There was no sign of last night’s thunderstorms this morning, I didn’t rush to get away and because of a lack of food last night I decided to have a $10 breakfast (cereal, backon eggs, has brown, tomato and coffee, great value) at the Yarraman Gardens Motel before heading off.
I was heading fturther north today with my sights set on at least Mackay after not travelling quite as far yesterday as I’d have liked. Today was hot, it didn’t take long at all for the temp to get up to 38 degrees and not too long after that it hit 40.
Here’s an interesting thing I saw in Mulgildie on the Burnett Hwy South of Monto.
Here’s the main street of Mulgildie
I had a couple of options, stay westish or head towards Rockhampton and hopefully the coast would be cooler. I chose the latter and while stuck in traffic in Rockhampton the air temp was 42 degrees (which was to be the hottest on the whole trip). Talk about hot feet!
Here’s a pic I took before it hit 42.
I then kept to the Bruce Highway all the way to south Mackay where I fuelled up for the ride west and up a spectacular mountain road to Eungella. Think steep, winding, switchback corners, bumps and dips on a road peppered with cattle grids. Very tricky but the Super Tenere soaked up the bumps and handled the bends with ease. The view from Eungella is amazing, if you are ever in that part of Queensland take the time to go up and see it.
With Eungella done just before dark it was time to make my way further north and find somewhere to spend the night. I punched Townsville into the GPS, knowing I wasn’t going to go that far but I wanted to make sure I was heading in the right direction. The GPS took me off the road I came in on from Mackay into another winding mountain road which was quite tricky in the dark with lots of little animals enjoying the road as well. I popped out onto the Bruce Highway north of Mackay and rode until I reached Prosperpine. Not wanting to miss out on a meal again located a Woolworths where I bought some noodles and yoghurt for dinner and some quick oats for breakfast with more yoghurt and milk for the morning coffee.
I found a decent room, not quite as clean as I’d have liked, at the Proserpine Motor Lodge ($85) boiled the jug, savoured the artificially flavoured and coloured noodles and wolfed down the yoghurt. I also spent some time cleaning the helmet and getting things laid out ready for an efficient departure in the morning. Earplugs required for the air conditioner but a decent nights sleep after a decent 1100 or so kilometres covered.