Straddie (approx. 250 km the whole weekend)

Vacation on vacation. I get up in the morning, cycle 14 km to work, work for 10 hours, then cycle home again and it still doesn't feel like work. Amazing! It's probably because, on the one hand, I have palm trees growing everywhere here and, on the other hand, I speak a different language to my personal official language, plus I'm doing something I'm passionate about. Cancer therapy, or rather the development of radiopharmaceuticals for cancer therapy. And no longer at the level of basic research, but very specifically in a company that is clearly aiming to bring the whole thing onto the market worldwide, or is in the process of doing so. And I am right in the middle of it, in a small company that is growing rapidly. The salary is phenomenal, the risk of failure is minimal, and even if it were, what could happen to me? Others are already knocking on my door. So I do something I'm passionate about, if we're successful I don't have to worry much about anything, karma account at over 90%. And what does little “Rough” (yes, that's my name here), I always emphasize that it's pronounced “Rude”, do when he has free time? He's finally got himself a proper bike after his old one is still hanging around the airport in Sydney and has booked himself a little hotel on North Stradbroke Island for the long Easter weekend (yes, it's Easter here too). Luckily I don't have to ask anyone or coordinate with anyone or put my kids up somewhere, I can just go and not have to worry about anything. This solitude is wonderful.

At work they all said that the stores could be closed on Good Friday and that I should be careful otherwise I would be left without food. They tell me? And they've probably all been shopping on Sundays in Germany? Or after 6pm in Brisbane (insiders). So I stocked up on Thursday, shortly after picking up my new fire engine red bike. Packed up in the evening and headed east on Friday morning. First to St Lucia (the university district) and then over the Brisbane River via Dutten Park, Woolloongabba and Coorparoo. These suburbs south of Brisbane City are pretty up and down, I call it my little San Francisco and I love it. The juice quickly runs down my face and the view of the skyscrapers is great. The cycle paths are there, even if it is quite zigzagging, at some point you come to Old Cleveland Road, a multi-lane road with a cycle lane and a few kilometers further on you can cycle through a swamp area (with a good path), great nature and 40 km later, a good 2 hours later, you are at the ferry terminal. You already know me, a big grin from the young blonde lady as I pushed my bike onto the ferry gave it away. Admittedly I haven't gotten to more than Straddie here yet, but Straddie is beautiful too, not just the young lady on the ferry. 30 minutes later, I left the ship again in Dunwich and set off the 20 km towards Point Lookout. The roads are nice and wide, but so are the cars here, the minimum distance of 1.5 m is posted everywhere, nobody keeps to it, which is fine by me. Only when a car in oncoming traffic comes too close to me when overtaking, that's always worrying. It seems to be the norm on islands, I experienced it on Sardinia, nowhere else. On the subject of Italy, it really reminded me a lot of it, the heat (sport in the heat, how I missed it), the road conditions, the traffic, only the fact that every now and then a kangaroo stands upright at the side of the road and looks at you while its balls dangle on the ground, that disturbs this Italian feeling, but that's okay, otherwise I'll get homesick. An hour later, including shopping (of course the stores are open, Aussies are panic cuddlers), I was at the apartment complex. 5 minutes later in my apartment, sometimes I have the impression that Australian consists of saying something as indistinctly and loudly as possible, works quite well and after another 10 minutes I was on the beach and lay down and slept for a while while the waves and the wind and the sun went about their daily business. Just before sunset I came back to myself and was able to take some really spectacular pictures, these colors. So beautiful. The sun sets early here, around 5:30 pm, so I was in my apartment shortly after six and turned on the TV and what was on? One of my favorite movies, Forest Gump, and I don't know, but somehow I fell asleep again and didn't wake up until the next morning.

Freshly rested, I briefly considered whether I should take in the sunrise on the beach, but decided against it and preferred to listen to the radio (SWR 1 Hitparädle) and then eventually got up. At 9 o'clock I was on my bike and on my way to Amity. That means up the little hills and then right down into the little village, nothing spectacular there, sat around a bit in the harbor and watched people who went shopping from their yacht with the motorboat. You can do that, quite chilled, I thought to myself. At some point I got bored and explored some of the few paths and found my destination, a beach, Flinders Beach. The sand is too deep for my bike, so I only had the footpath and when I went to lock my bike I realized that I had lost my lock which had served me well for 8 years. I had it attached to the frame, but the washers were probably too small and the lock eventually fell off unnoticed. Australia means always checking everything, they are not so good here when it comes to quality. If you're used to German quality, you're always surprised at how poor some things are here. I had the bike in my room overnight, so I couldn't say exactly when it happened. Not too bad, just couldn't go to the beach so I had no choice but to drive back. I had identified a path on the map that I wanted to try, it wasn't paved but it wasn't too sandy, so I didn't have to go back over the little hills with the highway but was able to return to Point Lookout quite comfortably before the range of hills. That was wonderful, cycling alone in the jungle (on a good path, reminded me of routes in Serbia along the Danube, only without wild boar, but with other animals). Back at the apartment, I parked my bike and grabbed my camera. I had time and walked through Point Lookout and onto the beach, Frenchmans Beach, the plan was to walk over the rocks to Deadmans beach and then on to Cyclinder Beach, which I managed to do. Lovely to climb over these rocks as the surf hits them. I was in position for sunset, another wonderful natural spectacle. And again I was in bed early only to fall asleep in front of the TV with Friends and Big Bang Theory. I realized that I understood the English spoken on TV perfectly, but I always struggle with the Australian. The next morning, out early and back on the bike, I wanted to explore the east coast, so I first rode around Point Lookout, looking for a path similar to the one from Amity yesterday, unfortunately I didn't find it, the paths there were all too sandy for the bike. At least for mine, if I had a fat-bike, i.e. one with really wide tires, exactly the kind of thing those older, stocky guys with gold chains “cycle” through German city centres on, then it wouldn't have been a big problem. So I made my way to Dunwich and kept looking to the right of the only road to see if there was a path to the east. Every now and then a path branches off a little, but again and again the path ends at a fence with a sign and a mine warning. The unpaved roads are again not for me, so I had no choice but to drive the 20 km to Dunwich and take the only paved road to the east that wasn't closed. And it was a tough one, up and down, about 15 km to the other side. I was in my element, only to find myself right back on the sandy beach after a really wild descent. . There is a reason why everyone here drives a four-wheel drive. They are actually allowed to drive onto the beach and camp there, admittedly it's not cheap, but they have miles of choice. Each of these beaches is a kilometer-long campsite. And me? I had identified a few destinations on the map, none of which were accessible, but sometimes you only know that when you're there. So I turned around and drove back to Dunwich, visited the brown lake (I'll save the blue one for sometime), beautiful there, really. And drove back to the apartment and to the beach for sunset. This time I decided to photograph the surfers. What a cool sport. I should give it a try. So I can say that I drove on all the paved (and some unpaved) roads on the island. If I'd had a lock with me, I would certainly have discovered one or two more, but postponed is not abandoned. Today I went back, after 4 hours including the ferry I was home, I live really close to the Pacific and in that sense.