May 21, 2024
Day 18: blue water springs to Greenvale
It was even colder last night. I am close to regretting I sent my thermal top home. There was also a heavy dew which was interesting after such a dry night in Charters Towers.
The campsite is by the creek which is nice but shady in the morning, so we packed everything else up by about 8, then went to get a coffee in the roadhouse while our tents finally caught sun. It was one of the better coffees I’ve had this trip.
Once we packed them up, Gabby discovered his back tyre was soft again but decided just to pump it up and head off.
Almost immediately we climbed out of the floodplains into the hills, many of which have interesting stone/cliff formations at the top.
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the hills at least made it more interesting riding and we made quite good time to the Clarke River and Mt Fox turnoff.
the Mt Fox turn off heads in to where the National Trail is, but we stuck to the bitumen and headed further west.
We came down to next to the old Yabulu - Greenvale rail alignment which still looked quite gravelly and good for riding, except for the odd fence across it. All the bridges were still there but with no fences so you’d want to ride straight.
We stopped for a borderline lunch at 11:30 at a roadside rest stop but called it smoko and kept riding into more hills.
But the road mostly followed the railway alignment so it wasn’t too steep. We stopped for a roadside lunch where there was some shade. The days haven’t been too hot so the Charters Towers cheese is holding up well. Gabby is doing a great job managing the sprouts although there may be a break in the production line tomorrow.
It was quite hot after lunch but still not too steep. I think they’ve done the road recently cause there’s lots of big new cuttings to take the edge of the hills.
We rolled into Greenvale a bit before 4, and found the caravan park completely deserted. The pub has free camping however which is quite popular with the grey nomads despite there not being any facilities. The servo down the road has a shower though for $5.
There still seems to be a sizeable workers camp, but we’re not sure what they’re doing. The rest of the town has a bit of a ghost town vibe.
But the pub does pizza so we enjoyed that with a beer. Then we found out that there’s no potable water in town so we’re filtering water to last us through to Pinnarendi the day after tomorrow.
Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 1,271 km (789 miles)
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