NQ2NT Journal - Day 15

Distance: 103km’s
Accumulated Distance: 2473km’s
Average speed: 25.4km/h
Metres Climbed: Not worth mentioning
Riding time: 4 hours neat
Air Temperature: 35 degrees
Humidity: 90% dropping to 40%
Wind direction: North/north east

You will know that we temporarily have the road kill count on hold, in part because of Smoothy’s thumb, but perhaps mainly because there really isn’t too much to report in these parts.  After several hours thinking about this we realised that it’s because there isn’t too much traffic along these roads either.  So instead of road kill, we thought we might take the easy option and count traffic.  I’m happy to report that by the time of our first break at 58km we had seen three cars.  While we stopped at our first break all madness broke out and three more cars came by in a convoy and threw our theories into chaos.  By the end of the day we managed to count 22 cars, although many of these were Doomadgee locals at the end of the day.

Burketown is famous for a couple of things and the roll cloud formations that appear this time of the year is certainly one of them.  We were lucky enough to be in town when one appeared this morning, unfortunately we weren’t organised well enough to take it in.  Never mind we saw some great photos in the pub last night.  Some “Red Bull” teams were in town to fly gliders over the clouds today which I’m sure would have been great to see.

36km down the road towards Doomadgee we found another Mark at the Tirranna Roadhouse, a small service station come store in the middle of nowhere.  We were not good customers, having no money on us at the time but Mark was more than happy to fill our bottles with fresh rain water, we had a great chat and the obligatory photo opportunity.  Just after this we crossed the Gregory River, a most beautiful place with plenty of crystal clear water flowing rapidly under and across the causeway.

We had two surreal nature moments today.  The first involved a flock of large back birds.  I can’t tell you what they were, but I’ll guess and say hawks.  Anyway we rode in their shadows for most of the ride today.  Each time we stopped for water, they disappeared, but as soon as we got back on the road, there they were again.  I hoped it wasn’t a lack of faith in our ability to complete this stage today, and given the lack of road kill, perhaps they were optimistically waiting for us to fail.  I have a different theory though, but I’ll keep that to myself.  The other moment was when we found literally thousands of grasshoppers flying along and across the road.  They flew at a height just above our heads while we rode along underneath.  It was quite bizarre.

Originally we expected the road today to be mostly dirt, and of course rode our MTB’s but were pleasantly surprised to find that about 50% of the surface today was bitumen, which certainly improved our average speed, as well as Smoothy’s spirit.

Today’s destination is Doomadgee, an Aboriginal community in the gulf.  Doomadgee is quite a large town, over 2000 people, and the school has over 300 students.  We arrived in Doomadgee at close to 2:00pm to find we really can’t just turn up in an Aboriginal Community and find somewhere to stay.  Our usual style of - arrive in town, find the local pub, have a beer and work out the details from there - does not work in Doomadgee.  There is no pub for a start!  Shanno had discussions with the local police which left us quite worried, and he was eventually lead to the Town Mayor and tribal elder, a chap by the name of Fred O’Keefe.  Now Fred was most accommodating, took Shanno on board and drove him around town until they eventually found our hosts for the night, Northern Constructions, owned by Tubby Cairns.  Tubby cleared out some rooms for us, replaced some air conditioners and made us feel completely at home.  I can’t speak highly enough of how welcoming Tubby and his boys are.  We spent the evening learning about Doomadgee and how things are done out here.  It was an eye opener for sure.

Tomorrow brings another day of mostly dirt road, longer distances, and hotter temperatures.  I think we will be without internet for two days now but the journals will continue!

Until next time,
Scotty (Falcon)

P.S. I’m a bit worried that my “Everyday Hero” donation page may have disappeared!  Has anyone seen it lately?  I’m genuinely working hard, I need your help!

P.P.S. I'd like to send a big thank you to the Urban Muscle guys at ADA Street Supplements for stocking us up with various protein powders for this trip.  It's made a huge difference to be able to get some clean protein in on a trip like this - Thanks guys!