As I mentioned in Fridays post, I’ve taken off on another Australian road trip. I also mentioned some concerns about the wild weather heading towards us over the weekend, so let’s get that out of the way first.
The girls were lucky with the weather, not a drop of rain on the Saturday. They weren’t quite so lucky with the walk though, there were some incredibly challenging hills. Like this one…
Walking 55 km is quite some challenge, even on flat ground. This particular walk had some quite ridiculous hills and it finished at Mount Coot-tha. Yes, ‘Mount’. Just what you need after having walked 50 km, another big hill.
Two years ago when the girls did this walk, it took them 18 1/2 hours, this year they completed it in just over 16 hours. An incredible achievement and over $2000 raised for charity.
Excellent stuff!
This time, Mrs Bob has said definitely, most definitely, never ever again. She is limping and hobbling at the moment and hasn’t been able to take our dog for a walk since Friday.
Of course, the rain did show up on Sunday, so the entire first leg of my road trip was spent driving through the downpour. Here’s how my dash cam saw it…
I drove over quite a few creeks during my 450+ kilometre journey, but fortunately didn’t come across any floodwaters. So I got away with it as well. Other parts of Queensland weren’t quite so lucky; there’s been flash flooding, roofs ripped off of houses, trees felled and power cut to thousands of houses.
Incidentally, Mount Coot-tha, where the girls walk finished, apparently received something like 100 mm or maybe as much as 170 mm of rain on Sunday. If that had happened on the Saturday, I’m sure it would have made the walk impossible.
The really good news though was that drought stricken outback Queensland received an absolute drenching. Charleville had its wettest June day in its history and heavy rain falls covered most of the states central and west regions.
The farmers and graziers are smiling, it’s rain they very much needed.
My road trip
It’s been a very long time since I’d went on my first Australian road trip, here is the route for my second trip. Starting at Brisbane, I will be driving to:
- Bundaberg
- Gladstone
- Rockhampton
- Mackay
- Airlie Beach
- Townsville
- Cardwell
- Mission Beach
- Cairns
- Port Douglas
Then, of course, I will need to drive back again. A round trip of over 4000 km, or 2500 miles, over 19 days. As I write this, I’m currently in a motel in Gladstone and tomorrow I’ll be making my way towards Rockhampton.
Hopefully I’ll be back on Wednesday with further updates on my travels.
Update: on 11 July after returning from my road trip, I began writing a series of blog posts about it. They are all now finished, so, why not…
Come with me on my road trip
This road trip starts here, to go on the journey with me, please start at Bundaberg, Queensland: First Stop on My Australian Road Trip. At the bottom of that article, you’ll find a link to my next stop. You can continue moving north up the Queensland coast with with me by clicking further links at the bottom of all the posts in the series.
Let’s hit the road.
