The magical motocross tour

The Lockyer Valley Regional Councillors are off on a tour this morning that will take in the Queensland Moto Park motocross operation at Wyaralong between Boonah and Beaudesert and the motocross track at Adare.

We did up a brief 'tour guide' for them, suggesting aspects of both sites that they might want to have a good look at or ask questions about.  You can download the tour guide here.

They'll have a much better trip out to the proposed Adare motocross development site than most people do.  The Council had a crew out there on Tuesday and Wednesday with a grader, roller, dump truck and a ute with a herbicide sprayer, and eight staff including the drivers and the traffic controllers.

Smoother, cleaner but still dangerous - check out that blind crest in the background.

 The workers said that they had been told the work was in preparation for a mountain bike event, and that they had to be off the road by 2.30pm yesterday.  In fact, there is a mountain bike event at Adare Homestead, but it's not until Sunday.  They were actually on site until 12.30pm today, Thursday 12 March.  They must have meant that they had to be out of there by 2.30pm today, because that's about the time the Councillors would be getting back from their visit to Wyaralong.. But the road has been graded, gravelled, rolled and buffed better than most unsealed roads in the Lockyer Valley Region.  Either the Queen is going mountain-biking on Sunday or this is all for the Councillors.

Actually we were out on Adare Road on the day of Race 1 of the Wild West Enduro Series  at Adare Homestead on 11 January this year. There were more than 150 riders at that, from Toowoomba, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Townsville and Armidale. Not a minor event, but there was no evidence of any roadwork having been done on Adare Road in preparation it.

Even the weeds were getting a wash.  Wonder if they polished the road signs too?

This is what the Redbank Creek crossing looked like last time with the mountain bike traffic.

You can see a video of the dust problem on the unsealed section between the crossing and the proposed motocross track entrance on the day of the January mountain bike Enduro event here.

Even if the roadworks were being done in preparation for the mountain bike event at Adare Homestead some questions need to be asked about the cost of the operation and the reason this bit of road got priority.

There are only two houses served by the section of road that was upgraded.  Coles Road, also in Adare and running off Redbank Creek Road, is only two kilometres long, is unsealed and serves four houses.  It's currently a rough, rutted and narrow track.  Residents have been trying for a long time, without any success to get Council to do some maintenance work on this road.  The money and effort put into this bit of Adare Road would have made a substantial improvement to Coles Road.

The Council might argue that the Adare Homestead mountain bike operation is providing an economic benefit to the Lockyer Valley Region, but if they did it would be interesting to see a justification.  Here's what prospective competitors at a 2013 event were told about the site:

Venue address: Adare Homestead, 583 Adare Road Gatton. Adare Homestead is located at the end of Adare Rd. Approximately 10 kilometres north of Gatton township and 70 minutes from the CBD.

Directions from the East: From Brisbane travel west out the Warrego Highway towards Toowoomba. Take the Gatton exit and follow Eastern Drive, right onto Old College Road, turn right into Allan Street, at the bottle shop, go straight ahead into Adare Road and head north. The sealed road ends and continue north on the gravel road over the causeway to Adare Homestead.

From the West: Travel east along the Warrego Highway towards Brisbane. At the end of Gatton Bypass, exit head into Gatton and follow the same directions as above. 

i.e. no one needs to go through the Gatton CBD, or even past any food outlets to get to the venue. (These are the same directions that would be needed to get to the proposed motocross operation on Adare Road.)

What to bring. Bring all the items required to support your race including track pump, spares, sunscreen, shade shelter (pop up tent), table, chairs, food and water (cup of cement is optional). Don't to forget to bring all your riding kit and a sense of humour!
We provide limited water, ablutions and mechanic service. If you run into trouble, you can purchase sports nutrition, tubes and spares from Sheryl from MTB Mechanic.

People are told to bring their own food and everything else they might need.  Water is available on site, as are a mechanic service, sports nutrition, tubes and spares. The accompanying map showed a site labelled 'coffee', so presumably that essential is also provided.  What reason would patrons have to to into Gatton for anything?

If the roadworks were for the benefit of the mountain bike operation and not just to give the Councillors a better impression of the access to proposed motocross facility, where is the economic justification for the expenditure of public money?

Me?  I think it was all to make the motocross operation look good for the Councillors - at public expense.

Motocross traffic on Adare Road - we stand to lose more than you think

I've posted before about the unsuitability of Adare Road for large amounts of traffic.

There's more to that issue and I'll come back to it in another post.

There are unsuspected losses associated with traffic on Adare Road that we face if the proposed motocross development is allowed to go ahead.

One of these relates to the Gatton Light Horse Troop.  You might be familiar with their role in the Anzac Day celebrations in Gatton and other localities in the Lockyer Valley.

The Gatton Light Horse Troop in the Anzac Day parade in 2012.  A friend in Germany sent this to me, which shows how far the knowledge of our Light Horse Troop has spread.

What you wouldn't know, unless you are out toward the end of Adare Road early on a Saturday or Sunday, is that the Horse Paddock beside Adare Road,on the right just before the Redbank Creek Crossing, is one of their training grounds.

It's a stirring sight to see them practising mounted military manoeuvres at full speed.

If there are up to 150 vehicles travelling down Adare Road on a Saturday or Sunday morning, the Horse Paddock will become unsuitable for Light Horse training exercises.

There's another group in the community (this time a much wider community) who know of the Adare Road Horse Paddock.  They are the birdwatchers, and the trees and bushes around the edges of the Horse Paddock are one of several regular birding spots for many visitors.

Adare road has been visited with increasing regularity by local, Brisbane, interstate and overseas birders over the last 20 years.  The location features regularly in online lists of the interesting or rare species which have been seen there.

Two of the visitors in this group were from Japan

It continues to be something of a 'hot-spot' where visitors can find a selection of scarcer species which can be difficult to locate elsewhere in the region.

There are many birdwatchers who visit Adare Road regularly, some every couple of months, some every week.  There are also bird clubs which make annual trips to the area.

A lot of the most interesting birding is done along the road verges, including along the sides of the Redbank Creek crossing.  Motocross traffic in the mornings and evenings (when most birders visit) is going to turn birdwatching along Adare Road into an extreme sport - not to mention being extremely unpleasant with all the dust and noise.  It can be pretty confidently predicted that the beginning of motocross traffic will be the beginning of the end of birdwatching on Adare Road.