The picnic was held on the river at New Farm Park. Of course Malcolm and I rode Trusty there, well in part. You see we've become rather accustomed to the dual transport method of cycling and taking the train whenever we take Trusty out for a longer spin, which is what we did on this occasion with every intention on doing the same for the homeward journey. We rode the tube from Birkdale to South Bank and cycled to New Farm Park from South Bank. We thought we could have a nice tranquil ride along the Brisbane River and test out the new floating pontoon. However, once we hit Riverside with its pavements overflowing with market stalls and people eager to see the wares on display, we had to temporarily abandon our river ride and hit the road because it was too dangerous to meander through Riverside on Trusty.
We arrived unscathed at New Farm Park right on the prescribed lunchtime of 12:30pm. We only experienced one minor incident along the way…a disgruntled ol' fart told us off at Riverside for riding on the footpath. But this didn't erase our cheerfulness as friendly faces greeted us while dismounting Trusty. Then the picnic protocol was explained to us by Bill Loveday and again by John Franklin. Looking at the white linen clad tables, I spotted an assortment of "surprise sandwiches" and rolls. We have coined this phrase through our joint experiences of food served at bureaucratic functions. The "surprise sandwiches" and rolls were a good idea instead of a BBQ because it allowed everyone to relax and enjoy the picnic. And I must say that the "surprise sandwiches" and rolls were quite tasty. This was washed down with ample quantities of soft drink and finished off with a divine sponge cake. In general, I'm not partial to sponge cakes but the one BQ served up had a lovely white crumb, was very moist, and extremely light…qualities that made it easy to masticate. This was a standard for a sponge cake in food studies terms.
When people were beginning to fill up from the abundance of food, Leah Lane thought she'd try out some of her proposed games for Cycle Queensland. Somehow my participation in these games got overlooked but Malcolm was called upon to do a spoon and tennis ball race. Considering John Franklin had announced immediately beforehand that there was no racing in Cycle Queensland, Malcolm thought he'd take it upon himself to demonstrate this philosophy by walking the race and coming last. For his efforts, John awarded Malcolm a Freddo "poopy-pance", these are the ones that are half milk chocolate and half white chocolate. Trust Malcolm to coin this turn of phrase.
After Malcolm's ball and spoon adventure we participated in a small photographic session on Trusty before heading off.Arriving at South Bank station in plenty of time to catch the 3:30pm train home we soon found ourselves faced with the dilemma of Queensland Railway only running a three-car train to Cleveland, which was packed when it arrived. So there we were, standing on the South Bank platform, discussing whether we should cut our losses and ride home. You see we both bought a daily off peak ticket because we had every intention of returning on the train. But we decided that we couldn't risk waiting for the next train because it could be full too and we didn't have lights with us to ride home if it got any later. In the end we both thought bugger it, we'll ride home. And what a splendid effort put in by us. We peddled strongly over the hills to get home in the same time it would've taken to wait for the next train plus the train journey and ride home from the Birkdale station. Not bad for two ol' farts who were feeling tired after a good feed, courtesy of BQ.