Day: 014
Date: Wednesday, 15 July 2020
Start: Biggenden
Finish: Colosseum Creek
Daily Kilometres: 147
Total Kilometres: 1514
Weather: Cold early, but warm by the afternoon. Sunny all day with a cool breeze.
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg & salad sandwiches
Lunch: Ham, cheese & tomato sandwich/Chicken salad roll
Dinner: Hamburgers & chips, fudge brownies
Aches: Nothing significant
Highlight: None
Lowlight: None
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
With a long day ahead of us because accommodation options were very limited, we made sure we were on the road by 7am, and pedalled north out of the very quiet Biggenden on a beautiful sunny morning. The road passed through mostly rural grazing country, glowing in the early light, and the tiny village of Dallarnil where we got a tentative wave from some children waiting for their school bus into Childers. The riding was easy and we were making good time.
After an hour we turned northeast towards Booyal and encountered some hills and a strong crosswind as the road followed a ridge offering good views to the mountains to our left. There was little traffic, and I was a little uneasy about a pickup truck that passed us and then waited, with the engine idling, for us to catch up and ride past. Nothing came of it, and no doubt it was just my imagination, but it was a reminder of our vulnerability in remote areas.
At Booyal, we reached the Bruce Highway, the main road to north Queensland from Brisbane, and stopped in for some breakfast at the little roadhouse. We left there at 9:30am and had a good ride along the highway, which wasn't quite as busy as I expected, though there were still plenty of trucks and caravans. In the Burnett River valley, there was a lot of agriculture, mostly cane fields, but once we crossed the river, our surroundings changed to lightly timbered scrub with not much evidence of houses or grazing.
The road edge varied from good to almost non-existent, so we were always watching our rear view mirrors. Most vehicles gave us a wide berth if they could, but there were some that passed closely, sometimes unnecessarily, just to give us a thrill. I seemed to get more friendly toots than usual (could it be something to do with Julie), and there were occasions when vehicles drifted in towards me, because, I suspect, they were busy checking out Julie in their rear view mirrors as they passed and not paying much attention to where they were going.
The road was undulating, but the grades weren't too bad, and we maintained a reasonable speed. We reached our last town for the day, the busy Gin Gin, soon after 11am, and bought some sandwiches for a later lunch at the town bakery, as well as taking a short break.
From Gin Gin, it was 85km of nothing but bush to our destination, the Colosseum Creek Roadhouse & Motel. It was an undulating ride, but we continued to make good time, stopping twice, once for lunch and once for a short break, to punctuate our journey. Although the near-road vegetation was mostly lightly timbered scrub, we frequently had good views to mountains to the west, making the journey interesting.
One minor highlight on this section happened when we were descending at speed down a long hill towards some roadworks, and a single lane regulated by a traffic light. After being green for most of our descent, it changed to red a hundred metres before we got there. I began to curse, but then it changed back to green. A traffic controller had spotted us coming and manually switched it back to green, holding up the opposing traffic a little longer as we flew through, giving him a wave as we passed.
We reached the roadhouse at 4:15pm, glad to have booked last night, as the proprietress told us they now had no vacancies. Later, we bought hamburgers from the roadhouse for dinner. It was a long ride today, with no particular standouts, but pleasant and rewarding nevertheless.
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