May 15, 2024
Day 12: Bowen River to Bowen River Hotel
Another day travelling downstream along a river!
We got through the night without being disturbed or eaten by a crocodile so that’s a win. The trains were not too noisy either.
Once we packed up, we made it into Collinsville in only about an hour and 20 minutes so we could probably have done it last night. Collinsville has a big free camp area across the road from the workers club which could have been quite nice.
The houses on the way in were quite depressing, still looking pretty dry, and the Main Street was quiet but we pulled up at the Pit Pony Tavern which served us tea and coffee.
Dad had sent me an unidentified screenshot that the dam road was open but the TMR call centre and website said it was still closed. To settle this, we called the Ravenswood caravan park who confirmed it is open, they had an email from SunWater to prove it. So the original route is back on!
We stocked up at the Foodworks and hardware for more gas, then went back across to the Pit Pony for a veggie burger. Both the burger and the coffee were pretty average but the outdoor area was very convivial for route planning.
Just when we were about to decamp, Gabby realised he had the first flat of the tour! So we had to stay a bit longer fixing it in the outdoor area. There were a couple of sclerolena thorns in his tyre but my Schwalbe marathons are holding strong so far.
By this time, the pharmacy had reopened after lunch so we went there to get hydralyte and more sunscreen, and then finally headed out of town.
The road climbed up to the Strathmore substation and about four massive solar farms, which takes a while to go past for an engineer and electrician!
The road was a bit corrugated but still quite fast to Strathmore station, with more traffic than we had seen before, about ten cars an hour!
Strathmore station seemed to be a big and well managed homestead and after resting in the shade of a fig tree we pushed on the final 8k to the hotel.
The road was very nice after that on the floodplain leading to the river.
Unfortunately the bridge over the river washed away in its first wet season so we had to go all the way down to the causeway to climb back up to the Bowen River Hotel.
They’ve restored the old pub faithfully which means the verandah is nice but the interior is pretty dark. We had a nice beer on the balcony before setting up camp out the back on a grassy lawn with prime access to the donga bathrooms.
There are two backpackers here, a Chilean guy and a fairly flamboyant English guy who was cooking which made for a funny little team, combined with the vehemently anti-Labour, anti-regulation publican and his wife. Apparently the stop Adani convoy got kicked out of here which is not that surprising.
We had another beer watching the sunset then another fairly average burger for dinner but they did have coopers green.
We stayed at the pub til closing time, which was probably about 7 because we were the only ones there! As I went to sleep I heard some rustling in the garden cutting heap, and saw an echidna rootling around in there.
Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 802 km (498 miles)
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