NQ 2 NT Journal Entry
Day 19
Borroloola to October Creek
Via Heartbreak Hotel
By: Scott “Falcon” May
Daily statistics
Cars sighted: Not many, but quite a few road trains
Distance: 215 km’s
Accumulated Distance: 3198 km’s
Average speed: 27.6 km/h
Riding time: 7:47
Air Temperature: 36 degrees
Humidity: 35 %
Wind direction: All over the place
A day of change for us today:
As we rolled out from our wonderful hosts at Cairns Industries we were very sad to see Shanno and Gordo leave for home. Shanno’s business is cane farms and right now is about as busy as they get, so we were lucky to have the boys on boards for the time we did. Shanno loves camping and took the opportunity to camp with us – that helped us immensely. Shanno has the gear and the know how to make things work, and nothing was ever too much trouble. Love your style mate. And Gordo, you were so good to have in the camp, and gave us plenty of laughs. I’ll miss you mate.
Change of route. We’ve been fretting over this for a long time and today was crunch time. We originally planned to head north from Borroloola towards Ropers Bar. This route is beautiful, but very challenging. For the riders travelling this way meant a few very long hard days on mountain bikes, up to 172 km in one day of rough dirt, and for Kimmy and Kevvy quite some risk. We only have one spare tyre for their car and apparently that’s about one third the number you need to take through that country. Everyone has been telling us we are crazy and not to go that way. Now we’re quite used to being called crazy but as it turns out going that way just isn’t smart for us. So we’re back to our original plan, to travel via Daly Waters to Mataranka.
Bitumen road. Oh how I have missed you bitumen road.
Riding buddies. For the days we’ve been on the dirt, which has been since Normanton more or less, we’ve been seeing other cycle tracks in the dirt. But these tracks were a little different to ours. These tracks were made with thinner tyres than our mountain bike tyres, and clearly there were bikes with trailers ahead of us. We were quite excited at the prospect of catching up to these other cyclists, which given that they were towing trailers we should catch them eventually. We sometimes saw footprints in the sandy tracks beside the wheel tracks so we started to make up stories of how these other cyclists were handling the conditions. You’ve got to keep your mind busy during adventures like these. We would ask other travellers about these cyclists ahead and started to get rough guesses of the distance between them and us. Then we could start to guess when we would catch them. So today was that day. Shanno left us earlier and was heading home via Heartbreak Hotel at Cape Crawford, our 111 km mark today. He had found the other cyclists just ahead, and by the time we got to Heartbreak Hotel we finally caught them. Just by the way Cape Crawford is not a cape, and when I asked the barman at Heartbreak Hotel about that he just grinned. I guess I’m the millionth customer to ask that question.
We found that these two guys - Nick Cuthbert and Matt Sladden - are riding around Australia in 6 months, totally unsupported carrying what they need in their trailers. In this part of the country that includes about 16 litres of water each! Their trailers weigh about 45 kg loaded, which is a huge load to drag on a pushbike, but it’s a small fraction of the load our support vehicle is carrying. They are riding around Australia to help raise awareness for the issues troubling Australia’s youth and causing teen suicide. I would ask you to read their story at www.ausyouthcycle.com.au and www.reachout.com. They asked if they could ride along with us for a few km to chat which of course we thought was a great idea. We ended up riding the rest of the afternoon together. I’m amazed at the speed Nick and Matt were riding given the load they are carrying. So we chatted and swapped stories for the rest of the afternoon’s ride, which turned out to be a long afternoon.
Along this stretch of road there isn’t much change in the scenery. We were told there was a council roadside camp - about the only half decent campsite to be found - about 84km along after Heartbreak Hotel. It would be a long but achievable day. Perhaps not so for the trailer boys, but that was a decision for them to make. At the 195km mark we (3 cyclists now) were more than ready for camp and with the sun setting in front of us we hoped to see Kim and Kev soon. Unfortunately the night just got darker, I switched on my pathetic little led flasher and we continued, watching for kangaroos and wallabies. Nick had a better front light which was later retrieved from his trailer and still onwards we continued. Eventually Kim drove out to find us and gave us the news that the camp was still another 12km away, but at least now we had the headlights of our support vehicle. We finally made camp a little after 8:00 pm and were pretty happy to stop and have a late dinner. For Matt the night was even worse. He had been dropped, which according to Nick is quite okay (their rules not ours!) and was back a good few km’s. Before Kim drove back with us she checked on Matt, to find that he was okay and would soldier on. Then 30 seconds (no exaggeration) after Kim turned to find us again Matt’s chain broke, so he then had to scooter along his 55kg plus rig. Eventually Kim went back to check on him, and he returned to the camp in the car. A very long day for Matt, sorry mate.
You may have read about an appeal to see if my Everyday Hero site is still working. I’m very happy to say that it has suddenly begun to work wonderfully! I’d want to thank all of you so much who so quickly helped out with donations – you’ve lifted the spirits of one Falcon who is now soaring again! Many of the donations came from Smiddy riders and really they’ve already given so much. My family, Shanno, Gordo, friends and workmates, plus others I thank you all.
As I send this email I’d like to add that when we later rode into Daly Waters and finally back into NextG coverage my phone was alive with support voicemail, texts and emails. I want to thank you all, too many to list here but you know who you are (friends and family). It really made my day.
Till next time,
Scotty the happy Falcon
PS. We’re back into reliable NextG coverage now so hopefully the journals will return to their regular delivery. Thanks for reading them!
PPS. A problem with me taking so long to write a journal entry is that Kevvy keeps topping up my glass of Jacobs Creek. It probably contributes to the problem...