Agnes Water-Rockhampton

Today’s journey will take me to Gladstone (about 130km) so I need to make haste. I manage to cover the 30km back to the Miriam Vale turnoff before 9:15am so I take time out for a cake & drink at the roadhouse I had lunch at two days prior. It is then back on the road and my next stop is Miriam Vale where I stop for morning tea of a bun and strawberry milk. I hear of a couple of cyclists travelling in my direction in front of me.

By lunchtime, at Inveragh, I manage to catch them – they are two Japanese cyclists and I make out that they are headed for Mt Larcom having started at Miriam Vale that morning. Communication is difficult (but their English is much better than my Japanese) and we manage to share our common dismay at the behaviour of magpies! I leave them to carry on my way to Gladstone and arrive at about 3:30pm. Gladstone seems a somewhat drear place to me so I make the decision, based on feeling quite strong, to carry on the extra 30km to Mt Larcom. I arrive quite exhausted having ridden a total of 165.3km in just over 7 hours! I head to the caravan park, setup camp, have a shower and head to the pub for a meal – afterwards I head back to camp and fall into a blissful slumber. There appears to be no sign of the Japanese cyclists – I hope they are OK.

I break camp the next morning at 7:30am and head to the general store to have breakfast. By 8:15am I am again on the road, this time bound for Rockhampton – my only option today is the Bruce Highway and, fortunately, the shoulder seems reasonably wide for the main part. This day’s ride is quite easy in comparison (only about 80km) and so I avoid unnecessary breaks and get into Rockhampton for lunch. Again I seek out a caravan park and go and setup camp. I have all afternoon to spare now so I seek out a bike shop for some new tyres & gloves and a bakery! 🙂

Tomorrow begins the bus legs of my journey which will (eventually) take me to Geraldton in Western Australia. It has been an awesome journey up the east coast of Australia and I can heartily recommend it to those of you who might feel inclined. Again I have to reiterate, cycling just HAS to be the best way to see this wonderful country of ours though I think the next time I do it I might take a more leisurely time about it! Hopefully by then we as a nation will have made giant strides towards the low carbon lifestyle that MUST be the cornerstone of our future.