Julie and I were supposed to be hiking the 5,000km Continental Divide Trail in the US in 2020, but COVID-19 derailed that plan. Instead, we will have an adventure in Australia, circumnavigating the country on our bikes, a distance of about 16,500km taking approximately five and a half months. We will use minor roads where possible and occasionally catch ferries across rivers and inlets to avoid busier inland routes. We will camp some of the time and stay in motels, hotels, etc, at others. There will be stretches of up to five days with no accommodation or resupply available, so we will need to be self-sufficient.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 016 - Mount Larcom to Rockhampton

Day:  016

Date: Friday, 17 July 2020

Start:  Mount Larcom

Finish:  Rockhampton

Daily Kilometres:  88

Total Kilometres:  1713

Weather:  Very cold early, but warm by the afternoon.  Sunny all day.

Accommodation:  Villa unit

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Apple pie

  Lunch:  Chicken & bacon melt sub

  Dinner:  Chicken pasta bake, vanilla slice

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Getting a good deal on a 4.5 star villa unit and stopping early enough to enjoy it.  Julie even got some sunbaking in (trying to remove that bike short tan line 😁).

Lowlight:  None

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Although we had a very nice cabin for the night, we soon learned that we were within easy earshot of both the highway and rail line.  All night we could hear trucks and freight trains rumbling by, although we are both so tired at the end of each day, it was easy to go back to sleep.

It was a very cold morning and we both froze for the hour of cycling before the sun got some bite.  Then, by soon after 9am, we were down to short-sleeve shirts, and very warm by noon.

We only had a short day's travel to Rockhampton along the very busy Bruce Highway which carries a lot of traffic between the two major regional centres, Gladstone and Rockhampton.  It was mostly flat through grazing country against a backdrop of low mountains to both the west and east.  The road paralleled the rail line, and there seemed to be long trains passing to and fro every 30 or 40 minutes, many carrying coal, but also cattle and containers.  It's a busy part of the world.

We had a brief breakfast stop at a roadhouse at Marmor, then cycled straight through to the city of Rockhampton.  It was surreal after a week of tiny towns to ride into a large town with roundabouts and traffic lights.  We stopped at a Subway for an early lunch and to work out where we would stay for the night.  There was a hotel/motel listed on Google about 35km further on, but it would not answer its phone.  Given there was nothing for a long way after that, we phoned the last motel on the north side of Rockhampton and negotiated a good rate on a villa and an early check-in for a Friday afternoon treat (see above).  On our way out of town we bought some food for dinner and snacks for tomorrow.

We checked into our unit at 1:30pm, and spent a lazy afternoon and evening.

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