May 9, 2024
Day 6: Marlborough to Clarke Creek
Today was even less navigationally challenging than the past two days - almost all on one road which we’ll be on tomorrow as well!
After a fairly loud night next to the Bruce highway, we had to divvy up all the food. Because Linda can’t make it til at least Eungella, we decided to send some back, along with some warm clothes and egg cartons we’ve realised we probably won’t need. Gabby’s daughter Izzy is going to be getting a very exiting package in the mail!
That meant we couldn’t leave until 9 but of course it was after 9:30 by the time we finally rolled into town. The post office is very cute, and the little shop was quite well stocked although not a huge range of fresh fruit or veggies. Lucky we have so much dehydrated stuff! I started a coffee trend so we didn’t get off until about 10:30.
Dave tried to take a right turn onto the Bruce so I guess there were some navigational challenges but once we got that sorted we were onto the right route, back out the way we came in yesterday.
We’ve deviated from the national trail primarily because I read a blog where they did a lot of research and talking to people and decided to take this road too. So we’re following the Marlborough-Sabrina road for 185 km.
It took a little while to get back into the headspace of riding on a bitumen road, there’s much less to think about and I found myself about 10k in thinking “I’m bored”. It didn’t help that the scenery was quite dispiriting. The roadside verges were alright but most of the trees in the paddocks seemed to be dead.
soon enough though we made it to some stony ridge country where the trees were pretty scraggly but still alive. The visibility was worse though and there were a lot of wind farm trucks and urea streaming past. The country improved as we climbed into the ranges. We saw five emus in a paddock.
We had another good lunch directly on the side of the road just before the climb up to the top of the range. It was not very long though and we had the wind turbines at the top drawing us on. Or maybe that was just me.
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We then hurtled down the other side of the range, except I kept stopping to take photos of the construction.
The traffic dropped off considerably after the wind farm and the road flattened out. It started to rain a bit so it was quite peaceful with soft light, although it did make me feel like we were not going to make camp in time.
As it was, we made it at 4:45 to Clarke Creek which has a school and a camp draft ground. The camp draft ground has a big open shed with lots of picnic tables, a tap and working power points. Unfortunately the toilets are locked but you can’t have everything.
It has been raining reasonably heavily since we arrived so it’s very nice to have an undercover camp.
Gabby braved the downpipe for a shower but it was too cold for me. Maybe I was too hasty in sending back my warm clothes…
Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 421 km (261 miles)
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