Not many photos from this day. Not enough really, but it was raining lightly all day, so the camera spent most of it’s time in the water proof bag. I heard the rain falling overnight. When I awoke in the morning I found my thongs floating at the height of the grass in front of my tent. The tent was in about 2 cm of water. Luckily it is a new tent and the tub is still watertight as my mobile and a few other things were sitting on the tent floor. Things would change in the arrangement of the tent after that. I put things in the water proof bags I had brought. I had pitched my tent in a very small hollow in the ground. Luckily I was in the shallow part. You could not see it when the ground was dry. A few others were not so lucky with the depth of the water or their tents.
I grabbed breakfast and packed up. I now had two bags. The wet things bag (my day pack) and the dry things bag, my backpack. The wet things bag contained wet things. The towel, the tent, thongs, and other odds and sods. I packed the tent with the fly still attached. I think that this helps when putting the tent up when it is wet, but it is not really waterproof. I headed out. At first it was flat. We crossed the tropic of Capricorn and I had my photo taken and partook of the pineapple lollies being handed out. After we crossed the Bruce highway, it was rolling hills. Slowly we gained altitude. After morning tea, we headed into the range. Eventually, we came to the razorback. The road sign said it was 17% and other information stated it was 300 meters of the steepest gradient. I was huffing and puffing at the top, but I made it up in one go. My speed was down to 3 km/h though on a slippery bit I slowed to 2 km/h. I was latter told numbers between 19 and 29 of people out of the 1000+ riders who made it up that incline. Though my legs would pay the price for the next few days. After that it was mostly down hill into the camping ground, though all the street in mount morgan are steep. Apparently it has the worst crime rate of any place in qld after Logan.
It took me some time and questions to find luggage truck 2. It was down the back. I found Hugh and camped with him. It was at the top of the flood plain, so I was a bit worried about flooding. I was on a little bit of a slope.
It was a half day, so we had lunch at the camp ground. I sat around in one of the big tents chatting. I am quite tired. The rain continues in little bursts. The boy’s beside me who were heading off on a pub crawl, said that the main storm will come from the west. It has already hit further south and the have recorded some of the biggest thunderstorms ever. Let’s try and not think about flood plains. I looked at the radar and the rain had mostly passed us by.
I am not really sure what happened to the rest of the day. I did not do anything. I must have had dinner.
- 58.7 km
- max grade 17%,
- 15.29 km/h ave,
- 3:47:53 time,
- 44kmh max,