The Spring has sprung run

By Alex Molocznyk, photos by Steve Lennox.

Towards the end of spring it was more like the middle of a hot Qld summers day that fortunately turned out fine during a stormy week at the start of the wet season.

The start assembly was at a Park n Ride chosen because it is normally empty on weekends, but on this particular day it was also the start of some sort of health fun run and the carpark was chockers. It was somewhat incongruous to see quite a number of the runners smoking prior to their ‘healthy’ event. However with some selective double parking the briefing and start for about nineteen cars was managed without any issues.

A short way into the popular Mt Glorious run there was what appeared to be a serious incident involving a cyclist and bikers on a narrow blind corner. It was an example of how dangerous this road is for cyclists with its blind narrow corners combined with the great speed differential between cyclists and motor vehicles.

After Mt Glorious it was onto the sweeping roads around Wivenhoe and Somerset Dams with jacarandas in magnificent full bloom. Unfortunately one of our youngest members, whose name is synonymous with a famous English marque, but is withheld to maintain anonymity for legal reasons, fell victim to an unmarked revenue raiser. His dad in another car was feeling regretful because he had waved his son to go around ahead of him just before he was pinged.

Perhaps we should get him the t-shirt …..

Morning tea was a relaxed break at Angie’s Country Cafe in Esk under a huge blooming jacaranda.

Here we had the Patron vs Pastry challenge, quite often championed by Ken Philp, but today a new champion came from the ranks, with Martin O’Brien choosing the biggest vanilla (custard) slice ever recorded on a club run. This was the size of a house brick, I’m sure if you looked closely, you could have seen the Boral logo from the old brick mould. Like a true champion he took to the task with a steady pace that didn’t waiver until … victory.

Then came a more twisty Lotus friendly road to the top of the range followed by a mix of mainly main roads and highway to the lunch stop at Cafe 4342 in Forest Hill.

The extensive menu had something to satisfy everyone, and the social gastro lunch was enjoyed by all. We must come back here on future runs, it has one of the best menus in this region, with Steve having glowing review of the Reubens sandwich.

Overall it was another enjoyable social run well organised by Rob Preslmaier to the high standards of the previous LCQ day runs.