After four glorious days off with perfect weather in Airlie beach, it was difficult to pack up and leave today. I was very tempted to stay a few more days and do one of the sailing trips, but I know that the longer I am off the bike, the harder it will be to get going again. I can always go back to Airlie another time and venture off to the islands.
I was happy that the weather was still good today and the road was pretty flat, and it didn’t seem to take too long at all to do the 85 km to Bowen. Should have carried more water because there were no stores along the way, and I only had a mouthful left for the last 10 km. Seem to have a fair bit of heat rash as well, reminiscent of Thailand - must be due to the tropical heat.
Anyway, I’m staying in Bowen at a caravan park in Horseshoe Bay. There’s a little cove here with a beach and it’s really nice - the perfect place to spend the afternoon after a good day’s ride.
Only six more days of riding to Cairns I hope. It’s great to be able to see the end. In 2 days I should be in Townsville where I’ll take another 2 days off and then push the last few hundred km to Cairns. Starting to see road signs to Cairns already - feels so close!
Distance: 80.92 km
Time: 4 hr 13 minutes
Avg Speed: 19.1 km/hr
Beach cove at Bowen
Not such a bad view eh?
May 23rd, 2003
I’ve reached another milestone in this chapter of adventure - Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands. It was such a long day yesterday and seemed to take forever to finally get here, but my spirits were high all day knowing I would get here at the end. The morning part of the ride was fairly uneventful except for the hot sun and strong headwinds, and oh yeah, the extremely poisonous-looking viper I passed on the road (still alive) and then the magpie that attacked me as well. No joke! The bugger flew out of nowhere and dove into my helmet- twice! That got my heart pumping. I was glad to get away from him.
Then I stopped at the Mobil Roadhouse in Bloomsbury to have a cold drink and about 100 motorcyclists pulled in from the Ulysses Bike Club out on their Sunday ride. There was my little bicycle surrounded by all these monstrous motorcycles. From there I still had another 65 km to go and it was hard-going in that heat. It was 30C outside which is about 95F but on the black tarmac it’s easily another 10 degrees hotter. And this is wintertime in tropical north Queensland!
For 30 km there was no shade at all and nowhere to pull over to get out of the sun. That was tough. Finally I got to Proserpine where I stopped at the info center to get a map of Airlie and had another cold drink before facing the last 26 km. The last bit seemed to take forever. Finally got to Airlie at 4pm and had 2 huge hills to get around to the actual town and they nearly killed me. I headed for a caravan park less than 2 km outside of town which is only $10 pp, an excellenet bargain for Airlie Beach. Had just enough energy to set up the tent, have a shower, and cook dinner before collapsing in the tent at 7pm. Today I am resting. No planning, no booking any tours, no sight-seeing, just resting. Feels good to be here. Tomorrow I’ll figure out a plan.
Distance: 92.39 km
Time: 5 hr 14 minutes
Avg Speed: 17.6 km/hr
On the road to Airlie Beach
The Lagoon at Airlie Beach
Airlie Beach
May 19th, 2003
