Posts filed under 'Mackay'
Not much energy or motivation today. Could have been suffering from the ‘town vortex’ syndrome that so often happened on the Appalachian Trail - just had a hard time packing my bags AGAIN, loading the bike AGAIN, and heading out of town AGAIN. The bike seemed heavy too, I felt like I was dragging a dead horse. Sun was hot and hills were too abundant. Not many options for tenting between Mackay and Airlie, so I basically had the choice of doing a 52 km day or 124 km. It wasn’t hard to choose 52. Got to town (a country store and caravan park) about 1pm, and set up my BIG 2-person tent! That made me happy. I feel like I’ll be sleeping in the penthouse suite tonight.
Amazingly enough, the ‘country store’ had internet access and the computer had excellent software and a CD-rom so I spent the entire afternoon going through my photos again and I’m so happy now because I am finally caught up after being over 2 months behind. I’m tired, will sleep well tonight.
Distance: 51.30 km
Time: 2 hr 52 minutes
Avg Speed: 17.9 km/hr
Riding along the sugar cane fields
Check out the BIG tent!
Sunset over the mountains
May 17th, 2003
Still here, decided to take an extra day to rest up and catch up on the website. Yesterday was a full day of doing the’platypus safari’. There were 6 of us from the hostel who went plus an Australian couple who we picked up along the way. It was a one-hour drive to the Finch Hatton Gorge where we had morning tea followed by a walk through the rainforest up the gorge to a waterfall. Best thing about that was seeing the fresh-water eels swimming in the water - very cool!
From there we went up to Eungella National Park and had lunch before heading over to the’platypus viewing platform.’ The platypuses only come out at dawn and dusk and so we couldn’t really start looking for them until after 4:30pm. The platypus is a very strange animal, only found in Australia, and even though it lives in the water, it is a mammal yet it lays eggs, but milks it’s young. Freaky, eh? They have a bill like a duck and a tail like a beaver and webbed feet and fur. It can be difficult to see them in the wild because they are so shy. Eungella National Park is a popular place to see them because there is a high population of platypuses in the one creek and they’re pretty used to humans so they tend to not be so afraid.
So we stood on the bridge overlooking the creek and waited to see our elusive platypus. Finally, after about 30 minutes, he appeared! Actually, it was a ’she’, according to our guide. She took her time, swimming downstream, coming up for air every few minutes. It was pretty cool, but you’ve gotta be into wildlife to get into to that kind of thing. I was just happy that I saw one.
That was an all-day outing and we didn’t get back to Mackay until 7pm. Today I decided in the morning to spend an extra day here because I desperately needed to catch up on the site and I spent nearly 5 hours going through photos of New Zealand. Always feel good to catch up a bit on that.
Tomorrow I am northbound again. The distance I will make will depend on what time I get out here here, and of course, the weather.
Looking for the playtpus
Lush rainforest of north Queensland
Finch Hatton Gorge
May 16th, 2003
It’s amazing how easy 36 km can seem after doing 3 solid 100 km days. Even so, I was feeling tired and sluggish this morning and found myself yawning during the entire ride to Mackay. I was happy to see that the road was flat, and I still can’t figure out how or why the English cyclists described this section to have’undulating hills.’ It was as FLAT as a pancake. I mean, I could see 3 km ahead of me! I don’t think they’ve encountered any real hills in Australia yet. They’ll have a rude awakening when they hit the hills of Bundaberg I’m sure.
Got to Mackay just before 10am and although I was looking forward to resting today, I found myself running around getting stuff done all day. First to the post office where I picked up my 2-person tent sent by Dad and sent home the 1-person coffin (no I won’t miss it!), then to the used book store to exchange some books, then back to the hostel to shower and do laundry, then back to town to catch a film in the afternoon (About Schmidt), then to the internet shop for an hour, then to the supermarket to stock up, and finally back to the hostel where I took all the laundry off the line and organized my stuff in the room. Exhausting! Always so much to do.
Tomorrow I am taking the day off, and hopefully it will be a good time. I’ve booked a trip out to Eungella National Park, and if I am lucky I’ll see a real live platypus. They are calling for rain tomorrow but I don’t care as long as I’m not cycling in it! It will be so nice to be able to sleep in a bit in the morning since the platypus tour doesn’t leave until 9:30am. Friday I’ll be back on the bike and I’m hoping to do the 150-off km to Airlie Beach in 2 days. 6pm now - gotta try to stay awake until 8pm!
Distance: 36.08 km
Time: 1 hr 45 minutes
Avg Speed: 20.4 km/hr
I really do love these signs
May 14th, 2003
