Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. It has a total surface area of 7,686,850 sq km’s. The top right hand corner of this vast expanse of land is comprised of its second largest state, Queensland, which makes up 1,727,000 sq km’s of the landmass and is home to 3,817,000 people. Queensland is blessed with 7,400 km of tropical and semi tropical coastline (or 9,800 km if you include all of its islands). Onto a map of this coastline, roughly in the position of Brisbane, was a large grey cartoon cloud with a yellow lightening bolt emerging among a group of small rain drops. This was the weather forecast for Sunday as predicted on Wednesday. Along with the cartoon cloud was an estimation of temperatures ranging from 16 to 24 degrees and a helpful note saying that the forecast was for afternoon storms.

My initial reaction to seeing this was naturally to question the probability of Sunday’s Bribie skate going ahead, but then the sad geeky side of my personality came to the fore and I decided to pull out a map of Australia and a ruler. A few simple calculations later and I had worked out that the cartoon cloud covered an area of approximately 80,000 sq km’s. To put this into some kind of context, it would take two and a half hours to drive from the tip of the lightening bolt to the very top of the cloud. Considering the number of times I have phoned people less than ten kilometres away and asked them ‘how bad is the storm there’ only to be told it is not even raining, I decided that it was probably worth taking the chance of driving the two thirds of the way up the cloud to Bribie.

With the skate starting at 9:30am an early start was necessary. A quick look out of the window revealed a grey over cast sky, no sun and no chink of blue on any visible horizon. Still, Bribie was 72 kilometres away and it could well be sunny there!

At ten past nine I pulled into the Bongaree R.S.L. club car park got out of the car and looked up at the sky. Still grey, but not raining so there was definitely hope that the sun might make an appearance at some point. Justine had already arrived and Pepsi pulled up a few seconds later. We agreed that if two’s lunch, then three’s a skate. As the minutes passed, a steady trickle of people arrived and right on cue, the sun popped out from behind the clouds and graced us with its warming presence.

As 9:30 crept up on us, we decided that everyone who was going to come had indeed arrived. Lyndal was going to be leading the tour with assistance from Vaughan, Justine and Suzy. As the sun disappeared back behind another cloud, we set off.

On previous Bribie skates, the bike path that we follow for the first section of the day tended to be of a rather intermediate nature. That’s to say sections of it would intermediately not be there. This seemed to be some sort of ongoing upgrade that had been ongoing for a considerable number of months. Not any more. All the individual sections of path are now joined together to form one continuous trail and some of it has even been replaced completely with beautifully smooth concrete. With no sudden stops to walk over patches of loose gravel, we arrived at the Bribie Island Bridge in no time.

Normally at this point in the skate, the participants would be split into two, with a faster group leaving the island over the bridge and the rest of the group carrying on to a housing estate further along the path. As we were a fairly small group with similar abilities, an executive decision was made to stick together. With new found camaraderie, we trooped out over the bridge along the extremely narrow path. Regrouping on the far side, we headed for the caravan park and our first shop stop of the day.

The Bribie Passage Kiosk and Boat Hire shop was guarded by a ferocious looking black and white cat. Luckily, Greg’s cat handling skills came to the fore and a quick tickle behind the ear let us pass without the loss of any limbs. After a suitable selection of ice creams, lollies and drinks we were heading back to Bribie and once more crossing the narrow footpath in the opposite direction.

Back on the Island and our next destination was the Pacific Harbour housing estate. An amusingly small dog provided us with an element of entertainment as we debated the possibility of venturing into the estate for a blast round the smooth new roads. With Lyndal taking a relaxed attitude to the route, and gentle goading from the rest of the group, we headed into the estate. It wasn’t long before the houses ended and building plots took there place. A large map on a hording of the proposed development didn’t include any street names so a route out of the estate was not immediately obvious. As Vaughan and I tried to figure out where we were on the developer’s vision, Pepsi rolled her eyes and went over to a local to ask for directions. With me and Vaughan still puzzling out where we were, a call of ‘this way’ rang out and we found ourselves heading to one of Bribie’s impromptu landmarks, the water tower.

After a couple of minor detours, we emerged on a familiar road and had another mini debate on the merits of heading over to the skate park. Lunch was beckoning and we wanted to avoid arriving back at the R.S.L. just as the lunch sitting finished (as had happened once on a previous Bribie skate). On this occasion, it was decided time was still on our side and a visit to the skate park would still allow us to be back by noon.

As Lyndal and Greg demonstrated there dropping in and flying out skills, the rest of us tried a variety of tricks on the adjacent basketball court. After a quick group shot of everyone surfing in front of a large mural depicting people (you guessed it) surfing we headed back to the R.S.L. and lunch.

After some debate on the correct dress etiquette for an R.S.L. lunch, we decided that everyone was passable and we headed inside. While the choice from the menu was impressive, everyone settled on the all you can eat carvery and indulged in a selection of beef or ham (or both in most cases) with all the trimmings. This was followed by an extensive bout of pudding construction. My personal favourite was a bed of chocolate ice cream, a generous layer of chocolate gloop all topped off with apple crumble and a sprinkling of mini caramel tarts.

Suitably replete, we headed back outside to be greeted by the first drops of an impending afternoon storm. It looked like the weather forecast was right after all. We said our goodbyes and headed home in the rain after an enjoyable days island sk8ing.