May 24, 2024
Day 20: Valley of Lagoons road to Pinnarendi station
this morning we woke up and it was raining. Rain! In the dry season! What the hell? Luckily it wasn’t too heavy so we were still able to have breakfast outside but there was no chance of getting the tents dry! I had been carrying too much water yesterday so discarded some this morning to fit my behemoth 10L bladder into my pannier.
Gabby discovered his rear tyre was flat again so swapped out the tube. I think he’s sold on the Schwalbe Marathons!
It was also a strong easterly as we headed off up the hill. To start with it was just very gently up like yesterday, then there was more of an actual climb, still not very steep though. We got to the top and at least there was a view back to show we had climbed. Also a semi trailer sounded very sick as it came up behind us so must be a hill. Wiki camps tells you all the locations of the gravel pits so we stopped in one at the top of the hill to listen to the semi. It had mostly stopped raining and I was probably wetter inside my raincoat than if I hadn’t been wearing it so I finally took it off.
The next 10ks or so were still a bit up hills, although not as much so the country was flattening out into very grassy savannah.
Finally we climbed a final rise and got a view over the other side to the north which seemed a bit drier with more small hills and headed off down. The wind was still strong across us though so progress wasn’t rapid.
but soon enough we reached the junction of the Kennedy and the Gulf Development Roads! This links up my Queensland rides, because when we rode from Cairns to Darwin almost exactly 9 years ago, we passed here. They’ve built toilets there now. Progress.
We continued on to the picnic are and short walk at 40 mile scrub, a remnant semi-evergreen vine thicket in a dry eucalypt surround. Unfortunately it’s been invaded by lantana and then burnt a lot on the eastern side of the road but the little bit near the picnic area is nice. After lunch, we rode through some more sections that looked less fire affected. Hard to tell how far the lantana goes in from the road.
Pinnarendi station is just after the 40 mile scrub national park finishes so we turned in only 1k into the headwind. I was hoping it would be pizza night but it’s barramundi night so we’re having dehydrated Dahl. We have however booked in for a cooked breakfast tomorrow!
Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,405 km (873 miles)
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6 months ago