Bikes, Dentists, and Detours

Being back in familiar territory meant access to trusted professionals, and Sal wasted no time booking a dental appointment with Noah, our powerlifting dentist. Having owned a strength gym for many years, there was comfort in sitting in a chair where the person wielding the instruments understood the demands we placed on our bodies. The conversation flowed as easily as the fluoride rinse, talk of training and travel filling the gaps between examinations.

The day before the appointment, we headed south from Gympie, the highway unreeling through landscapes that had once been daily backdrop but now carried the gentle weight of nostalgia. Grannie and Grandad's place offered its usual warm welcome for a single night's stay, their home a reliable waypoint in our Queensland wanderings.

While there, Anth's phone screen lit up with possibility. A second-hand mountain bike had appeared on the local marketplace, specifications promising and price reasonable. Months earlier, Anth had secured his own bike, the anticipation of trail riding building with each passing week. Now Sal could join him, if this one proved suitable.

The dental visit passed without drama, Noah's familiar efficiency making quick work of the check-up. But the day's real mission lay ahead: a longer drive out to Samford, tucked behind Brisbane's suburban sprawl where rural properties still claimed the landscape.

Hunger caught up with us in Samford Valley, neither of us having eaten properly all day. A pizza shop provided salvation, the simple pleasure of hot food restoring energy depleted by driving and waiting rooms. We ate with one eye on the clock, aware that the bike seller expected us and daylight wouldn't last forever.

The rural property revealed itself down a winding driveway, the bike waiting in a shed that smelled of cut grass and stored machinery. We inspected it thoroughly: frame geometry, brake condition, gear shifting, tyre wear. Everything checked out. More than suitable for the trails that awaited us.

The teenager's father, however, had other plans for our afternoon. He loved to chat, and chat he did. Stories of his own cycling days gave way to questions about our bus life, which prompted tales of his mate's caravan adventures, which somehow connected to local council politics, which led to observations about the weather patterns this season. We nodded and smiled, genuinely enjoying his company while watching the shadows lengthen across his paddock.

Eventually, polite farewells were exchanged and the bike loaded into the bus. The floor space it occupied transformed our living area into something resembling a bicycle shop's storeroom, wheels and handlebars creating obstacles where open floor had been.

We briefly considered bush camping somewhere nearby, finding a quiet spot to break up the return journey. But with Sal's new acquisition dominating the interior, the logistics of cooking and sleeping around aluminium and rubber seemed unnecessarily complicated. The sensible choice won: back to Gympie, where we could properly reorganise before the next adventure.

The return drive passed in satisfied silence, two bikes now part of our travelling household. The trails of Queensland awaited, and soon we'd be exploring them together, wheels spinning over terrain that our bus could never reach.Leggi altro