miller family

Sunday 4th of December dawned bright and clear, a welcome change to the past weeks of incessant rain and thunderstorms.

Arising at 6:45am I was soon showered, dressed and out the door, off to the annual Bikers Toy Run. Each year in Brisbane bikers congregate en masse for an organised bike ride and give gifts (toys) to charities like the Smith Family and others who provide for those in need at Christmas time.

My daughter Miranda kindly donated a teddy bear for the event and he was strapped to the front of the Warrior.

I met up with Ivan and Sam on their scooters and then with a whole bunch of their scooter riding friends. It was strange to be the only (very large) motorcycle amongst a bunch of scooters! One was actually a 650cc model. Most of them had a pillion as well.

We headed into the city and down to the botanical gardens where we rode through to the staging area.

Here we had some time to wait til the ride started after a short riders briefing. I took a lot of photos, met up with some other friends and made some new friends. Anton and Marushka aka Guns and Roses were staged beside me and as we rode off I handed Roses my video camera. She filmed quite a bit of the ride for me. (This is so excellent as I can now watch myself riding my bike when it is too wet to go out on it!)

We headed (via a roundabout highway route) down to a seaside suburb called Wynumm where we congregated in a huge park and put all the toys into the vans each of the charities had provided.

Ivan then locked his keys inside his scooter so while we waited for his wife Sharolyn to arrive with the spare keys Sam and I went and got lunch. We went over the hill and noticed some awesome sirrus cloud formations as well as some very picturesque views of the sea, the sand islands and the trees. I went back after lunch and took numerous photos. After Sharolyn and Jess arrived I took Jess for a short ride finding some even better shots of the clouds.

Then we headed home on the freeway sunburnt and happy! It was a great ride.