Avon Downs to Mt Isa

Day 26: Friday August 5
It was a bit of an effort to get to Avon Downs, although once there I had a cheery morning tea with two couples heading west. They gave me a coffee ! I decided I needed music to help my way through the wind, and listened to 15 kilometres of Paul Kelly before lunch, and then to The Waifs all the way to the border.

James River, Avon Downs

Endless Grassland

The room in Camooweal is tin box so phone and Internet are outside in the midges.

I now have 2 days to Mount Isa and about to work out the best approach; there is no bread here in town, except the white stuff which makes me sick, so it will be a long haul on nuts, fruit, biscuits, and chocolate. I have a little fruit cake but not much more than the breakfast ration.

Day 27 - Saturday August 6
I met the Bike to the Border, Mt. Isa charity ride today; some 150 cyclists. Talked with lots, and became a minor celebrity for travelling the other way, into the wind. Two of them stopped to talk where I was camped, on their way home. I think they were quite envious; young, highly paid in the mines, but not all that happy.

When the mother ship returns... we will be waiting.

They don't care about us, and they will be here when we are gone....

Day 28 Sunday August 7
I had slept on a concrete slab under the shelter at a roadside stop, so I had no tent to pack, and was on the road at ten to seven. I stopped at the World War 11 Barkly Highway memorial, 40kms on from camp and had second lunch, filled the bidons, and sometime after there, plugged in Paul Kelly.

I have booked myself two nights into a tent site in Mt Isa, which is not all that pleasant, but I am clearly too tired in the head to keep riding tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to stock up on provisions and get a cheapie laptop on the Monday.

Ozzie the Emu who loved me... he was disappointed when he discovered I was not an emu!

The old Comet

The Mt Isa Hills are beautiful. I kept,asking myself how I could remember all this. Lots of photos. Kelly's music seemed appropriate. His Bradman Ballad sings about Dads taking their sons to the cricket, and I remembered a photo I have of Dad and Grandpop coming home from the cricket in the 1930s. I howled. This whole trips seems to have his ghost along. So much I would like to tell him, but can't.

Mt Isa Hills

I have not been liking passing some of the mob of cattle on the road. The cows ignore you, but some of the bulls are pretty toey. I just keep rolling along and try to be a hologram of a road train! Certainly not stopping to take photos!

Next stop is Cloncurry, and then two bush nights, then Winton.