We woke in the mist on the front lawns of Saint Faith's Church at Doubtful Creek. There was the smell of dogshit near where the bike was parked.
Juliette was still sleeping soundly in my sleeping bag - the zip on hers had gone cactus and so I'd swapped and used hers for the night. It seemed a pity to disturb her, but I made myself a thermos coffee with the last half-cup of the hot water, and gave her a gentle nudge. This had no effect.
When the red red robin comes a-bob bob bobin along Along There'll be no more sobbin when he starts throbbin His own Sweet song. Wake up, wake up, you sleepy head, Get up, get up, get out of bed, Cheer up, cheer up the sun is red, Live, love, laugh and be happy. World is nice and blue, Now I'm walking through fields Of flowers, Rain may glisten but I still listen for hours And hours. I'm just a kid again, do what I did again, singin a song, When the red, red robin comes a-bob, bob bobbin' along. Along There'll be no more sobbin when he starts throbbin his own Sweet song Wake up! Wake up you sleepy head, Cheer up! Cheer up, get out of bed Live, love, laugh and be happy. (repeat until sign of movement from bedclothes)
And from the door of the tent, a little Button head appeared, looked at the world, and smiled.
We were lucky to have found the campsite we did. After leaving Grafton the night before, we'd ridden through the evening along the Summerland Way which goes from Grafton north to the town of Casino, and then on to Kyogle and eventually to Woodenbong, just 10 kilometres from the Queensland border. This road passes through some nice country near Grafton, including the Banyabba, Gibberangee, Whiporie, Myrtle, Broemar, and Ellangowan State Forests. Unwisely I'd kept riding through here in spite of the good camping spots they offered. Past Casino the country changes to flat beef and dairy paddocks, and the pickin's were slim. I pulled off into several side roads trying to find a place to put up the tent but all we could see were cow paddocks and fences. Not attractive. Finally, 13 kilometres north of Casino, I took a turnoff marked Macdonalds Bridge Road, and still we found fences on both sides of the road until we turned around again and out of frustration, pulled up at the Doubtful Creek church.
Where the bike was parked on top of some dog poop.
And now it was the misty morn! We stepped around the dog poo and loaded the bike, went back to the main road and turned north, and soon we were in Kyogle, filled up with petrol, and kept riding until we came to a little village - just a store with a phone box - at Wiangaree.
It was time to stop. We bought some nice coffee, and asked the helpful lady for directions, and used the phonebox to briefly call Gillian, Melanie, and Will and tell them where we were and that all was well. We did our morning ablutions while I consulted the map, and eventually climbed back on the V50 and just up the road took the turnoff to The Lion's Road.
This road is without a doubt one of my favourite camping roads in south-east Queensland. It runs from the Summerland Way in New South Wales to Rathdowney in Queensland, up over the McPherson Range which here forms the NSW-Qld border. It's all sealed now, but when my dad first took us on this road it was wild and rugged, and it was very rare to see another car as we'd camped along one of the many mountain creeks. On the NSW side of the border there was Grady's Creek which eventually flows into the Richmond River and enters the sea at Ballina, and once we'd gone over the McPherson Range, which is a watershed, the road follows Running Creek which is a tributary of the Logan River and flows into the sea in Queensland.
We stopped at the Border Loop Lookout, where we could see the Kyogle train line loop over itself to gain height as it crosses the range, and around us we could see - and feel - the Border Ranges National Park with its tall eucalypts and rainforest. Then, after a few minutes, we saw the sign that marked the border.
We were in Queensland!
*******************
Juliette and I stopped a little further on, on the banks of Running Creek. I didn't have a good map of this area, but we were now about to spend the rest of the day riding up the Great Dividing Range one more time, and camping on the Acacia Plateau near Killarney.
At least that was the plan.
Near Rathdowney we turned west. We got petrol at Rathdowney and went to the local store for some tucker. While we were waiting for the sandwiches, Juliette picked up a copy of Dolly magazine - and there she was!!!! A photo of her dancing with friends on the Gold Coast during Schoolies Week!
Naturally she bought the copy. Naturally she was modestly swelled. And here she was, this biker chick in her leathers, filthy jeans, unwashed hair, and looking just as good as any model in Dolly - including the very model of teenage swish, Juliette herself.
We ate our sandwiches and laughed, and read the article which accompanied the photo, and we laughed again.
I was glad to be with her. We bought a take-away beer, stashed it in the tankbag, and set off for the Acacia Plateau.
Now I've been on this road which goes from near Rathdowney to the Acacia Plateau. It's a rough dirt track, probably the least-travelled road which crosses the Great Dividing Range in its entire 4000 kilometre length. Gerie and I had taken it once years ago, and I knew I could find it again. Juliette and I took one wrong road (it was a dead end, finishing at a house tucked deep into the mountains), and then I took a second turnoff, convinced this was the right track.
The track, of course, was dirt. Then we found it getting rougher and rougher, until it was... well, rough. Then we saw a sign which said "Four Wheel Drives Only", written in big red letters. We rode on past.
And then the track got steep. Ahead of us was the steepest incline I've ever seen on a vehicular track. This was so steep you'd have trouble walking up it. I snicked in into first gear, gently held the throttle evenly open, and the Guzzi began to climb... and climb... and climb.
"Don't lean backwards," I said to Juliette. The bike was at an angle greater than 45 degrees.
"I won't," came the voice from the back.
On and on and on the slope continued. Finally at last there was a cattle grid and the road flattened out for a dozen metres.
I stopped the bike.
"Shit," I said.
"Yeah," Juliette said.
I sat on a rock and looked around. I couldn't remember having gone up such precipice with Gerie, but was too convinced that I was on the right track to realise I was on the wrong track. In fact, I hadn't even gone down the track of thinking I was on the wrong track.
The mountains here were steep. One ravine dropped away out of sight. Eventually we got back on the Guzz and continued on. And on. And the track kept getting rougher. Then we saw a parked four-wheel drive, its owners obviously off bushwalking. Then there was a barbed wire fence and a locked gate.
"Shit," I said to Juliette.
"Yeah," she said.
"This is fucked," I said. "This is a public road. They've got no right to lock the gate, no right at all."
"Are you sure?" Juliette asked with a calm level-headiness which drives me mad.
My answer was to take out a pair of pliers and undo the barbed wire fence. I found a flattish rock and put it across the barbed wire, rode the bike across the rock so as not to puncture my tyres, and pressed on.
There was a Y-junction. One track - barely a walking track - descended into a very deep valley. The other track seemed to go on ahead, further into the mountains.
"Right," I said. And on into the mountains we went.
Now the track became track no more. Now this was just the old remnants of a timber trail used by bullock teams last century which had possibly never seen a motorised conveyance.
And I went on.
The ruts were now 50 centimetres deep. Erosion had washed away the gravel and left just stones and helmet-sized boulders. Eventually, when we saw the track leading to more mountains, I stopped and put both feet on the ground. This was vaguely reassuring.
"Pa," said Juliette, "this isn't that important to me."
"Do you think we should go back?"
"Yes."
And I turned the Guzz around.
The track we'd taken did not ultimately lead, as I later found out, to the Acacia Plateau. That road was to our north and west. This track led to Mt Maroon, and marooned we appeared to be. Going back was a wise decision.
But it meant we now had to go down the incline, where I'd been worried the bike would end-for-end itself when we went up.
It was back over the rock on the barbed wire, back over the grid, back to the top of The Slope.
I put it in first gear.
"Don't lean forward," I said.
"Don't worry, I won't."
And down the precipice we rode.
To the bottom.
No worries.
I have seldom been so glad to hit a bitumen road. Which we did, retracing our steps, and after a half-hour, in the cool of a creek crossing, I stopped.
"Coffee," I said. And perhaps a little wick-ety too.
I made the coffee and put in a good measure of Scotch.
"Proost!," I said to Juliette.
"Proost!" And we clinked mugs.
*****************
We sat for hours in the shade of the trees, watching the creek flow, talking about this, and about that, and about the trip, and our lives, and each other, and ourselves. Words tumbled out and like music they made us sing the same words, in harmony. I had, I realised, a lot in common with my youngest daughter, a lot! And a very very lot to be proud of.
And Juliette has a lot of which to be proud too. She has achieved something remarkable in a 17 year-old - a quiet self-assurance, an essential modesty, a quirky and funny sense of humour, a healthy outlook on life, a capacity for silence, a tolerance of others, and a don't-give-me-crap attitude which one needs too, if one is to steer one's own course on life's road.
And on this road, our trip was finishing.
Somehow, we'd both realised it. We could have found the right track to the Acacia Plateau and continued our adventure for one more night, but Juliette and I will never finish our conversations, and will always have more to say to each other. No matter how much we still said, we'd still have things unsaid.
I hugged her. Her eyes were so bright, I could see a reflection of myself in my daughter.
Back on the bike. Adrenalin running high now, as it always does when a long trip is nearly over. Through Boonah, then the outer suburbs of Brisbane itself, highway, then tollway, and now there was no denying it - we were minutes from her home, and I was 2,500 kilometres from my own.
I stopped at the Tingalpa pub and bought a take-away Bourbon and Cola for myself, and a bottle of lemon wine and vodka for Juliette.
At a huge Bunya Pine, just up the road from Raeburn Street, I pulled over one last time.
This was De Koffiedrink Boom, where half a lifetime ago my father, after returning from some camping trip with us all - my mother and us four kids - had stopped the car for one last coffee before we went on home and called our trip over.
Juliette and I wandered over, sat under De Koffiedrink Boom, and had a last toast.
It was almost dark - the sort of dark that still leaves shapes, but which has run out of colours.
And we'd run out of miles.
We looked at each other and laughed.
We'd made it. Soon she'd be taking off the leathers in which she'd lived these past adventures, and no more would her helmet be a part of her day. She'd sleep in a bed tonight, not in a tent.
And dream of roads running, the bike weaving, of mountains, of that white line into the distance, running on and on... to adventures still to come.