Thursday, 6 Dec 2018

They served a buffet breakfast at the Nebo Hotel from 4 to 6am, for which I’d signed up. I got there at 5, good start of the day.

I skipped a section of trail which followed an old telegraph line and stuck to roads, which until Tierawoomba Stn were all bitumen. And I met a young fellow cyclist, who had just started out on his way to Cairns, then will fly to Singapore and ride home to his native UK! He hopes he can fit Tibet in for good measure.

Today was a perfect cycling day, cloudy and no more than 25º. I managed to pee a few times, what a novelty! At Tierawoomba I was able to fill my bottles from the rainwater tank and got permission to camp a little bit further on at a flat area with a trough.

I set the tent up straight away, had a washup at the trough, which was all a good thing because soon after that it started to rain and pretty well keep raining all afternoon. So I spent the time reading and snoozing hunkered down inside my little nylon cage. Only had some crackers and peanut butter and Vegemite for “tea” since I had started with that substantial breakfast. Hoping it’ll be dry again tomorrow. Probably only 40 or so kms, St Lawrence is 110k and that’s too far for one day.

Total today 60k, 370m uphills and 4:15h riding time, pretty well all on paved roads.