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 020 - Proserpine & Whitsundays

Day:  020

Date: Tuesday, 21 July 2020

Start:  Proserpine

Finish:  Proserpine

Daily Kilometres:  0

Total Kilometres:  2168

Weather:  Mostly overcast, with mild temperatures and a cool breeze

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Quiche

  Lunch:  BBQ with salad, fruit

  Dinner:   Bangers & mash/Chicken parmigiana & vegetables, apple pie

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  See below

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

For our day off, we walked through the small Proserpine shopping centre, buying some breakfast at a bakery, and caught a 7:45am local bus for the 24km ride to the resort of Airlie Beach.  From the shopping centre, we walked along a pretty path past the lagoon round a point to the marina where we joined a day boat trip through the Whitsunday archipelago to the famed pure white Whitehaven beach.

The scenery on the boat trip which passed a number of islands, as well as circumnavigating the large Whitsunday Island, was spectacular, despite the cloudy weather.  Whitehaven beach itself is a wonder, with the strip of pure white sand bordered by a brilliantly turquoise sea and backed by the dark green of tropical forest-covered mountains with bold rocky outcrops.

The trip also gave us the opportunity to take short bushwalks to some awesome lookouts, as well as strolls along the beach at different points, and a yummy BBQ lunch was provided.  The wind had picked up for the first part of the trip back and some excitement was provided by our skipper playing games (safely) with another excursion boat that was also racing through swell.

We returned to the harbour around 4:30pm, and on our walk back to the town to wait for the bus it began to rain …. good timing.  It was 6:15pm, dark and wet by the time we returned to Proserpine, and we bought some microwaveable dinner at the supermarket on the way back to our motel.

Although the weather wasn't perfect, we had an excellent day, and felt lucky when we heard that trips for the next two days had just been cancelled because of a poor weather forecast.  Of course we will be riding our bikes for the next two days!

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