Off Topic With Ashley

After lunch, some kerfuffle, shenanigans, phlibibbery, conversation, decision, and indecision, we all left and went our separate ways.

The idea of an OpenStreetMap meet-up (“Mapping Party”) is that the area is divided up by big red of what’s called a “cake map”. Each person or team picks a slice, and then proceeds to map in that area. At the end of the day, everyone comes together and puts their work into OpenStreetMap, and the area is improved for everybody to use.

What happened instead is that one team went and did three-and-a-half sections, overlapping the other two teams’ slices. I was fine with it, because I actually nicked off and did my own thing instead of doing any serious mapping, but Hugh was a bit annoyed at having traipsed around in the heat half hung over for two hours, only to find that most of his work was for nothing.

But I digress. I nicked off along the cycleway, because it wasn’t mapped on OpenStreetMap, and I really couldn’t be bothered sticking around and mapping streets that day.

It was a neat trip though. I headed out toward Woody Point, and explored for a bit. It’s quite a nice area, with a large picnic area, a brand new jetty for fishing, and a bunch of little shops.

I actually ended up going the wrong way because the physical cycleway continues on to the jetty, whereas the Moreton Bay Cycleway route disappears and reappears halfway up Lilla Street.

The next exciting thing I discovered was the wreck of the HMQS Gayundah. I never knew we had a shipwreck so close to Brisbane, and a little reading on Wikipedia reveals it was deliberately run aground in 1958 to form a breakwater. There’s a little viewing platform out there off the cycleway, so I took a few pictures and composited them together to great effect.

I headed north along the cycleway and was surprised at how quickly I reached Scarborough. I was also surprised and annoyed at how the cycleway deteriorated into a walkway for meandering tourists spread three abreast. It tracks through a swimming lagoon, a beach, a playground, a park… It’s a really stupidly designed cycleway, and it just confirms my theory that it’s more of a scenic thing than any kind of a legitimate cycle route.

Once I got past the “tree park” at Scarborough (iconic playground from my youth which I was disappointed to notice was closed,) the foot traffic pretty much ceased to exist, and the bikeway was clear. It kind of doubles back on itself and follows the bay to the west, and I believe then on to Bribie Island. I lost the path near Kippa Ring when I zoomed off, arms flailing, trying to escape from another swooping magpie.

At this point I had a decision to make. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to head directly home, or head further west and catch a train back. After consulting the map it turned out that west was the shortest route, and I was keen for some different scenery. After slicking down with a re-application of sunscreen, I headed off along Anzac Avenue.

So I’m not sure where the cycleway goes after that — I presume along Deception Bay Road — but there’s a patchwork combination of actual bikeway and bike lanes  along Anzac Road all the way to Kallangur which I took. I got dive-bombed by another magpie at Mango Hill, right at the bottom of a really steep climb, so I had to pedal really really fast to get away from the damn thing, and a bunch of idiots in a four-wheel-drive yelled at me as they went past.

I ended up cycling to Petrie where I caught the train home. The result: 68 km, an average of 18 km/hour, maximum speed of 52.2 km/hour, 959.4 kilocalories burned, and 3:45 hours of cycle time.