Winton to Augathella
Daryl had the right idea today – he woke up early, and said ‘bugger trying to sleep anymore when this gorgeous day is waiting’, and started his ride at 5:30am! He got to see the sunrise (which I’ve been attempting to do each day, as well as catching the sunset pics from wherever we end up. You can see these in most of the folders I’ve created for each day of the ride.) We were underway by 7:30am on another long stretch to the next stop – Longreach.
Since we’d spent a sizable amount of time in Longreach last year, we stopped at the Qantas Founders Museum so Sharon could pop in and buy a couple of gifts. I hung around outside in the sunshine & shade taking some pics and keeping my fluids up. I also took the opportunity to line my bike up near the parked 747 and take some pics – some would say ‘you and that bloody bike’, or ‘taking pics of the bike again?’. That bike is a part of me, and I’m simply capturing it in as many places that have meaning to me along the way. It’s also one of the most distinctive bikes we had on the Black Dog Ride, so why wouldn’t you take pics of it? 🙂
Drinking so much to keep my fluids up had the side effect of needing a loo break quite regularly (which I prefer to dehydration and sickness), and on the odd occasion the loo break turned into something interesting – check out this pic looking through one of the breezeblocks in the public toilet in Barcaldine (aka ‘Barcy’ to the locals)! After morning tea (coffee) for the gang, we headed off towards Blackall. I got to see this road in daylight this year, and I’m saddened to say that I can only remember this road for one main reason: roadkill. This stretch of road had the most roadkill that we’d seen that any other stretch of road on the trip so far. So much so, I called it the Roadkill Highway. The others commented that it was probably a goof thing I could not smell anything (due to my cold) as it was pretty stinky. That’s finding the positive in the negative!
We fuelled the bikes and ourselves at Blackall, and bumped into Zephyr & Paige again. They were merrily plodding along a similar route to us, however we were travelling quicker and resting for longer which would see us cross paths a couple more times.
Off to Tambo next, with another stop at the Tambo Teddies shop to see what was on offer. The weather was much better this year at Tambo (compared to the rain & drizzle we had all the way from Blackall through to Mitchell in 2010). Beautiful sunshine and blue skies greeted us this time! It’s a shame that there were hardly any ‘small’ teddies/animals for sale at the Tambo Teddies shop this year. The lady explained they just don’t have the time to make them! This was a disappointment as I didn’t want to buy 2 large teddies for the boys, and something small (like a mouse) would be easy to squeeze into the fairly packed luggage.
We’d ridden off to our home for the night in Augathella after hearing from Daryl that he’d scored a house large enough himself & Dave, as well as the rest of us (Brady bunch). Because of Daryl’s early start, he’d arrived 3 hours before I showed up. An early start almost always means an early start at the pub at the end of the day :-)) Once the rest of the gang arrived, we made our way to the local Pub (the gorgeous Ellangowan Hotel, as seen in the pic). We had a few drinks and dinner and wandered back to the house for chatting and shenanigans…although most went straight to bed!. Augathella to Dalby tomorrow!