It was a real novelty taking the barge from Redland Bay to Macleay Island. It's such a pity that the weather wasn't more friendly but we made the most of it and enjoyed the ride.
For our ride, we started at Cleveland Railway Station, rode to Redland Bay and caught the barge to Macleay Island. People coming from other parts of Brisbane, can drive directly to Redland Bay where there is ample parking for cars and depending on the number of cyclists there is a choice of crossing by passenger ferry or vehicle barge.
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| Macleay Island, Qld. |
On arriving at Macleay, you are immediately confronted by a short sharp climb to the CBD, well, that may be a long bow calling it a CBD but it is the island village shopping centre and apart from it's friendly people, it does have a very good coffee spot called the Blue Parrot Cafe which catered efficiently to our needs.....mainly coffee, whilst we waited out one of many sharp showers we encountered whilst we were on the island.
To tell you just how friendly the locals are, shortly into the ride we encountered another heavy squall and sought shelter at the local community hub. One of the staff brought out his laptop so that we could view the weather radar, giving us an idea of what lay ahead.
We continued our ride on the western side of the island heading north to Potts Point at the top of the island where we stopped off for a while at Pats Park.
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| Pats Park |
Like all islands, there are kilometres of deserted sandy beaches and if you are the type who likes his own company, peace and solitude, you would be right at home here.
Most of the riding was on nice sealed roads which for the most part was devoid of traffic, but unfortunately, all we had to look at were houses. I am well aware that the locals love living here on Macleay but I guess I'm rather spoilt in that our rides usually take us through picturesque locations. Wet weather tends to dampen the mood as well and due to having to cut our ride short in order to catch the barge back to the mainland we couldn't fit Perulpa Bay into our schedule. If I were to return to Macleay, I would do an island hop and take in Lamb, Karragarra and Russell Island as well.
On arriving back at Redland Bay, we chose to ride the quickest route back to Cleveland where we had a very important matter to attend to at the Hogs Breath Restaurant and Bar, Harbourside ... a couple of drinks to celebrate my birthday.
No matter where we ride, as a group we always seem to have an excellent time and I guess that is the essence of riding with a group of good friends.
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Cheers and safe riding,
Jimmy Bee
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