Day 27 - Bargara to Noosa - 389kms

The little tomato (Alicia) kept up much better today after my "Ketchup" story and has steadily got more comfortable and confident on her bike. We had a short ride ahead of us so we decided to detour to our favourite little Queensland town Rainbow Beach. On the way Alicia hailed me on the headset and said she wanted to explore the dirt logging roads off the main highway so we went on a mini adventure. The first turn we took lead us to a baby Brumby with its mum. The baby didn't like the sound of the motorcycles and the mum didn't like the fact that we upset her baby. They started to run away then the fight or flight switch flipped and the mum walked toward us very angry with her tail in the air. I quickly turned around and found another road for us to travel. This led us to a river crossing with a bridge made of logs. I nearly crashed and fell in the river when my front tire came off the log I was riding on and I just had to lay on the throttle and hope for the best. (See Day 12 for the first time this happened to me on the trip) As I was parking to help Alicia across this terrifying bridge I turned to see her ride perfectly across a log much skinnier than the one I chose. Thoroughly embarrassed by my lack of skill after ~26 years of riding we continued through the forest seeing herds of Brumby's, gaggles of Emu's (pronounced EEE-MOOOOOO if your American like me) and getting fairly well turned around and lost. Using the GPS compass to head in the general direction we found our way back to the main road with just a few dead ends.
Back on the highway I saw Alicia racing up behind me and I started accelerating assuming she wanted to race. That's when my helmet speakers came on and Alicia informed me that it was not her but a Queensland police officer. Trying to race him was probably a bad idea so I slowed down and he raced past me. Although I don't have a Queensland speeding ticket in my collection yet I was relieved that I didn't get pulled over. It's always hard to explain that I live in Western Australia, have one bike registered in South Australia, one in Northern Territory and still ride/drive on a Colorado Licence.
After mangos at Rainbow Beach we got to Noosa where we prepped our selves for New Years by taking the first real shower in a week. (With soap and everything!) New Years involved lots of drinking, dancing and a long walk home with some good 1AM people watching.
My Moto trip has now stretched into its third calendar year but I hope to have it all wrapped up in 2014 and be planning the next one.

Alicia's Comments:

I couldn't have asked for a better last day of 2013.

Stopping at our first petty station to fuel up for the day Christopher made a new friend while riding. A little green frog was tucked away between his fuel tank and fuel tank bag. I think Christopher was a bit scared to pick him up as he made a small squealing noise when the frog jumped. I happily picked up the frog and noticed black and yellow markings under his legs and hoped to hell he wasn't poisonous, not being familiar with Queensland reptiles. We found a home for him in a creek near the petty station.

After fuelling up and having a much needed water fight to cool down we continued our journey through wood logging country to Noosa Heads.

Being the little tomato, I thought while riding ' Why is the big tomato in front of me going so slow? (90-100km in a 110km zone). Oh well, I did take into consideration the big tomato is much older and sun-dried than the little ripe and firm tomato. One of my New Years resolutions is to be more patient....Wish me luck.