Sunday 19th February saw a nice cool meetup at Yandina for the troops at 6am in an effort to beat the heat. Most cruised off to the north with intent to eat breakfast at the Rusty Ute Cafe at Woolooga, but two of us, Pete Webb (Honda CRF300) & myself (BMW R1200 GS LC) chose to head up into the hills behind Yandina and get dirty. The fresh, clean air was lovely after the heat of the day lately. The road up to Cooloolabin was sweeping and empty, which is always nice. Once at the top and the dirt started, we slipped to the right and made our way out to the Point Glorious lookout which is always pleasant at this time of the morning. Click on images for enlargement.
With little chance of oncoming traffic at this hour, we enjoyed a long sweeping return to Cooloolabin and then onwards towards Mapleton Forest Road. At the first T intersection, we decided to turn right onto Blackall Road for a change. At one point we were confronted with a choice of tracks, one marked easy and another marked moderate. Pete charged off down the moderate one, so I followed. after a few entertaining whoops and ruts he stopped to check out the track ahead as it descended into the abyss! Three thoughts came to my mind: 1 Neither of us know what lies around that corner way down at the bottom. 2 My bike weighs something in the region of 250 tons in the tight bits and 3 The moderate mark on the sign at the junction was put there by the local mountain bike club! That was enough for me to choose cowardice as the better part of valour. Maybe one day on a lighter bike.
The easy track soon became very entertaining and would have been fun even in a 4WD. This was where I started to get a real feel for the performance of my nice new Ohlins rear shock. No surprises, it handled the rough going very well. Before long, we emerged back on the road leading into Pt. Glorious again, so off we went again and the next time we arrived at the T, we turned left onto Mapleton Forest Road which always an easy, fun ride. Our next turnoff came at Cedar Creek Road which winds along the valley beside, oddly enough, Cedar Creek!
A very enjoyable romp along this road brought us out on the Eumundi-Kenilworth Road, so 
we opted for breakfast in Kenilworth where we connected with Carol Gilmour on her BMW 650 Sertao. So, we all chose to take it easy for the rest of the ride and headed out again onto the Sunday Creek Rd nearby. The temperature was starting to climb, but the abundance of shade through the forest made it quite reasonable. The trail surface was fairly well packed with only a smattering of dust, so the traction was excellent. We exchanged places for a while until we arrived at Jimna and after finding the shop closed, 
opted for munchies at Imbil.
Off we went along the Kilcoy-Murgon Road which is feeling the transit of a lot of 4WD Sunday specials in that the dirt has mostly gone leaving a good layer of embedded rocks to shake the suspension around a bit. A short stop at Old Yabba Rd. turn and then down towards Imbil. This section contains a good variety of terrain with scrub, forest, farmland and creeks, so it is always interesting.
The big shock of the ride was Mt. Buggery which has lately been something of a challenge. I braced for the slithering scramble at the top and Lo! a super highway lay before me. They had graded and rolled the whole damned thing! Some might say it has taken the fun out of it
and indeed Carol thought she had taken a wrong turn somewhere when she approached the top. Anyway the cruise through the farmland valley into Imbil with a quick splash through Bella Creek was great with only a few deer sighted running into the hills and we stopped for a well earned break and cuppa.
All in all, a great day out in good company.
