I haven’t updated the blog for the last few days mainly because I have been cycling lots and been tired in the evenings. I will try and summarises what we have been up to the last few days. We have also met some interesting people.

We stayed in Townsville with a guy from warm showers. He was very friendly and let us into his house on his lunch break. We did a tiny bit of route planning and some washing.

When he got back from work he kindly cooked us dinner and we watched some tv. We watched a bit of a netball game which was the first time I have ever watched it. It seemed very fast, and a bit confusing. After this we watch Bear Grylls, which seemed quite ridiculous but made for good TV.

I also learnt that all the frogs we saw were in fact toads not frogs. They were Cane Toads brought into Australia in the 1930s to try and control the Cane Beetle population, they liked other things more and have turned into a bit of a pest.

After Townsville we had quite a long day to Home Hill. On the way we met out first touring cyclist, a french guy, we stopped and chatted for a bit but he seemed to want to press on. The wind seems to be get worse and worse each day. Everyone we meet seems to know about the wind direction. Shame nobody told us before we left! Maybe we should have done some research first but never mind!

The Home Hill rest area was very nice with hot and cold showers and BBQs for free. There were quite a few people drawn to this high quality facility. A girl from Belgium who was driving around in a van, she kindly cooked us second dinner. A Canadian who had just retired and was taking a year to travel around also in a van, and a guy who was living in his car studying medicine. It was interesting to met all these different people doing different things. There were an Austrlian couple who were travelling around as well from a town we will get to in a few days they offered us a tour but we will be arriving before they get back.

Following the night a Home Hill we got up fairly early and had bacon and eggs for breakfast not a great pre cycling breakfast but tasty, we did this because of the free BBQs.

We had another long day from Home Hill to Bowen. I am not sure if it was this day or the day before that we saw what I think was a pump or engine that was made in Lincoln England it was nice to see this in a strange sort of way.

Bowen was a little of highway one. It felt a little strange cycling on another road and cycling a small distance that didn’t get us to the final destination.

The town seemed fairly strange and quite hard to describe we didn’t see much of it. We headed back to the highway 1 and carried on to a rest area. There were a lot of signs saying no camping so when Cliff was looking around he found a man who was living in this caravan nearby we camped near him sort of on a beach. It was dark when we cooked which made it a little difficult but okay it also rained a little bit. Soon after dinner we went to bed.

We had a bit of a lie in till 6:30 as we were both fairly tired. We went back to the rest area to cook breakfast. After a late start we got off toward Poserpine. It was a bit rainy and windy as normal. On our way we met another touring cyclist this time from Australia we had a good long chat with him in the rain. He had a lot less equipment than us but seemed to be doing well. It goes to show you don’t need all that much.

He helped inspire the afternoon ride which went well and we did a few fairly quick sections, when the wind died down.

We are now at a very nice park in Poserpine where we plan to camp there are no no camping signs.

So far so good.