This would come to be the theme of the day dodging an abundance of wildlife . Though I ' m happy to say I didn ' t come in contact with any .
From Warrick I had a quick blast down the freeway to Stanthorpe before cutting back in to head down the mount Lindsay road . Along this road I stumbled upon the World War II tank traps . As I have spent the previous twenty years in the Australian Defence Force this sparked my interest as I had not heard or had no knowledge of these traps before .
The tank traps were erected during the war in preparation of invading troops . They were a defensive positions erected along , what was known as , the “ Brisbane Line ”. This was a theoretical defensive line that was drawn from Brisbane to Adelaide . Many of these tank traps were set up to force any invading forces to navigate along the existing roads in which they could rig with explosives . If the tanks did decide to leave the roads , then the traps , which were built of posts from old wooden footbridges , and protruded one metre out of the ground , would force the tanks to raise up off the ground and leave the vulnerable underbelly of the tank exposed to gunfire and attack
From here I headed down to the Gwydir highway before turning off onto the old Glen Innes / Grafton road . This road was built back in the mid 1800 ' s and stretches 180 kilometres , linking the New England region through to Grafton . This road has a bit of everything from steep and narrow twisty tar segments onwards to free flowing gravel which encompasses the majority of the road . Sections hugged a rugged rock face while following the Mann River
TRAVERSE 124