Last night a truck driver took his fatigue break, parked his truck opposite the Goomeri Showgrounds and (I assume) slept soundly in his sleeping bay. Alas, the numerous cattle on the back of his truck did not sleep, preferring instead to tap dance with their hard little hoofs on the metal deck of the truck for the entertainment of those trying to sleep in the tent over the road. They kept the show going until the truck left and the showground sleepers heaved a sigh of relief and grabbed what shut-eye they could.
We woke bleary-eyed to heavy frost. Thank goodness for the sun! The toaster in all its purple glory went unused: we couldn't bring ourselves to buy a whole loaf of bread merely to toast a slice or two and ditch the rest.
Sun's up! Rise and shine... nope. Let's stay in this warm sleeping bag a minute longer.
The old fella from the Aussie themed caravan started his day at 7 by crowing like a rooster, and proceeded to make friends with us while we drank our (toastless) morning cup of tea and waited for the sun to melt the frost on the tent. "I don't want to go home because then I'll be locked down and I don't like that. So I've been here for two weeks. You're heading to Kilkiven? The pub's really good there! There's a cafe too. And a big horse ride once a year: its famous for it. They had a competition to name it - settled on calling it 'The Kilkiven Horse Ride'. Haha!"
We rolled out of Goomeri straight onto a rail trail surfaced with old railway ballast and that set the scene for the whole day. There was lots of downhill, the weather was beautiful, we saw black cockatoos, kangaroos, and lots of nervous cows and we did all of it at 8kph over bumpbumpbump!
Getting excited because there was only 20km to go. All downhill. Which took us 4 hours.
Old railway ballast causing us pain and slowness. It was about here that my brake cable snapped and the top attachment for my tripod rattled off. I can work with one brake for a day or two, but loss of tripod functionality was traumatic.
All that bumpbumpbump was exhausting let me tell you - I'm not used to concentrating for more than 30 seconds at a time now that I've (almost) stopped working.
...and finally, Kilkiven. Railway ballast to the bitter end.
We're camped tonight in the free camp at Kilkiven where the toilets are flushable and for $5 the pub will let you use the upstairs shower. It's quite a nice shower too apart from the drifts of previous users' whiskers in the hand basin.
Speaking of the pub, they very kindly let us charge our phones in exchange for buying dessert. Spending time in the pub is very entertaining, but I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.
Home for the night: Kilkiven free camp. Pub making cameo appearance in the background.
