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| Stanthorpe, Qld. |
To us thin-blooded lowlanders of the sub-tropics, the town
of Stanthorpe and the surrounding Granite
Belt offer the unfamiliar experience of cold weather, plus the attendant
attractions of temperate fruits, vineyards and peculiar tourist phenomena such as
“wine tourism”, “Christmas in July” and “Brass Monkey Month”. Stanthorpe is over
800m above sea level with a population around 5000. It is about 230km southwest
of Brisbane, about 2½ hours drive. In a straight line the town is about 150km inland
and is as far south as the coastal resort
town of Byron Bay in New South Wales. On any day of the year Stanthorpe, or nearby
Applethorpe, will almost certainly record the lowest minimum temperature in Queensland.
Stanthorpe claims the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in the
state at minus 10.6°C (+13°F).
The surrounding area is known as the Granite Belt; the name comes from the underlying granitic bedrock and abundant granite outcrops and boulders. Ores of tin occur as accessory minerals to the granite and the name Stanthorpe (from
stannum – the Latin word for tin) derives from the town’s early settlement as an alluvial tin-mining centre. The well-known local national parks such as Girraween and
Bald Rock have typical granitic peaks, extensive views, precariously balanced boulders, clear streams, and seasonal wildflowers.
A road cycling trail from Stanthorpe to Ballandean (28 km) was
recently developed by the Southern Downs Regional Council in consultation with Granite
Belt Wine Country, the local tourism marketing organisation. The locals tell us
that this is the beginning of a move into cycle tourism, with other road routes
and mountain-bike trails to come. One might wonder about riders injudiciously
combining wine tourism with cycling tourism, but apparently it’s not a problem
yet, at least not on weekdays; during our stay we saw no other cyclists apart
from children riding to school!
Our
plan was to stay two days and assess two tourist motoring routes, Armistice Way
(Tourist Drive 5 - 34km) and Highland Way (Tourist Drive 6 - 31km) as potential
road cycling rides, and also to try out the new road cycling trail. The new
road bike trail combines neatly with Highland Way for a trip from Stanthorpe to
Ballandean and return.
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The author's wife and fellow cyclist Jennifer
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The
distances given for the tourist drives (34km and 31 km) are driving distances
for just the tourist routes themselves. Unsupported cyclists have to add on the
necessary riding from home base to the start point of the drive and from the
finish point back to home base. For us this extended the Armistice Way ride
from 34km to 55km, and the combined Highland Way-road trail ride from 59km to
68km. Armistice Way follows Amiens Rd which is paved all the way and in good
condition. Weekday traffic in mid-July was very light, but may vary with
the time of year, depending on tourist seasons and crop harvesting. The route
involves some climbing. The elevation gain from lowest point to highest point
is 163m, and the cumulative climb for the trip is 466m. Map and route profile
is here. The day we rode, the Granite Belt declined to provide
what we city dwellers think of as a typical winter’s day in this part of the
world. The sky was not the clear blinding blue of the tourist brochures; rather
the day was overcast and cold with occasional rain.
Armistice Way passes through a mixture of picturesque
country. At different stages there are dairy farms, forests, vineyards and
orchards. The views of distant hills are pleasant rather than spectacular. We
had chosen to ride in a clockwise direction, opposite to the direction
described in the tourist drive brochure, mainly because the elevation profile
suggested that the climbing was a little less arduous.
The French place-names on the way refer to localities rather
than towns; there are occasional schools, community halls and general stores
but no coffee shops! Returning WW1
soldiers were offered resettlement here on farming leases resumed from local
pastoralists. They chose place-names
such as Amiens, Passchendaele, Bapaume and The Somme, recalling battlefields on
the Western Front. After the next war, another group of farmers arrived and
gave another set of European names, this time Italian, to some of the side
roads and lanes. These post-WW2 Italian
settlers were more experienced and more successful on the land than the
ex-diggers of a generation earlier, and so began the region’s “stone fruit,
apple and grape” tradition.
We planned a coffee stop at Singing Lake Cafe at
Robert
Channon Wines about 11km from our starting point, but when we arrived
at 10.30am in drizzling rain we found that the cafe didn’t open until 11. We decided
to try to stay warm by continuing to ride.
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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
We
made a stop at about 26 km to be entertained by a deafening flock of about a hundred
yellow-tailed
black cockatoos feeding in trees either side of the road. (The link includes
the call of a yellow-tailed black cockatoo. Listen, and then amplify it one hundred-fold
to recapture our auditory experience.) As we rode along the road towards them,
they continued their games, flying with fragments of pinecone in their beaks,
screeching and chasing each other and splashing in puddles, but they gradually
moved their activities further down the road as we approached. They were aware
of us, but not about to let our presence detract too much from the fun. Their behaviour took me back to school days;
the birds were just like we kids in the playground when we spotted a teacher on
patrol. Perhaps there’s something in the highland air that not only makes
cyclists light-hearted, but turns cockatoos light-headed ̶ further
into the ride we saw a small flock of
corellas
playing a typical adolescent game,
taking it in turns to swing on a rope they’d found hanging from a tree.
At about 34km is
Granite Belt Dairy which claims to offer uniquely flavoured
cheeses because it is “Queensland’s highest and coldest dairy farm cheese shop”
We certainly won’t argue with “coldest”. Attached to Granite Belt Dairy is the
Jersey Girls Cafe, where we had a great lunch. The attentive staff offers a
small range of meals based on their own dairy products and local produce, and
the two dishes we selected were superb. There was a minor glitch when we asked
for “skinny” coffees; the sweet waitress gently explained that the only milk on
offer was full-cream, but since it was authentic (and therefore non-homogenised)
she could carefully remove as much of the cream as possible! We opted for the
full-fat experience and decided the taste was worth the risk to our arteries.
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| The author changing a flat on his Gellie (custom) |
A couple of kilometres on from Jersey Girls, I had a
catastrophic front tyre puncture of the “bang-whoosh” type. As I changed the
tube and used the well-known five dollar note trick to protect the replacement
tube from the hole in the tyre, I mused on the ingenuity of polymer scientists and
concluded that their greatest gift to us cyclists was not carbon-reinforced
resin, rejected in any case by us steel frame retro-grouches, but the
indestructible bank note. Although of more immediate import were my thoughts on
the scarcity of bike-shops on the Granite Belt and our isolation (no vehicles
came past during the repair operation, despite the fact that we were close to
the village of Thulimbah). I returned to this thought frequently during the
remaining 20km, because the brand new replacement tube (from a well-known
European manufacturer) slowly leaked all the way home. I discovered later that
it was not damaged; rather it had a faulty valve.
Because the tourist drive ends at Thulimbah, the final 19km to
complete the circuit back to our motel in Stanthorpe was beyond the designated Armistice
Way. We followed the New England Highway, a major interstate road, but managed to
avoid riding on the actual highway. Initially we followed another of the
tourist drives, the Granite Belt Drive (Tourist Drive 3), which travels
parallel to the highway. Granite Belt Drive was formerly the main highway and Tourist
Drive 3 was known as the “Fruit Run” because of the fruit stalls along the way.
The realignment of the upgraded highway and shifting agricultural emphasis led
to the abandonment of the fruit stalls, but some of the buildings survive in
various stages of dereliction.
After about 5km there is an
underpass beneath the highway, crossing to Old Warwick Rd, which, after a
couple of name changes, joins the Stanthorpe High St, completely avoiding the
highway.
When we woke on the morning of our second day we abandoned
our plan to ride the Highland Way that day. The weather was cold (as expected)
but also seriously wet. The thought of attacking empty country roads in the
rain and cold with only one spare tube remaining between us was quite
off-putting ̶ even
mounting the bikes on the car in the freezing rain was daunting enough. So we drove back to Brisbane with every
intention of returning soon.
Day 2 to follow shortly.
Graham Kimber
Graham is a riding buddy of mine whom I encouraged to write this post. I hope you enjoyed his article on cycling in this fascinating area of Queensland as much as I did.
About the author:
As a child I owned and rode bikes, but between reaching car-driving age and having enough money to purchase my first car, I thought that being seen on a bike was an admission of low financial status, so I walked everywhere and permanently relegated the bike to the dirt floor under the verandah of the Queenslander. Thirty-five years on I had open-heart surgery and took up cycling in an effort to regain some cardiac fitness, soon working up to the 20km round trip to and from work. On retirement I almost gave up, but then discovered mass-participation rides, which served as a great source of training goals. I also discovered another wonderful attraction of the cycling life - the opportunity to socialise with like-minded retirees.
I really appreciate receiving good, constructive and polite comments.
Cheers and safe riding,
Jimmy Bee
