May 7, 2024
Day 4: Fitzroy river to Glenroy Crossing
In the National Trail maps, these two campsites are named differently but really we just travelled about 60k downstream on the Fitzroy River today.
Last night, I looked up to see a big spider on the mesh inner of my tent, this morning I unearthed it underneath my water bladder and found it only had four legs. I don’t know what had happened to it before it got into my tent.
Our breakfasting spot overlooking the river was lovely in the early morning. Again it took a while to pack up, I maintain it’s fine to pack up a wet tent but we don’t have that far to go today. This is one of the days we split when the others decided my programming was too ambitious. And look it was nicer not to be pushing so hard.
We rode back out to the Rosewood Road and turned left. It was floodplain county for a while before we got into the hills.
We stopped at the top of one of the first ones to look back over the plains towards Stanwell and if’s some white cheeked(/faced) babblers through Gabbys bird app. I can’t remember what they were exactly but it was more successful than trying to ID the frog that hopped into our kitchen last night.
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There was a nice section through a small range following a creek which is the kind of road I love although I wished it wasn’t quite so much uphill today as it was already quite hot.
The transmission lines caught us again - maybe this is Moonlight Range?
We had a bet on how many cars we would see - at 3 (me), 6 (Gabby) and 9 (Dave) but we didn’t see the first one on the road until lunch time at the next National Trail campsite - a dry creek bed that was nonetheless shady for our gourmet sandwiches (cheese, tomato, avocado, cucumber and sprouts) and a rest in the hottest part of the day.
After lunch was very slow on a pretty rough road into a bit of a headwind with only cows for company. We did climb up to nice views of the mountains though.
Finally we made it to the second turn of the day, onto a road with much more favourable winds, fewer hills and more recent roadworks, so the pace picked up. Unfortunately we encountered the fourth vehicle, a big cattle truck, in the roadwork section but it slowed down for us. Not long after that we made it to the Fitzroy River again at Glenroy Crossing.
There are croc warning signs so we camped on the side of the road back up the hill a bit, not as nice as last night’s banktop spot though. I collected some water (and algae) from a shallow part of the river. Dave went in for a swim on the northern side while Gabby and I splashed in a little separated pool. Dave was fine but the sixth car that went past, did tell us that they often see a big croc there. I did see a big pig running off into the bushes near our camp so hoping for no animal interactions tonight.
There was a lot of debate about time frames and vehicle types but in the end I think Dave won the car bet.
We enjoyed a dehydrated tvp bolognaise for dinner. Linda also sent hot chocolate powder and milk powder so this is really living.
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 274 km (170 miles)
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