it rained all night. I got up at about 4 or 5 AM to go to the toilet. There were people up and about. One camper near me was going up the hill as his tent was leaking, it had been wet from the night before and he needed to go into some where dry. There were people in the change rooms staying out of the rain. I was told that some people had been taken to the local town hall to have somewhere dry to sleep. The lakes below show the reasons why. As it turned out where I was camped stayed relatively dry as it was well drained. So while it was raining there was about 1 cm of flowing water.
When we got up the rain had decreased and soon stopped. In the breakfast queue, I was told that the ride was likely to be called off by one of the volunteers. I passed on the message. They were waiting for a road report from the Police. So after I finished, I waited to head an announcement. They came and said that the ride was called off, that they did not know where we would be going to (later I learned that the camp site were were supposed to go to in Biloela was flooded) and that we should pack up, load the luggage trucks and wait for another announcement.
Later we were told we would still be going to Biloela. We were to put out cycles on trucks and then catch buses. As we were in the country we had to wait for school buses to become free from their school runs. With some others, I put the trike in the queue and then caught a bus. We were passed by the first of the bike trucks. They were expected to do three runs, but it seems that they only did one run and then went down to the pub. On the way we passed some people who had ridden anyway and drove through some running water. The first buses had to go the long way, but by the time we came through the roads were reopened. One of the people who did ride said that they had to carry their bikes over their heads through wast deep water at one point. I was a bit disappoint not to be able to do the longest ride, but I understand the circumstances that the organisers found themselves in. Later we were told that creeks were running that had not run in 10 years. And one of the problems is that in Queensland they do not build roads above the 100 year flood level, they build them with flood ways.
All in all I was very impressed with the organisation of the whole event. It was the first time that they have ever had to cancel a ride. And the effort to move everyone was massive, but handled in a very impressive way. We all moved. All the riders pitched in and helped a little here and there. My own trike did not arrive until 10 PM on the sag wagon, they had to send the luggage trucks back a second time to get more bikes but we got there in the end. When the luggage trucks arrived and also when the bike trucks arrived, the riders pitched in to unload them very quickly.
I walked the few km into town and did some shopping and bought a cheap tarp to used as a front veranda, which turned out to be a very good idea. In the evening we had a great sunset and it was red. So everyone was saying red sunset at night, cyclists delight. Dinner was good again I sat around with the T-Bug peoples.
- 0.32 km,
- 2.68 km/h ave,
- 0:7:27 move,
- 9 km/h max