(Written by Dave)

Up early at the hostel – had to wait for the kitchen to officially open before we could eat brekkie. We had a completely random meal with all kinds of left-overs that we could not take with us. Too much food to eat but a good meal for a planned long day of over 110ks. We left around 8:30 and made it through town pretty easy. There was lots of traffic coming into town but not much going our way. Our first experience of the Capricorn Highway was pretty good as we had a relatively decent shoulder all day. We had a couple more of the massive wide-load trucks that we had to get completely off the road for – not a worry missing these when they are preceded by a police escort.

Serious wide load

We had a nice tailwind in the morning and were making good time until Nancy spotted camels on the side of the road. I was not paying enough attention. I read a book a few years ago by another round Australia cyclist – the author wanted badly to see camels – we lucked out seeing them in our second month. There was a fence on side of the road, so we are not really sure if they were wild camels or not.

Camels - wild, maybe

There were few stops today. Most of the towns on the map are just “localities”, meaning there is no town or shops. We stopped at Westwood as they had a pub (only) and with luck, just across the road a citrus stand. We couldn’t carry a full bag of anything they were selling but purchased 8 fresh tangerine – great for food and thirst. With no other shops/pubs on the route, we probably did not eat enough for 110ks – we’ll have to start making lunch on the side of the road as we get further west.

Orange stand harvest

There was a man selling pies out of a van only 10ks out of Rocky – those pies sure sounded good as we got into the early afternoon but we were way too full from brekkie to have anything when we went by him. He said he had been doing the ‘Pie Van’ from that same location for 14 years! Several folks stopped while we were there, including a big truck, so the truckies certainly know where he is located.

Roadside pie man

We had some road construction today – the “lollipop” ladies are very nice to us. They make sure that all traffic is stopped while we get through the closed sections. They are all pretty interested in our story and before long everyone on the road crew radio knows what we are up to. We get lots of waves from all the workers. Today we finally got a “lollipop” photo – note purple shoes and flower – it is a woman.

Road work stop lady

The scenery is starting to change already. There are not nearly as many trees and some pretty big open vistas. The hills on the road all have pretty even grades as well. There was a hill that had 6 and 7% warning signs, not to hard for us now. We spotted a number of Boab trees – they make for nice photos – we didn’t expect to see them so soon. I’m not sure if they are full of water or not but they do make one think of water.

Boab tree

We made it to Duaringa around 2:15 – both quite hungry. There is only one place to stay here – a free camp set up in a town park. There are lots of caravans here, many of whom want to talk to us and here the story. We came through to check out the park but then went to the local BP station that had a restaurant first before we set up camp. We made short work of an egg and bacon burger each, plus a litre of milk and a milkshake – I said that we were hungry.

Free camp

Eventually we made it to the park and got set up. The showers were great and lots of folks stopped by – it is hard for them to believe that we get all this stuff on our bikes – maybe we have too much stuff. One guy asked us where our refrigerator was – hmm. Pretty tired after our second longest day. Nancy helped compliment our dinner with a giant bag of fresh green beans that she bought from the lady living near the park. Shorter day tomorrow – wind forecast is for more of the same – yeah!