Day: 018
Date: Sunday, 19 July 2020
Start: St Lawrence
Finish: Sarina
Daily Kilometres: 122
Total Kilometres: 2009
Weather: Mild and overcast all day, with some very light drizzle in the afternoon
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: None
Lunch: Ham, cheese & tomato sandwich/Egg & lettuce sandwich
Dinner: Bangers & mash, apple crumble & ice cream
Aches: Nothing significant
Highlight: None really
Lowlight: Julie got a rear tyre puncture (our first) after only a few kilometres. After a lot of stuffing around (we believed the tyre was tubeless and initially tried to repair it as such), we eventually fixed it by replacing the tube, only to find at our lunch stop, fifty kilometres later, that the tyre had lost pressure. Although we had removed a glass chip earlier, that apparently wasn't the problem. However, after much tyre examination we still couldn't see a cause and solved the problem by replacing both the tyre and the tube. Expensive, but there's a limit to how much you can be bothered messing around.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
According to Google, the only store in St Lawrence opened at 7am. Thus, we timed our departure from the hotel for 7am and rode the short distance to the store, which showed no sign of activity. A guy across the street leaned out of his window and yelled across to us that the store opened at 7am, but sometimes later. We decided to wait until 7:15am, as it was nearly three hours to the next store and we didn't have anything for breakfast and only water to drink. At 7:15am, the guy from across the street opined that the store proprietress had been at a party in a park down the street last night, and might be sleeping it off. We gave up and rode out of town.
Initially, we had to follow a gravel road back to the highway. At first, it passed through some beautiful wetlands (we were close to the coast) with lily ponds and lots of birdlife. Then it passed through bushland and along the way Julie's rear tyre punctured (see above). It took time to fix it, and that, combined with a later start than planned to try and get supplies, made an early finish to the day less likely.
We got back onto the highway with about 115km to go to Sarina, where we had a room booked. It was overcast, mild and not too hilly, and we made good time through cattle grazing country. After an hour or so, the highway came very close to the coast, and we left the highway and paralleled it on a minor road that passed through the very low-key beach village of Clairview. The sea was calm, with low islands visible in the distance, and the shore was a mix of rocks, sand and mangroves. Very peaceful.
We returned to the highway and continued riding north, accompanied by lots of caravans and trucks, and dodging dead animals in various states of decay and pungency on the road edge. At Carmila, we stopped at the roadhouse, bought an early lunch, and ate it at a picnic bench. After we had eaten, I noticed that Julie's rear tyre had lost a lot of pressure, and we spent more time making repairs (see above).
With only 63km to go, we decided to have another break mid-way to Sarina, and continued on through much greener country and many sugar cane plantations. It was harvest time, and there were harvesters going in some fields, trucks and narrow-gauge sugar cane trains transporting the cut cane, and stubble being burnt. After our break, the road passed near some misty mountains that seemed to generate a light drizzle which cleared as we neared Sarina.
We reached our motel soon after 3:30pm, so not too late, and later bought some dinner to microwave from a supermarket across the road. Not everything went to plan today, but we learnt a bit, and were lucky it was a planned short day.
No comments:
Post a Comment