Day: 020
Date: Wednesday, 16 August 2006
Summary: Riding 138km north from Hughenden on the road to The Lynd Junction.
Start: Hughenden
Finish: 138km north of Hughenden
Daily Kilometres: 138
Total Kilometres: 2656
Weather: Mild early but warm to hot and sunny for the rest of the day with north-east wind.
Accommodation: Camping off road between Hughenden and The Lynd Junction, Queensland .
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Apple and pastries
Lunch: Peanut butter roll
Dinner: Peanut butter roll, gorp and muesli bar
Encounters: Saw a few kangaroos and the first brolgas of the trip. Also saw the first big anthills of the trip, a sure sign of the tropics.
Highlights: Porcupine Gorge was well worth a look and I also remember one very pleasant break sitting on some rocks by the side of the road at the top of a hill surveying the sun-soaked Australian countryside with some handsome white-trunked gums nearby and some craggy rocky outcrops in the near distance. Before going to bed, I spent about 20 minutes just looking at the fabulous night sky. With no ambient light and no moon, the Milky Way was brilliant and you could see a myriad of stars in all directions. With just a few bush night sounds and no other noise, it was just perfect.
Lowlights: I had quite a few low-lights today. Firstly, I had decided to get a cooked breakfast before leaving town but couldn’t find an open café, so left without it. Secondly, even though the first 25km was on sealed roads, a strong headwind made it very hard work and sometimes my speed was barely above 10kph. Thirdly, later in the day on the rough road I began to strike the first long sandy sections and managed to fall off twice in the space of 100 metres at one point and had a number of other near misses.
Journal:
I didn’t get up until 6:30am and left around 7:15am, planning to find a cooked breakfast on the way out of town. However, despite visiting a couple of possible cafes, I found none open, so called into the bakery to pick up some breadrolls and then left. As soon as I got out of town the wind sprang up strongly and it was very hard work for the first few hours. In fact, it was hard riding all day and I started stopping every 10km for a break instead of the usual 20km. The road soon became gravel and dirt and varied from very easy to very difficult. I met a few road-trains and it is obvious they cut up the unsealed roads more than other traffic. The terrain was also getting quite hilly and the road seemed to be gradually climbing which added to my woes.
During the day I encountered a number of tourists and several of them took my photos and one lady even asked me to stop while she changed her camera battery!
I detoured 2km from the main road to a look-out over Porcupine Gorge around lunch time and enjoyed the spectacular view up the sheer-sided gorge with a stream at the bottom. There was a picnic table at the lookout where I had lunch and chatted to some grey nomads sharing the same table.
After Porcupine Gorge there was less traffic on the road and I had long periods to myself. The countryside was generally forest with lots of Brahmin cattle grazing all the way along and a few waterholes.
Towards the end of the day the road became quite cut up and sandy in sections and I fell off a couple of times. It was often very hard to judge how deep the sand was and, with the heavy weight on my handlebars, it is very difficult to correct once the front wheel goes off track. No doubt I will strike a lot more of this as I head north.
Around 5:45pm, as the sun set, I began looking for somewhere to camp. I hadn’t quite gone as far as hoped today, but the going had been hard and I had started late, so I’m not too fussed. I found a nice spot off the road, washed, set up camp, and ate, before listening to the Kuwait vs Australia soccer match on the radio whilst getting an early night.
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