Roads less travelled

I seek the roads less travelled

Long flat ribbons of road narrow and rutted
Covering flat planes and sparse dry land

Curvy narrow tight roads through mountains and forests
A precipice at every turn

Hours alone

Past forests
Gorges
Rivers flowing
Rivers almost dry

Past mines
Pasture
Canefields

The little cane train rattling along its narrow rails
Huge bulls almost lost in the long grass
Move over for the massive mining machinery inching along

Then it’s the A1
Funnelled into a tourist town
Peace lost

Missing the quiet of the roads less travelled
The natural beauty along the way.

NSW /QLD border near Springbrook NP

Natural Bridge NP
giant staghorn fern clings to the cliff in Cania Gorge

I’m sitting at Airlie Beach, a popular tourist town and thinking of the roads less travelled and the beautiful places I’ve passed on those back roads; Mundubbera, the mandarin capital, Dingo, with an Argentinian barmaid, and the offer of a couple of days work as a bouncer in Biloela.

The beauty of the Natural Bridge and Cania Gorge NPS.

It’s warm though and riding in just a Tshirt under my leather jacket is a pleasure.

But the tropics still call and Cooktown is another 950 kilometres north.

Vast – no picture

Vastness
How do you capture it
In a picture
With a camera.

Riding along
To the east the Great Dividing Range
Stretching the length of eastern Australia
South to north

To the west
Rolling pastures
Turn to desert
To mines

To Pasture

To coast again
The vastness of Australia.

I sailed once
On the Tasman Sea
And the powerful vastness of the sea was awe inspiring

So vastness can’t be captured
And that is its beauty.

( no picture added)

Back on the road again, I’m now in Mundubbera on the last day of June. A near full moon has risen on a mild evening in the Queensland sub tropics.

Escaping north to Cooktown

Cold escape
Long ribbon of road north
Look to the tropics
From the winter gloom
To a burst of warmth

Along the way friends
Friends old- reacquainted
Friends new- discovered
Friends not yet imagined- anticipated

Times alone in contemplation
Warmth
Distance
Understanding
Loneliness
The moment
The place
Self.

Natural Bridge National Park Queensland Aust

I’m sitting on a veranda of a friends house in SE Queensland in the warm winters sun. Melbourne was cold and wet as was the ride through central NSW. But from Coffs Harbour on the sun and the breezes are warm. A taste of what is to come as I’m heading to Cooktown in the Queensland tropics – 4000 kilometres north of the winter cold.