Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 055 - Katherine Gorge to Pine Creek

Day:  055

Date: Tuesday, 25 August 2020

Start:  Katherine Gorge (Nitmiluk National Park)

Finish:  Pine Creek

Daily Kilometres:  119 (click for Julie's Strava and photos and for our walk here)

Total Kilometres:  5659

Weather:  Hot and sunny

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Fresh fruit salad, peach-passionfruit danish/chocolate croissant

  Lunch:  Chicken, avocado & bacon sandwiches

  Dinner:  Chicken schnitzel, salad & chips/Rump steak, salad & chips, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Very nice following wind for most of the day that made riding the hills in the heat much easier.

Lowlight:  The Stuart Highway between Katherine and Pine Creek was quite busy with trucks, road trains, caravans and other traffic, yet despite being a major highway, had a very narrow road edge (25cm/1ft wide, or less) for us to ride on to get out of the traffic lane.  We had to constantly watch our rearview mirrors for overtaking traffic, especially when there was oncoming traffic, and assess whether we needed to get off (drop off) the road edge onto the soft/rough gravel for safety. 

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We packed up in the dark and left the Katherine Gorge campground before the sun rose to retrace our steps (tracks) back to the town of Katherine, 29 kilometres away.  It was pleasant riding, despite a few hills, with the sun rising behind us and lighting up the hills and escarpments ahead and to the sides.

Katherine was busy (relatively) with weekday morning traffic when we arrived at 8am and rode to the supermarket and bakery to get breakfast and other supplies.  We ate breakfast sitting on the grass at a nearby park before buying some sandwiches for lunch at a service station on our way north out of town on the Stuart Highway around 9am.

With only 90km to go, and a following wind, we made good time along the busy road (see above) which passed through dry, and sometimes burnt, savannah woodland dotted with some very big termite mounds.  To the right, out of sight, a couple of times we heard the sound of heavy locomotives on the Adelaide-Darwin rail line (home of the famous Ghan train).

We took our usual 30-minute breaks every 90 minutes, sheltering from the fierce sun in the shade of trees, and attracting the usual toots and waves from passing traffic.  Around 2pm we pedalled into the sun-baked old gold mining town of Pine Creek and found our way to the hotel-motel and checked in.  We always enjoy an early finish for the day.  It gives us time to loaf around for a few hours, and no doubt for tired muscles to recuperate.

In the late afternoon we went for a short walk around the historic town and up to a lookout overlooking the town and one of the old open cut mining pits now filled with water.  Gold was first found here in 1870 and was still being mined late last century, though the town seems very sleepy now.  We stopped in at the pub for dinner on our way back from the lookout.  Whie the meal was OK, the nearly hour wait for it to arrive was not.  Then it was back to our room for another early night.