Cycling Australia Diaries

Finally a rest day, a chance to do some washing and all that sort of boring stuff. Called into the Cloncurry Fitness Center near the end of the day to get a hand with bike maintenance. The owner, Damian, invited us out for drinks and dinner with the locals and it turned out to be a very late night with many shenanigans.

Were woken by the cleaning lady this morning as it was already passed check out time. Staggered over to the Fitness Center where we found refuge from the sun (approx 40°C). Decided that we were in no condition to cycle today and Damien invited us to stay at his place for the night. Relaxed in town during the day then had roast turkey for dinner!

Damien cycled the first 50km with us today to Quamby Hotel where we had a cold beer and sausage rolls for lunch. Tim came down with a throat infection today and the late afternoon heat made it difficult for him to breathe/cycle. We still managed to cover 106km today and camped in a small clearing amongst termite mounds and next to a cow carcus. Was very balmy all night and we had trouble sleeping in the heat.

Tim's condition didn't improve today so we decided to cycle only to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse. Kept up a relatively good pace today, however we constantly had to look over our shoulders and move off the single lane to make way for road trains/4WDs. Heat was intense again today and with only 20km to the roadhouse we had to stop to repair 2 punctured tubes out in the open. Fortunately some pig shooters stopped and gave us some cold beers. Relaxed in our air conditioned room at the roadhouse during the last part of the afternoon.

Didn't get away until 11am today but pushed hard through the heat for several hours then decided to stop at a rest area under a shelter at 4pm. Heat was still very intense and riding had become unbearable. We set off again at 5:30pm and cycled through to 11pm.

The night riding was great, no wind and a full moon to show us the way. The animals move around much more at night time and a few times we thought we would get run down by stampeding cattle. Camped by the Flinders River (Croc infested!). Were so buggered that we didn't even bother with the tent, just slept on the ground. Was a very hot night, however we were forced to get under our sleeping bags to escape the mosquitoes.