Six riders ventured out to Stanthorpe for two days of riding. We met at O'Mara's Hotel the night before and got roped into the local Trivia night. One of our group mixed up the number of countries in the European Union with the number of countries in the Commonwealth. Now who could that be? He redeemed himself many times over though but was finally trapped by a question on the all time greatest Canadian Ice Hockey goal scorer. He thought he had the answer in the bag, naming Wayne Gretzsky, only to find out that he was toppled in April 2025 by
Alex Ovechkin .
The next morning we headed out with wonderful warm weather greeting us. We took a detour to inspect the "
Red Bridge", an old railway bridge built in the mid 1880's. From the photo above you can see Trevor Bond surveying the track and bridge.
Simon also checked out the safe refuges on the side of the bridge. Look Mum, no guardrails!
The ride took us out along Mt Tully Road then onto some nice gravel roads until we reached Pryamid Road. From here we travelled along the west side of Storm King Dam. A break at our normal stop, then we got back onto paved roads and made our way back to Stanthorpe for a coffee.
That night we treated ourselves to a Italian meal at the famous Anna's Restaurant ... a very nice meal indeed.
Before we started our ride the next day, a large number of white cockatoos came to visit us. Perhaps they wanted to tell us something?
This day was much cooler than the previous day and saw us travel directly into some strong winds west of Stanthorpe. At the 13km mark, which felt more like 30kms, we were greeted by a closed gate across the gravel road. Umm, the roads were on the map, were clearly visible and well maintained. While there were no signs telling us to "Keep Out" we urred on the side of caution and decided to ride the wind back home to Stanthorpe. Had we continued we would have experienced tough riding into wind on the last 10km for the journey.
Over the two days we had good weather, good riding and most of all,
good company!
To see all the photos of the ride check out the
2026 Stanthorpe Loop Rides Photos here