at 56J 426574 6764689

Sunday 27 Jan 2019

It turned out that there were a few more waterholes along the creek, but I did not hear any Bellbirds at any of them, so I chose the right spot. For 15 kms the trail follows a 4WD track down the Demon valley, hardly noticeable in places and a little rough, and with a gazillion gates to go through. I found the trail descriptions often somewhat confusing, in fact it would be easier to ignore them: just follow the creek on the most likely track you see. What made it relatively easy was that you follow the creek downstream so the number of steep climbs was limited.

At the end of the 4WD section I came upon a station where they were just finishing branding and ear clipping calves. I’d never seen that before so I watched them for a bit and had a chat with them after they were done. Turns out that one of the helpers is off to Big White (Kelowna, BC) in a couple of weeks to escape the heat for a few weeks! Small world.

From there the track became a dirt road again, climbing out of the Demon valley and entering the Billyrimba valley, and later the Timbarra valley. And there is indeed water in the river and lots of it! I don’t think it’s flowing but there are great big waterholes and I found a nice one all to myself. Deep enough for a real swim, not just a splash off. In fact there was only one camper truck going the opposite direction as I rode in and that was all the traffic there was this afternoon. Well, other than a couple of horses coming for a drink. I was in and out of the water many times because it was a hot one again. Two days in a row now that my odometer showed over 50º. That is not the air temperature, but still, if the odometer feels that then I feel that as well. I got to my destination at noon, which is 11:00 QLD time and that is when I want to be done riding because it just gets too hot.

Another remarkable thing: there were no ants, at least not initially, not for the first couple of hours or so. After that they did start to appear, but not as abundant as so often. Perhaps they had a sleep-in after heavy duty partying yesterday?

Total 34k 3:40h 455m+ 665m-