May 14, 2024
Day 11: Eungella Dam to Bowen river
After I packed up, went back to a now not so windy windy side for breakfast and had a shower, it was close to 9 before we left. We immediately had to climb up a pretty big hill to the same transmission tower gabby had visited yesterday. I felt fine about only doing that climb once. It did have good views of the caravan park below but I didn’t want to stop to take a photo.
Once over the top of the hill, the view westward was amazing.
We scooted along the ridge line for a while enjoying the views on the downhill and grinding up the hills, on quite a good road.
I was wondering why it said 4wd only when we came to a turn off, straight ahead was a no through Urannah road and left was signposted to Collinsville down two wheel tracks.
The views were still incredible down into the valley and across to the ridge line on the other side, but it was hard to appreciate them whilst riding down the steep, rocky track. We definitely could not have ridden up it so luckily we were not going south. Gabby said at the bottom that it’s all about weight movement not steering. I thought it was about squeezing the brakes so tight I think I sprained my fingers and hoping for the best. Eventually we made it down to a flattish section. I was a bit nervy after that downhill, but we had about 10k of gently downhill hard packed black soil farm track to follow to settle my nerves. It was delightful. The cows down this side are brown and white not Brahmans. we passed Blenheim station homestead which looked nice up on a small ridge but was surrounded by outbuildings and trash and very very dry.
Soon after that we turned back onto the Turrawulla road. I guess it was worth it to go up to the dam but I hadn’t fully appreciated that the national trail ended up on the same exact road after an extremely hilly and hairy deviation.
Anyway back on the Turrawulla road it was quite rocky and undulating through dry dry stony hills. It seems crazy that we’re going to detour for too much water just north of here when it looks so dry. We crossed into the Whitsunday region and the road got more gravelly, less rocky, immediately before the Little Bowen River. I guess there’s a lot of water in that.
We were still feeling good so kept riding a bit before lunch. Just after the river, I saw another national trail marker pointing off down a 4wd track to keep horses closer to the river and studiously ignored it in favour of the gravel road. The road had a downhill bent but we did climb a little bit to a nice view back over the mountains for lunch.
We ate the last Brisbane carrot and a weird high protein dehydrated pesto dish. We were just camped under some brigalow which wasn’t the nicest and it was pretty cloudy so we continued on quickly.
After another small range with good views, the road started to become more trafficked (2 cars in 25km, matching the 2 in the previous 60). We had passed Exmoor station earlier in the day and now passed Dartmoor.
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We made it to the Bowen Development road about 4 and went down the southern side of the bridge to the river but it was pretty weedy and dispiriting so came back up and crossed the bridge. Gabby would’ve kept pushing the Collinsville but i was stressed about running out of daylight. Then we went down to the northern side of the river and I stressed about crocodiles so maybe we should’ve kept riding. Anyway, we had a quick swim and got water without getting eaten then retreated back up the hill to camp on a little layover between the road and the coal rail line.
Today's ride: 90 km (56 miles)
Total: 742 km (461 miles)
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