Winton out West

Winton is a long way north-west from Brisbane, approximately 1,500 kilometres in fact, and like so many Australian outback communities it is typically a long way from anywhere else. Perhaps it's relative isolation has much to do with the town's strong community spirit and dedication to identity. 

The town has strong links to Waltzing Matilda, Qantas, and dinosaurs. Winton is probably best known as the place where ‘Banjo’ Paterson wrote Australia’s unofficial national anthem “Waltzing Matilda” in 1895. Just as significantly, the first board meeting of Qantas was held at the Winton Club in 1921, marking Winton as the Birthplace of Qantas. However, long before indigenous Australians and the white settlers walked in Winton, the dinosaurs called this land home. But, it was none of these conventional attractions that pulled the Bazflyers to Winton. 

Every two years Winton hosts the Outback Festival, a week of zany sports, entertainment and nostalgia. It's a memorable week where this normally tiny settlement of around one thousand folk swells beyond bursting point from an influx of up to 8,000 visitors. 

Rumour has it that the next Outback Festival in 2019 may also initiate Qantas' centenary. Book us in...!

Outback Extravaganza dinner guests were treated to an amazing spectacle, a centennial reinactment of the WW1 Australian light horse brigade Battle of Besheeba.

Dinner in the Outback

Sporting events included the great Australian Dunny Derby. 

Street parade lead by today's equivalent of yesteryears light horses.

Sunset over Winton

All about me

I did it…a physical journey that was all about me. I rode my bicycle from Goondiwindi to the Gold Coast, eight days with my legs turning the peddles and a rest day at Stanthorpe. Altogether my bike wheels rotated something like 540 kms. Hats-off to Bike Queensland for it's amazing organisation. A big thank you to AllTrails for looking after me with style and the great bunch of like minded people I met. 

Almost a year ago I noted the 40th anniversary of my 30th birthday. I held a board meeting with myself at the time and unanimously agreed not to skirt-around the reality of the number of years I’d spent on the planet, but instead, to face the future head on and call a spade a spade. Without doubt being a septuagenarian these days is nothing like it was for 70 year olds of my parents’ generation. I am so fortunate, for by any measure this time in history offers a whole new journey in life and whatever it is labeled its no longer called “old age.”

My plan is to continue this new life-journey of mine as an adventure into uncharted territory where there is still so much to be discovered. So when and where’s the next bike ride…?

 

Texas in Queensland

Today's 53 km bike ride finished in the Queensland town named Texas. Unlike the USA State of Texas, the Queensland namesake certainly isn't a big place, so how did the town get its name? History holds it that the settlement was named as a result of a territorial dispute. The land in the area was first settled by the McDougall brothers, who found squatters there on returning from the goldfields. Once their legal right to the land was recognised, they named their property in honour of the rather more famous dispute between the United States and Mexico over territory in the southern USA. 

Cycle Queensland tent town at Texas

Downtown Texas

A striking facade on this building

Roadside puncture repair. Caused by little prickly thorns and a lesson to not ride off sealed roads again!

No bike event could be held without the mobile coffee wagon

Yelarbon

The road sign said it was 8 kms to Yelarbon, which was today's destination on Cycle Queensland 2017. However, what it didn't say was that after having already cycled 50 kms this final stretch was head-on into a stiff breeze with the day temperature approaching 30 degrees. Then there was the added discomfort of my very tender bum, but we made it, so far a total of 105 km in two days. 

I am told Cycle Queensland is renowned for its organisation an attribute that is clearly on full-frontal display. Something like 750 cyclists are participating in this year's event, the majority accommodated in a relocatable mini tent-town each night, complete with abolitions, kitchen, entertainment, etc. The whole set-up majically reappears at each successive overnight stop. 

I entered the cycling event with some slight treperadation. Who might be the participants? Well, a quick first glance around and one could easily assume the event was a retirees convention. Wow, I was in like company!

Tent town set-up in Goondiwindi.

The ride into Yelarbon was through Australia's most easterly spinifex desert, the result of a geologically distinct area characterised by a naturally occurring salinity scold.

Where's my bike?

Posing for a photo at the Goondiwindi start line

Another interesting fact about Yelarbon is that in 2016 three quarters of the town was auctioned with a reserve of $1. Seven shops plus a house sold for $156,000.

Goondiwindi

Goondiwindi is not a big place, just some 5,000 residents, located on the New South Wales boarder 350-kilometres south-west of Brisbane. It's a gorgeous Friday morning in the town. There's an aura of prosperity about the place renowned for its wheat, cotton, beef and wool.

After an overnight temperature drop to a near zero low townsfolk are outdoors enjoying an ambient warmth heading into the mid twenties. Perfect conditions for the anticipated influx of about a thousand visitors gathering for the start of this year's Cycle Queensland bike ride.

For the next 10 days travel by air in ZK-BAZ has temporally been set aside in favour of cycling 600 km from Goondiwindi to Coolangatta.

Downtown Goondiwindi

Locals enjoying the sunshine

Macintyre River flows alongside the town and is the boarder between Queensland and New South Wales

Transport mode for the next couple of weeks