Sunday 20 Jan 2019

John made good, no he made better! He drove me all the way to the top of the range going east, but instead of Razorback Road we took Lagoon Creek Road which meets up with Razorback a little way in. It was a lot of uphill, some pretty steep, and it saved me at least half a day of pedaling. He joked he could probably take me all the way to Killarney in 2 hours, which will take me 4 to 5 days along the trail, but no. However I was glad to skip the steep climb up the range. There was a wee bit of telephone reception, but enough that I was able to take a call from my mom. What a surprise! I then tried to call Gwen but that didn’t work to well.

Why is it always so cloudy and hazy when I come to these great vistas?

From the drop off point it was a great downhill ride on a paved road and there was a cell tower near the Mount Sylvia State School so I was able to update yesterday’s post and add a few pics. Also called Gwen, crystal clear this time.

From Mt Sylvia the road became gradually narrower and the last few kms before Laidley Gap just a rough track. The last little bit was also horrendously steep, requiring a lot of hard pushing. Sweat dropped off my arms as if I was a shower. Do we all remember the routine? Plant feet firmly while holding both brakes, release brakes while pushing out with arms, hold brakes again, take little step forward, repeat, repeat, repeat. Fortunately it was only a couple of hundred metres and on the other side I found a bulldozed road that went down at 16 – 18%, not quite as steep as coming up.

Then it became a flat road towards Thornton and there was a car stopped along the side of the road. It was Sue Cumming who had contacted me on my blog a few days ago and she figured accurately where I was going to show up and at what time! After we had a good long yarn at the Centenary Park she mentioned that there is a pub about 10k north in Mulgowie, so that’s where we went for a bite of lunch and a cold one. She insisted she’d pay for our food, what a gal! Afterwards we talked some more back at the camping area and then she drove home again, in Ipswich.

There apparently is another trail user going the opposite direction of what I’m going, who has just arrived in Killarney. Anthony Beattie is hiking the BNT, so there is a good chance I’ll get to meet my first ever other BNT trail user. In 2003/4 I never met anyone who was actually traveling along the BNT!

Total 36k 2:45h 320m+ 700m-