The Beer is Fizzy, but the Land is Flat
Australia, let it be known, is bugger-all flat. Even after coming off the Marlborough stretch the road from Airlie to Bowen was pancake flat. Table-top flat. Calibrate a an Ace-Hardware-level-to-it flat. As I had in the mountains, as I passed by the field upon unending field of sugarcane on the road up to Bowen just how necessary it really was that I had those two gears (the top and the bottom that I'd used so profusely in the mountains) since now I was hardly ever moving out of the one gear smack in the middle.
Thankfully the road to Bowen had nice wide shoulder, and I was blessed with what had to be the best Queensland day I'd seen yet. The temperature was about 75 degrees F, sunny, and dry to the last kilometer. I rolled into Bowen about 4pm and put up at the local pub, a place where there were a heap of other backpackers there for fruit-picking work.
I arrived feeling good, and had a couple of bundy's and rum with a few of the other backpackers. The main pub in Bowen also has a massive pokies - the Australian version of slot machines - room, and I dutifully dropped a few coins to compensate for having been lucky enough to buy drinks at half price.
Only one thing got in the way of an otherwise great day. The evening concluded (or failed to conclude) with having drawn a bunkmate that night who snored like a sick cow. And believe me, I had passed a lot of cows by this point and knew what a sick one sounded like. Don, a pleasant bloke by day, breathed not so much in that deep rhythmic and even peaceful way that some snorers do but in a way that sort of went "grraahhhhiiiiiiiiggggrriiiiiiiaaaaayyyyyybbb," with each syllable taking slightly longer or not as long as the one before it, adding an infuriating unpredictability to the whole enterprise. In some sense it was a good thing I needed to get up early for a long day ahead.
I got out of bed at 5:00am and shuffled off on my earliest start yet, 5:45am. It was slated to be a longer day than usual. The longest ride of the trip in fact, taking me all the way to Townsville, approximately 140 miles. I had breakfast at the only place in little Bowen that was open that time of the morning (technically the shop wasn't open, but the Aussie woman inside was kind enough to let me graze since she couldn't believe a tourist really showing up at 5:30 in the morning). I picked out a hearty basket of fruit and rode off with the rising sun warming the road as I went west along the Bruce Highway towards Townsville.
The day was uneventful but for the fact that the Bruce turned out to be under constant construction. I passed at least a dozen road crews, which, believe it or not, were actually a pleasant change of pace if for no other reason than the need to concentrate on something other than the steady churn of trucks on the road. I was still riding incredibly flat terrain, and standing on the pedals periodically just because changing gears felt good, and novel, even if totally unecessary. And I passed a vast number of cane fields. And cane trains. And cane trucks. And cane processing facilities. If I had any doubts about how Queensland made its money, I had my answer now. Cane (and fruit). But mainly cane.
Townsville turned out to be a very pleasant town. I checked into a small backpackers, and, to celebrate the relatively long day, had a pubcrawl with a couple of the gents at the backpackers. We got back late, I made a quick dinner out of takeaway noodles, and turned in again with only two days separating me from the final haul to Cairns.
Thankfully the road to Bowen had nice wide shoulder, and I was blessed with what had to be the best Queensland day I'd seen yet. The temperature was about 75 degrees F, sunny, and dry to the last kilometer. I rolled into Bowen about 4pm and put up at the local pub, a place where there were a heap of other backpackers there for fruit-picking work.
I arrived feeling good, and had a couple of bundy's and rum with a few of the other backpackers. The main pub in Bowen also has a massive pokies - the Australian version of slot machines - room, and I dutifully dropped a few coins to compensate for having been lucky enough to buy drinks at half price.
Only one thing got in the way of an otherwise great day. The evening concluded (or failed to conclude) with having drawn a bunkmate that night who snored like a sick cow. And believe me, I had passed a lot of cows by this point and knew what a sick one sounded like. Don, a pleasant bloke by day, breathed not so much in that deep rhythmic and even peaceful way that some snorers do but in a way that sort of went "grraahhhhiiiiiiiiggggrriiiiiiiaaaaayyyyyybbb," with each syllable taking slightly longer or not as long as the one before it, adding an infuriating unpredictability to the whole enterprise. In some sense it was a good thing I needed to get up early for a long day ahead.
I got out of bed at 5:00am and shuffled off on my earliest start yet, 5:45am. It was slated to be a longer day than usual. The longest ride of the trip in fact, taking me all the way to Townsville, approximately 140 miles. I had breakfast at the only place in little Bowen that was open that time of the morning (technically the shop wasn't open, but the Aussie woman inside was kind enough to let me graze since she couldn't believe a tourist really showing up at 5:30 in the morning). I picked out a hearty basket of fruit and rode off with the rising sun warming the road as I went west along the Bruce Highway towards Townsville.
The day was uneventful but for the fact that the Bruce turned out to be under constant construction. I passed at least a dozen road crews, which, believe it or not, were actually a pleasant change of pace if for no other reason than the need to concentrate on something other than the steady churn of trucks on the road. I was still riding incredibly flat terrain, and standing on the pedals periodically just because changing gears felt good, and novel, even if totally unecessary. And I passed a vast number of cane fields. And cane trains. And cane trucks. And cane processing facilities. If I had any doubts about how Queensland made its money, I had my answer now. Cane (and fruit). But mainly cane.
Townsville turned out to be a very pleasant town. I checked into a small backpackers, and, to celebrate the relatively long day, had a pubcrawl with a couple of the gents at the backpackers. We got back late, I made a quick dinner out of takeaway noodles, and turned in again with only two days separating me from the final haul to Cairns.
posted by eric at
3:26 AM
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