail bikes, 4wds and one Mountain Bike (me!).


In her book “Reminiscences of Early Queensland“, Constance Campbell Petrie writes how her father, Tom Petrie, helped blaze parts of the road:

When Davis (or ” Duramboi “) was asked to mark a road to Gympie, he sought my father’s assistance for the first part of the way, saying he would know where he was all right when he got to the Glass House Mountains, as he had been there before when living with the blacks.  So Father took him to the other side of Caboolture and put him and party on his (” Tom Petrie’s”) marked tree line to Petrie’s Creek, on the Maroochy River. Then when the line to Gympie was marked, he went with Cobb and Co. to help them pick out stopping places for the changing of horses.  The road was just frightful at that time ; we in these days could not recognize it for the same.

If you want to be happy, it helps to know what you want.

A few days ago I thought to myself that I’d really like to explore some new trails by Lake Samsonvale, and today I did just that! And now I’m pretty happy

This time of year in Southeast Queensland is beautiful. The westerly winds clear the skies to a deep blue, and the temperature drops. Perfect weather for exploring this part of the world.

There are some beautiful trails by the shoreline of the lake – and many of them barely see a human once per week.

This is the remnants of Gordon’s Crossing Road looking towards the north west. Today, Gordon’s Crossing Road West stops near the shore of the lake. But 50 years ago it continued pretty much in a north-westerly direction, across the North Pine River to where this photo was taken.

Today the only company I had on the bike was an elusive fox whom I managed to quickly photograph before she slunk away into the lantana.

A view of Mount Samson from the shore of Lake Samsonvale at Harrisons Pocket.

A view of Clear Mountain from the other side of Lake Samsonvale. Most of the time my experience of Clear Mountain is straining on the pedals trying to get up the steep hills, so it was a pleasant change to see it from this angle.

So – I’m happy because a few days ago I took a few minutes to make a mental note of something I’d like to try. And today I took a couple of hours to give it a go. I honestly don’t want to win the lottery – I’d just like a few more afternoons like this. And unlike the lottery, I think I’m almost certain to get this wish!

I thought I’d explore some quiet roads out the back of Dayboro this afternoon. It was a good excuse to get a few miles on the bike before I go for a huge ride with Simon tomorrow (weather permitting).

Rush Creek is one of those districts that figured large in the history of the Pine Rivers area. It was logged in the mid 19th century. William Henry Day (after whom Dayboro is named) planted one of the first sugar cane farms in South East Queensland using Kanak labour.

Today, much of what was the Rush Creek district has been flooded by the North Pine Dam…

Rush Creek Road was closed off in the 1970′s when the North Pine Dam was built, and local farmland was flooded.

It used to be the main road between Petrie and Dayboro, and crossed Rush Creek at Whiteside / Quinns Crossing. That crossing disappeared under the man-made lake 40 years ago, and the road hasn’t been used since.

It’s funny how you can still make out the double white line down the middle, under all the grass which is slowly reclaiming the land.

One of the other unusual roads in the area is Raen Road…

I followed a dirt road over a cattle grid. It eventually turned into a vehicle track, and before I knew it I was in front of an old farm house.

Will, the farmer, was really friendly and explained that the road reserve ran through his property and disappeared in the grass after a few hundred meters. He very kindly let me ride around and take some photos. I really liked these old Hoop (A.Cunninghamii) and Bunya (A. Bidwilli) pines along the banks of the upper reaches Rush Creek.

The final road I explored was Strongs Road. The sign says it’s a “No Through Road” but it actually turns into a muddy vehicle track, and eventually comes out on Mount Samson Road – a much nicer ride than battling 100km/h traffic on Dayboro Road!

Wild bees have built a hive in the trunk of an old Eucalypt along Strong Road at Dayboro.

All up, 55km, 2,500kcal (= 6 Big Macs), and 800m of ascent.

A fantastic way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

The afternoon was too pleasant to spend in the office, so I took a walk along the northern shoreline of Lake Samsonvale.

This area was known as “Harrison’s Pocket” before the dam was built. But now the town of Harrison’s Pocket, with its post office and school only exists on old maps.

The landscape has changed completely.

The lake is now an important habitat for many different species of water-birds.

The western part of the lakes covers what used to be known as the town of Samsonvale named after Mount Samson which towers over it to the west.

None of the old town remains except the cemetery on the shore of the lake.

The land to the north of the lake has some beautiful quiet trails.

I’m still healing from a crash last week, so I have decided to avoid riding on rough trails or single tracks at the moment to let my shoulder heal.

Today I rode to Mount Pleasant in the hills behind Dayboro. This rural area is nestled in a valley created by the North Pine River between Mount Mee and Mount Byron.

What I enjoyed most was having a few hours on the bike on quiet rural roads to daydream and get in “The Zone” while covering a reasonable distance (80km). The hills were mostly gentle, although I managed to ascend a total of 1,048m during the ride.

Andrew Petrie reported a stand of Bunya Pines in this area when he visited it in the 1830′s. I’ve got some ideas about where that stand might have been. As you ride along the road, there are some quite mature specimens poking out from behind the hills about 300 metres from the road. These two Bunyas are quite young – perhaps 60 to 70 years old.

Some time in the next year I hope to come back here again and ride through the rainforest up to Toogoolawah in the Brisbane Valley. But the management roads in the rainforest are closed at the moment due to damage from a lot of the heavy rain we’ve had lately.

I’m happy to wait

One fascinating story of our local area is of a fourteen year old boy named Tom Petrie who 1845 went away with the local Turrbal people for a couple of weeks to walk up to the Blackall Ranges (not far from present day Maleny, Queensland) in 1845 to celebrate the Bunya Feast.

Although a large feast happened every three years in the Bunya Mountains (midway between Dalby and Kingaroy), a smaller annual feast was held in the Blackall Ranges at what is now Baroon Pocket.

For thousands of years the feasts were an important event for Aborigines from all over what is now south east Queensland. They gathered in their hundreds to feast, dance, sing, and generally have a good time. I often wondered what it would have been like to travel back 166 years and see what young Tom saw, hear what he heard and taste some of the food he tasted.

However, thanks to the generosity of the Kabi Kabi people of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, we were able to find out! Sometimes I’m a bit slow on the uptake and it wasn’t until we turned up that I realized that the “Bunya Dreaming” festival at Baroon Pocket was actually the same event that Tom Petrie took part in – the annual Blackall Range Bunya Feast.



The Bunya Tree produces huge cones. They can weigh anywhere from 5 to 10kg. Naturally it’s not a very wise idea to stand under a Bunya tree in summer when it’s full of cones! To harvest the nuts from a Bunya Cone, you need to first break open the cone, pull it apart, and then tease the nuts out of the green sappy flesh. One cone can have many dozen nuts in it. They’re delicious either boiled or roasted over a hot fire.

The Emu on the left was just one of the many sculptures around the picnic grounds. Lyndon is talking about the history of the Gubbi Gubbi (or Kabi Kabi) people

At the start of the Corroboree, one member took a spear, and spun it between the palms of his hands while pushing the end of it into a piece of wood on the ground. After a few seconds smoke appeared, and not long after that the tinder burst into flames. He made it look so easy!

Notice the painting on his chest – a Bunya Pine motif with the cones in the highest branches.

Liz and I enjoyed being in the moment. It was great to be around so many happy, relaxed, friendly, and generous people.

The Corroboree by “Gubbi Gubbi Dance” was spectacular. The best part was that we all got to join in at the end! Look for the strange looking guy in the white shirt with the bandy legs. Thats me

In chapter 2 of her book “Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Early Queensland”, Constance Campbell Petrie writes:

The bon-yi tree bears huge cones, full of nuts, which the natives are very fond of. Each year the trees will bear a few cones, but it was only in every third year that the great gatherings of the natives took place, for then it was that the trees bore a heavy crop, and the blacks never failed to know the season.

These gatherings were really like huge picnics, the aborigines belonging to the district sending messengers out to invite members from other tribes to come and have a feast. Perhaps fifteen would be asked here, and thirty there, and they were mostly young people, who were able and fit to travel. Then these tribes would ia turn ask others. For instance, the Bribie blacks (Ngunda tribe) on receiving their invitation would perchance invite the Turrbal people to join them, and the latter would then ask the Logan, or Yaggapal tribe.and other island blacks, and so on from tribe to tribe all over the country, for the different tribes were generally connected by marriage, and the relatives thus invited each other. Those near at hand would all turn up, old and young, but the tribes from afar would leave the aged and the sick behind.

My father was present at one of these feasts when a boy for over a fortnight. He is the only free white man who has ever been present at a bon-yi feast. Two or three convicts in the old days, who escaped and lived afterwards with the blacks—James Davis (” Duramboi “), Bracefield (” Wandi “), and Fahey (“Gilbury”), of course, knew all about it, but they are dead now. Father met the two former after their return to civihzation, and he has often had a yarn with the old blacks who belonged to the tribes they had lived with.

In those early days the Blackall Range was spoken of as the Bon-yi Mountains, and it was there that Duramboi and Bracefield joined in the feasts, and there also that Father saw it all. He was only fourteen or fifteen years old at the time, and travelled from Brisbane with a party of about one hundred, counting the women and children. They camped the first night at Bu-yu—ba (shin of leg), the native name for the creek crossing at what is now known as Enoggera.
…
Arriving at the Blackall Range, the party made a halt at the first bon-yi tree they came to, and a blackfellow accompanying them, who belonged to the district, climbed up the tree by means of a vine. When a native wishes to climb a tree that has no lower branches he cuts notches or steps in the trunk as he goes up, ascending with the help of a vine held round the stem. But my father’s experience has been that the blacks would never by any chance cut a bon-yi, affirming that to do so would injure the tree, and they climbed with the vine alone, the rough surface of the tree helping them.

This tree they came first upon was a good specimen, 100 feet high before a branch, and when the native climbing could reach a cone he pulled one and opened it with a tomahawk to see if it was all right. (The others said if he did not do this the nuts would be empty and worthless, and Father noticed afterwards that the first cone was always examined before being thrown to the ground.) Then the man called out that all was well, and, throwing down the cone, he broke a branch, and with it poked and knocked off other cones. As they fell to the ground, the blacks assembled below would break them up, and, taking out the nuts, put them in their dilly-bags. Afterwards they went further on, and, camping, made fires to roast the nuts, of which they had a great feed — roasted they were very nice.
…
Great times those were, and what lots of fun these children of the woods had in catching paddymelons in the scrub with their nets, also in obtaining other food, of which there was plenty, such as opossums, snakes, and other animals, turkey eggs, wild yams, native figs, and a large white grub, which was found in dead trees. These latter are as thick as one’s finger and about three inches long. They were very plentiful in the scrubs, and the natives knew at a glance where to look for them. They would eat these raw with great relish, as we do an oyster, or they would roast them. Then the young tops of the cabbage tree palm, and other palms which,
grew there, served as a sort of a vegetable, and were not bad, according to my father. The bon-yi nuts were generally roasted, the blacks preferring them so, but they were also eaten raw.

It will be seen that there was no lack of food of different kinds during a bon-yi feast ; the natives did not only live on nuts as some suppose. To them it was a real pleasure getting their food ; they were so light-hearted and gay, nothing troubled them ; they had no bills to meet or wages to pay. And there were no missionaries in those days to make them think how bad they were. Whatever their faults Father could not have been treated better,and when they came into camp of an afternoon about four o’clock, from all.directions, laden with good things—opossums, carpet snakes, wild turkey eggs, and yams — he would get his share of the best — as much as he could eat. The turkey eggs were about the size of a goose egg, and the fresh ones were taken to the white boy, while addled eggs, or those (let me whisper it) with Chickens in them, were eaten and relished by the blacks, after being roasted in the hot ashes.

My father always noticed how open-handed and generous the aborigines were. Some of us would do well to learn from them in that respect. If there were unfortunates who had been unlucky in the hunt for food, it made no difference; they did not go without, but shared equally with, the others.

Dundalli Sketch by Sylvester Diggles, 1854

He was convicted of the murder of Andrew Gregor and Mary Shannon in 1846. People much more qualified than I have described how the trial and conviction of Dundalli were unjust. I won’t regurgitate those arguments here, but if you’re interested, you might like to read some articles by Dr Libby Connors and Dr Dale Kerwin.

His execution was particularly gruesome. The hangman botched it while his distraught relatives looked on in horror from the hillside on what is now Wickham Terrace. The rope was too long, at the drop Dundalli actually landed on his coffin, and the hangman had to bend his legs and drag down on them to kill him.

This happened exactly 156 years ago today. So I decided to honour Dundalli by cycling into the city to the GPO and back (about 80km), stopping by “Yorks Hollow” – an important traditional camping ground for Aborigines prior to European settlement.

Yorks Hollow used to cover most of what is Victoria Park Golf Course and the Exhibition Grounds. Today it’s little more than a small park beside the busy Inner City Bypass motorway. But it’s still a beautiful park – especially when you pause to think about what it was.

In her book, “Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Early Queensland”, Constance Campbell Petrie says of it:

Another big “tulan” or fight, Father remembers at
York’s Hollow (the Exhibition). He and his brother Walter
were standing looking on, when a fighting boomerang thrown
from the crowd circled round, and travelling in the direction
of the brothers, struck Walter Petrie on the cheek, causing
a deep flesh wound. The gins and blacks of the Brisbane
tribe commenced to cry about this, and said that the weapon
had come from the Bribie blacks’ side, and that they were
no good, but wild fellows. The brothers went home, and the
cut was sewn up. It did not take long to heal afterwards.

At that fight there must have been about eight hundred
blacks gathered from all parts, and there were about twenty
wounded. One very fine blackfellow lost his life. His
name was “Tunbur” (maggot). In the fight he got hit
on the ankle with a waddie, and next day died from lockjaw.
They carried the remains, and crossed the creek where the
Enoggera railway bridge is now, and further on made a fire
and skiimed the body and ate it. My father knew ” Tunbur”
well; he was one of the blacks who accompanied grandfather
Petrie on his trip in search of a sample of ” bon-yi ” wood.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out someone else had the same idea and had erected some signs about Dundalli in Post Office Square across the road from the GPO. The GPO was actually built in 1871 on the site of the old Female Convict Factory.

What struck me today was the irony. Here was a war memorial on the front wall of GPO comemorating soldiers who had died for their country in the First World War, yet it was the same place a black man was killed for trying to protect his country and uphold his people’s laws.

Even the grand statue of Major General Sir William Glasgow appeared to look away in shame from the GPO and the memorial posters there.

The trouble is we often become emotionally immune to irony, even though it can sometimes highlight painful truths. I’m glad I did what the sign said, and walked in his tracks.