1st July 2022 Cycling from Murgon to Wondai with Jim and Helen

Misty misty wet morning. Still planning to ride the last section of the trail today though, in spite of the rain!!!

Heading to Murgon, to catch up with Jim and Helen who had spent the night in a motel there.

Crossing over Wide Bay Creek on the way to Murgon

We sat and chatted with Jim and Helen in their motel room, before heading out into the wet to start riding our bikes.

Jim and Helen had this useful map that covered the area that we were going to cycle today

Ready to head off wearing our wet weather gear, although it turned out we still ended up pretty wet at the finish of the ride,

Assembled here at the rather insignificant start to the trail

At least there was a rail carriage on railway lines here

The Murgon Station building in good condition

Nice to see the old station building being put to good use

Bill and Jim on the station platform

The starter marker for this section of the trail

Off we go….

The first grill crossing that we have come across on this trail

View down to Murgon Creek, through the pretty coloured grass

Pretty scenery beside the trail

Our first creek crossing

Murgon Creek crossing, not too challenging

Enjoying the countryside on this section of the trail

Scenic views down to the creek

Through our first cutting. Very different again to the other sections we rode on on the previous days. No rocky cuttings like this

The approach to the Barambah Creek crossing.

Bill flying through it before me, so I took a series of photos of him, heading over it

Bill then took a series of photos of me heading over the creek from the other side

The water was flowing quite fast under the bridge

This section is promoted as the most picturesque

The local farmers are obviously sensitive about trespassers

View down towards the creek showing the original bridge supports

Artwork on one side of the old bridge support

A remaining speed sign from the rail line days

Having stopped to take a photo of the speed sign I made the most of the opportunity to take photos and some video of the others cycling past

A remaining distance marker from the rail line

This bridge looked interesting so we spent some time checking it out

Interesting markings on the cement supports of the bridge

Crossing over Dingo Creek

We had not realised that the trail bordered on aboriginal country

An old butter factory building on the approach to Wondai

Memories here - this is a free camp area where we pulled up for the night on a trip we did in 2018

The old train weighing station

The words here explain it all

Information about the Wondai station

An interesting sculpture

Coloured cabbages in the park

Found this behind the artwork of the bee that I posted a photo of the other day. Was interested to see that it was dated my birthday last year

We noticed that the Woodworkers Shed was open, so we went inside. Spent quite a while in here and took many photos. I took a photo of these tiny vessels as they are the same as what Kevin Gough used to make

This man working in the shed, showed us around and explained all the equipment

Next we went into the heritage timber building containing examples of all the different timbers. It was also being used as a visitor information centre and with many interesting artifacts as well as items for sale.

The highlight in the centre though is the lifelike diarama along the length of one side of the building

We had lunch across the road at Dans Diner, where we were served by the same fun friendly lady, whose name we found out was Brandy, that served us the previous time we were there. The cafe was comfortable and warm and it was so nice to be able to take off our wet coats and helmets and sit and relax.

However, after we had finished eating we had to get back on our bikes and head back out into the rain again.

It was raining a fair bit now and because we had done a lot of stopping to take photos on the way there we didn’t have many stops on the way back,

I did stop to take this photo though because it showed how much rain had fallen since the morning when we came through as this pooling wasn’t there then.

I stopped to take this photo because of the horse poop.

Obviously this section of the trail is used more by horse riders because we didn’t see any horse poo on our rides on the other sections

I didn’t quite make it back over the bridge in this direction. Bill was the only one of us that did

We stopped once more at this bridge st Barambah Creek on the way back

Videoing and watching the water bush under it

Also stopped in the cutting to take photos of the rocks

and a different view of the cutting

Noticed this railway bucket on the way back that we hadn’t noticed on our way out.

That is one advantage of returning on the same route - you see things differently from the opposite direction

Back over the last bridge

Finally past the pretty long Kangaroo Grass

Had to take a selfie back at the end of our ride to send to the group on Signal

Bill couldn’t resist climbing onto this coat/hat hanger on the Murgon Station platform, made using rail spikes

Jim and Helen cycled back to their motel room at this point, to get dry.

Bill and I decided to find and investigate the continuation of the trail towards Goomeri.

This sign was next to the trail before it crossed the highway

The trail was certainly well defined and there was nothing to say that it was closed, so we continued cycling along it, albeit it hard going because of the thick mud and being uphill

At this point Bill had considered turning back but I wanted to go further to see what obstacles there were to cause the trail to be closed

It would certainly have been a big fete cycling to Goomeri and back in one go if this section of the trail was open!!!!

We continued on down to the gully at the bottom of the hill

Bill rode over it, on to the other side and up the hill. I decided to just stay and take photos of the damaged trail

This would have been the base of the rail bridge

The trail was slightly washed away here

It was hard work going back up the hill

My AllTrails map shows how much further towards Goomeri we cycled

Bill’s Gaia map highlights our day’s journey in a different way

By the time we got back to Murgon and to Jim and Helen’s unit we were dripping wet. We were very pleased to be able to utilise their nice warm shower and put dry clothes on.

We headed across to the RSL over the road for dinner. We hadn’t booked a table, we hadn’t realised how busy it would be, especially as Jim and Helen had come for a meal the night before and easily got a table.

We started out having drinks at a low table in the foyer area and then after ordering our meals we went out to sit in the overflow area. We hadn’t been there long when one of the waitresses came and told us that a table for 4 had become available so we moved into the cosy warm dining area, next to this special Anzac memorial table setting