Day 05 – Tue, 6 Jul to Barcaldine

Today is the first day for 3 days that I have had internet connection. So I have updated the blog posts for days 3, 4 and now 5. So have a look at those as well.

Well another transit day from Carnarvon Gorge to Barcaldine covering around 550km. This took us north through Springsure to Emerald and then due west to Barcaldine; roughly due west of Rockhampton.

The weather was overcast all day but reaching 25C – tonight we are in T–shirts but the locals are all rugged up against the cold.

I didn’t appreciate that there was a slight range that we would cross – Drummond Range and when I looked at the GPS elevations that we crossed today it really surprised me – we notice a sign also that we had crossed the Great Diving Range – elevation 444m. The eastern side was more wooded and after we crossed to the western it started to become more scrubby. The really red soils have started to appear.

We passed through such town names as Alpha and Jericho. I just had to pull up in Jericho and ask Rod whether he saw their drive-in movie site – it was a grassed area in the middle of town, about he size of two Sydney house sizes, with a small white screen and possibly enough speakers for say 15 cars. A real find in this small town bringing back memories of when I worked in a drive-in theatre in Sydney whilst still at high school

We caught up with three other bikers about 45 km east of Barcaldine. The two Yamaha cruiser riders were filling their tanks from 5litre petrol containers – and the Triumph rider was just waiting. One guy was from Mannering Park (Central Coast), who picked up the other rider from Moree, before picking up the final friend from Hervey Bay. They are heading for Darwin. I expect we will see a few more riders as we progress.

Rod managed to miss a trio of brolgas which decided to cross the road – One could ask him “Why did the brolga cross the road? Answer – To test Rod’s braking ability and make sounds similar to that of a crow.”

I paid a visit to see the Tree of Knowledge tonight, and although the actual tree died many years ago, the iconic structure is really dramatic – and you simply cannot miss it right in the middle of town. The internal structure shows large hanging logs which resemble the shearing combs reflecting the beginning of the labour movement by the shearer strikes in the early 20th century.

More tomorrow - going to bed now.