A Day To Straddie

As the alarm clock goes off at 5:30 a.m., I jump out of bed, eat a filling breakfast of muesli, and get ready for a full day ahead. Today my mate James and I are going to ride my bike to North Stradbroke Island, just off the coast from Brisbane’s eastern suburbs. It’s the southernmost of the chain of sand islands along the Queensland coast and the closest one to Brisbane. It will be a one-hundred-kilometer ride, roundtrip. I haven’t had a chance to do any serious riding since New Zealand back in January. The only riding I have been doing since then are the short commutes to and from the hospital and into the city, nothing more than a half-hour away, so this trip will be a good opportunity to give my legs a serious workout.

Google view of the ride from middle of Brisbane to Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island

The ride starts near the hospital where I did the last couple of rotations. James and I start pedaling down the road just as the day breaks. The sky is veiled in a thin layer of clouds, the temperature cool enough to allow me a comfortable ride without breaking into a big sweat. Rush hour traffic on the other side of the road whizzes by toward the city. Following the thin line on the road that’s the designated cycling “lane,” we follow the undulating road from one suburb to the next. The thirty-kilometer ride to the ferry terminal in Cleveland is almost all on city road, save for a section in the middle where we manage to go on a parallel side road with less traffic.

Directions: from the corner of Ipswich Rd and O’Keefe St, go east on O’Keefe and continue onto Old Cleveland Rd. In Camp Hill, turn left on Wiles St, then right on Stanley Rd. At the T junction, take a right on Creek Rd, then immediately left on Meadowlands Rd. At the T junction, turn right on Belmont Rd, at the roundabout, turn left on Grassdale Rd. At the T junction, turn right on New Cleveland Rd, which ends on Old Cleveland Rd. Turn left and continue onto Finucane Rd. Finucane turns into Shore St West. Turn right on Passage St, then left on Middle St and the ferry terminal is straight ahead.

We arrive at the ferry terminal for the 8:00 a.m. barge with minutes to spare. The sun has burned away all the clouds in the sky. We sit on the upper deck, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the salty and cool breeze from the sea. The vehicle barge takes less than an hour to cross the calm water. As it docks at Dunwich, the tiny settlement on the western shore of North Stradbroke Island, we ride off the barge and head straight toward Point Lookout, twenty kilometers at the northeastern corner of the island. The road, narrow in parts, gently winds through the forest. In an hour, we arrive at Cylinder Beach.

The vehicle barge navigates the shallow channel to Straddie just ahead.


James takes in the view from the upper deck.


Waiting to disembark at Dunwich

Straddie is popular with Brisbanites on weekends and during school holidays, but being a weekday, the beach is deserted except for a few other groups of people. Still, a lifeguard has set up his yellow-and-red flags and is patrolling that section of the beach. After throwing a football around and jumping into the shallow water for a swim, we break out cooking kit for lunch. Doing this on the cheap, we brought our food for the day. After a nice feed, we go back on the beach. Lying down on the soft sand, I shield my face from the stinging sun with my cycling shirt. I don’t even remember when was the last time I spent a day at the beach doing nothing. What a great feeling! Soon I descend into a postprandial coma.

When I wake up, I look up to find ominous clouds blowing in from the north. The sun disappears, the whole beach becomes gray, and the air chills considerably. Looks like it’s nature’s way of telling us that it’s time to go. With legs properly rested, we hop back on our bikes and retrace our route back to Dunwich for the 4:30 p.m. ferry back to Cleveland.

Clouds start to roll in over Cylinder Beach.

By the time we get off the ferry, it’s almost completely dark. We put on the blinkers and pedal into the busy road. Although we are going against the rush hour traffic again, it’s not much fun riding in the dark. Some parts with no streetlights are dicey as cars pass within inches, while on the quieter roads we have to hope that there are no potholes to send us airborne. As we get closer to the city, my legs are starting to beg for mercy. Unrelenting, I push forward steadily at a slower pace. Back at where we started this morning, James and I head our separate ways.

At home, I cook up a dinner for four and eat it all by myself. After a nice hot shower, I crawl into bed, feeling every fiber of my legs screaming. Oh, it hurts, but it hurts so good; and not a bad way to spend a mid winter day.