The Six Day Slog (days 4-6)

Day 4: Mitchell River - Lynd River, 133.33km's
Long day in the saddle. Rode from sun-up to sun-down.
Felt a little groggy in the morning. Slowed me down.
The road had some very rough stretches but improved in general, this section of road is seldom used.
I see some tall trees. Awesome.
The camp is nice, right on the river, which is flowing to my relief. I drink and drink and drink.
Lights out.
Day 5: Lynd River - Nowhere, 119km's
Start the day with a guilty sleep in - around 7.30.
Had a troubled day on the bike. Mentally draining, possibly due to lack of nutritious food.
After 57km's I stop to drink from the Walsh River, where I find a beautiful big sand monitor (Goanna).
Tough day for me, but the thought of food and drink tomorrow is keeping me strong.
Crappy camp spot on the side of the road. There was barely a car all day so I'm sure I won't have a problem tonight.
Lights out.
Day 6: Nowhere - Chillagoe, 69km's
Early rise.
Again, tough day. Road condition terrible due to heavy truck use hauling earth to Chillagoe.
The trucks came thick and fast and I was showered in heavy sheets of bull dust. I am feeling very very dirty.
Amazing feeling arriving in town, and I find a seat to have a cold drink and a chocolate bar.
It happens to be Grand Final day in the AFL so I visit the pub to watch the Swans beat the Hawks. I don't really care either way. Good excuse to have a cold beer.
Finally it's time to sleep and prepare for a rest day tomorrow.
What an adventure it's been.

Well there you have it, a basic outline of the toughest stretch of my journey.
I felt very pleased with how everything panned out, and also a little proud of myself after having dealt with some hairy moments.
It had been a real adventure to remember.

The Six Day Slog (days 1-3)

Having waved goodbye to my new friends at Inverleigh Station, it was time to get serious. So I packed my belongings and rode into the sun rise one fine, balmy morning. After 65km's I came into the township of Normanton - the first town I had seen in quite some time. I visited the post office where I picked up a brand new ipod sent specially to me from Dave (since mine had died in Darwin). What a guy, and a big thanks to you Dave once again. The only other point of interest in Normanton was a delightful aboriginal man who dared ask me for money whilst seated on the public toilet with the door wide open. The drone of his voice and the stench of his business left me running to the hills.
From Normanton I rode into the township of Karumba. Karumba is a beautiful little fishing town with stunning views over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Here I was able to fix my bike in full, eat fish and chips, and spend a day here in preparation for the coming challenge. I'm sure my legs were thankful.
And so it came to pass that on the 24th of September I gritted my teeth once more to embark on a ride covering 600km's of dirt road with absolutely nothing in between (nothing man-made). My bags were bulging with 'survival food' and my bike seemed to sag under the weight of my excess water. I would be able to fill my bottles and bladders from rivers along the way, but temperatures were soaring so I decided to play it safe - and I was soon to be tested by the pressures of keeping hydrated.
Day 1: Karumba - Gilbert River, 114km's
Awake well before sun rise.
Smashed down a pot of Weet-bix (I don't have a bowl).
Within 5 measly minutes a spoke snapped with a "twang".
25 more minutes and it was replaced and the wheel was trued.
Road bumpy. Road sandy. Muscles ache. Scenery stunning. Kangaroos and wallabies lying in the shade of shrubs and trees. Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot.
Arrived at Gilbert River about one hour before sun-set. Crocodiles crocodiles crocodiles, I had never seen so many crocs in a single river!!!
Great camp spot and I was able to fix a broken chair to a tree with some rope. Win.
Relaxing sun-set, lights out.
Day 2: Gilbert River - Staaten River, 86km's
Tough day.
Deep, long sand patches force me off the bike to start pushing.
Bike trailer brakes once more. Need to weld it. Make-shift fix holding up.
I saw 4 cars today.
I take water from some murky water and pray that my hand does not get bitten off. I breath a sigh of relief after some heart stopping swirls and bubbles. I count my fingers: ...7,8,9 and yes, all accounted for.
Still 40 degrees at 4:45pm according to a tourist with a gauge in car.
The river I am counting on for drinking water is... dry. Hell. I drink brown water from a cow trough. Not very pleasant. Living the dream.
I arrive at the Staaten River to find stagnating pools of water. Perfect. I add some purifying tablets and slurp it down. Water water water water: the word ringing in my ears. It's all I can think about.
I cook tuna with rice, chase a family of wild pigs away and set up camp.
Dreams haunted by elusive water.
Day 3: Staaten River - Mitchell River, 80km's
Awake before sun-up.
Porridge for breakfast. Yuck.
Around 8:30am an amazing truck driver pulls over to throw a cold coke out of his window. A little early but who's complaining.
The road ahead shimmers with a blinding mirage.
My internals are cooking and my water is nearly boiling.
The road is torturous today.
Nearly at the camp site.
                      Skip ahead 30 minutes in time:
I'm sitting, fully clothed in the shallow, crystal clear waters of the Mitchell River drinking beers. There are four truck drivers sitting around in the water and we laugh and chat next to a few full eski's of quenching ale.
We cook stake on a fire and have them in sandwiches. I pack some for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.
The night becomes a little blurry but I am about as relaxed as I have ever been. Paradise in the outback. Score.

                                                                  R.I.P my humble riding shoes

                                                                  I made a new friend!

                                                      Necessity, the mother of invention

                                                                        Trough water

                                                                 Yellow-faced whip-snake

 


 

Inverleigh Station

With the make-shift repair firmly attached to my trailer I peddled the 80 odd km's to Inverleigh Cattle Station. Inverleigh stretches out over thousands and thousands of acres, encompassing creeks, rivers, open forest and cleared paddocks as far as the eye can see.
When riding up the bumpy driveway I was bewildered by the chaos that lay ahead. With small buildings scattered all over the place and people running to and fro on foot, motorcycles and horse-back, it was going to be hard to find my way around. Eventually I was lead to the station owners house where I was welcomed warmly by Ray. I had met Ray at Hells Gate Roadhouse, when I was in the company of Sarah. Ray had been very polite and kindly invited me to stay on his property when passing through. He spoke softly with clean language and a charming smile. Now that we were sitting on his porch in the absence of Sarah, the chit-chat was harsh and crude. However one thing did remain, Ray's intention of showing me a good time on his property. The more I got to know this man I found his winning feature, he was not happy until everybody else was happy - he was a very busy man as a consequence.
He barked at his wife Judy (she was the exception) to cook some fresh barramundi, and we sat down to have a few cold beers and chat. The smell of cooking food lured the workers out from every direction, and soon I was meeting the farm crew, the jackaroo's, jillaroo's, the ringers, builders and general maintenance men. The porch was suddenly a blur of colourful working shirts, iconic Akubra hats, muddy boots and expensive jeans. We all sat down to huge plates of delicious barramundi (caught wild on the station) with a few beers and it was decided: I would stay on the station to work for at least one week.
I was thrilled with the opportunity to experience life as a jackaroo, if only for a short time, on this genuine outback Queensland cattle station.
I had conjured a romantic image of station life: riding horses down a dusty track, watching men ride bucking bulls, flying around the property in the back of a ute, etc. Very rarely does expectation meet reality, but to my surprise station life was all that I had predicted.
Admittedly I was assigned to helping the builders construct a shed which took up most of my time. Luckily I still managed to sneak out with the cattlemen occasionally to feed animals, fix wind-mill pumps and free the Brahman-cross cattle from deep mud or being stuck in the troughs. It was hard work.
However, after finishing our 11 hour days we would load the ute's with beer and fishing tackle and drive out to find promising water holes. If the fishing was unsuccessful after 10 to 20 minutes, we would drag nets across the entire river and leave them overnight as a fail-safe. Ray had paid over $100,000 for a licence allowing such activities, and employs men to fish his rivers for commercial sale.
Being the boss, Ray would insist on driving the land cruisers out with a tray full of us in the back. Unfortunately Ray's eye sight has deteriorated significantly, and we managed to hit every single kangaroo in sight. He didn't seem to notice.
I was able to witness the boys riding bulls in the yards and was scared even as a spectator. I was scared both because the bulls were raging with anger, and also because the boys were quite drunk, and managed some simple mistakes such as leaving the wrong gates open resulting in psychotic bulls rampaging out into where we were standing. We all took flight over the railings just in time as the bulls came thrashing their horns at the areas we had been standing only moments before. Everybody just laughed.
However nobody was seriously hurt during the riding, and I had a great time watching.
Inverleigh was a station swarming with working dogs. Dogs filled cages scattered around the property, and some were tied to trees where they could sleep in the shade during the heat of the day. Many dogs were pets, and ran around teasing the other dogs or pestering us at meal times. One Kelpie pup the size of a fist would come every night to my tent (all the quarters were full so I camped on the lawns) and cry for hours until I let her sleep on a tee-shirt scrunched up in the corner of my tent.
If the dogs were barking loudly when we were sitting for meal times, Ray would get up and produce a large pistol from nowhere to fire shots into the air from the window. It was very humorous to watch, and worked a charm. Many dogs that were not performing on the job were killed, even during my short time on the property.
I stayed at Inverleigh for just over a week, until I received the call that the trailer part I had been waiting on was ready for collection in Karumba. The timing was perfect. I had met some amazing people, had so many unique experiences and made some much needed money during my stay at Inverleigh Station. But now my attention turned once more to the ride at hand, and my biggest challenge loomed just around the corner - nearly 600km's of empty, rough dirt road...

                                                                         Not a great look

                                                                                   Revenge

Burketown breakdown

So far the Savannah Way had treated me well. But after 16,000km's it was time for another breakdown. I managed to ride into Burketown without any dramas and found that the people were particularly friendly and welcoming. I checked into the caravan park where I met another cyclist and was able to relax and rejuvenate. The local pub had burned down, and I was thankful for this as I heard that some of the locals had earned a bad name for the town. No pub meant peace and quite. I stayed for a rest day in order to glimpse the famous 'Morning Glory' cloud formation, unique to the area. So I was up at 5am both mornings, sadly to a clear sky.

It was then time to move on once more. So I packed my belongings, said my goodbye's and hit the dirt again. But after about 80km's... disaster struck once again. Well 'disaster' is overkill, this was just a nuisance. One of the arms that attaches the trailer to the bike snapped clean. I was able to use a hose clamp to temporarily re-join it, and fixed it with zippy-ties and trusty tape. My bush fix did the job. But I was forced to turn back towards Burketown rather then forwards to Normanton. I knew that Burketown had an engineer that 'should' be able to help me. Well... he couldn't. In fact the blokes working in the engineering shop were next to useless. 'Bull-rider' sat crouched next to the trailer looking deep into the break scratching his chin thoughtfully. He was dreaming up a cleaver fix for my trailer, or maybe he was thinking about Friday night activities for the upcoming weekend. The later seemed more probable. I was sent away with a make-shift brace to hold it together until I reached Karumba, some 200km's away. My Dad had once more worked his magic in organizing a replacement trailer part. He had worked hard making many phone calls, sparing no time to help me out of this pickle. The replacement part was going to be mailed to Karumba, but would take more then a week to arrive. But this time luck was on my side.

I rode once more down the dusty track towards Normanton. It was a rough ride, and in the heat I found myself taking water out of rivers, creeks and even dams. At the peak of the days heat a huge road-train slowed to a halt to give me 2.4L's of icy cold water. At that moment I really loved that man. He was my saviour. 

Days earlier I had met a man named Ray. Ray was the owner of a huge cattle station some 70km's before Normanton. He had told me to pop in to say hello and have a proper dinner and somewhere to sleep for the night. When I did indeed venture down his long, windy driveway, I was unaware of what was in store for me...

                                                                                  Graeme

                                                                               Bugger!

                                                                    Waiting for the Morning Glory cloud formation with my friend Rodney in his off-road truck

  

                           The bore water spring at Burketown. That water is 68 degrees!