Day 355 | Herberton/Atherton turnoff: via the back road, obviously

70 km | zzOz total: 9858 km

What do you do when you reach the highest town in Queensland, ie, Ravenshoe at 920 m, 3000 feet, well, obviously try to find the highest road in Queensland, gotta be nearby.

The day started as a roller coaster but as it progressed the downhill component was slowly eliminated and it became a long grind. Not as if I haven’t done some preparation for this, I just kept plugging away.

It’s been rather gloomy weather for the last 4 days, misty drizzle, coolish, damp, dank, all of the above. Kinda reminds me of touring Tasmania in autumn the only major difference is that it is not bone chillingly cold.

I’ve taken it all in my stride, it’s Day 40 since I left Alice today so the body knows what to do, but I must admit after about 6 hours of treadling today, average speed less than 11kph and that includes the early morning downhill manic bursts, I was starting to feel drained by it all.

I met a guy at a bakery while I was munching an apple turnover, the number of customers just dragged me in your honour, a good indication of reasonable quality if the Ravenshoe locals flock there, who had done some extensive bike touring in the past: Italy to Switzerland via some high pass; the Haast Pass in NZ despite it being closed by deep snow; and, most entertainingly, biking up Cape York 20 years ago, taking a machete, and two car inner tubes to paddle his gear across the croc infested Jardine River, (now a less fraught ferry), he’s a bit wiser on that one and is surprised he’s still around after that fairly serious adventure.

He advised the best route through to Mareeba, basically avoiding Herberton, a hole in his opinion, expressed succinctly and emphatically, just power straight to Atherton and enjoy the dangerously fun downhills once I’m past the windmills up there on the top of Queensland.

I could cope with some down, it’s been mostly up since, well, as far back as Winton. It’s just going to be a rush heading down to sea level, particularly since only my front brake is operational: the rear wheel has just slightly too much oscillation to get the brake shoes working.

Fingers crossed, should be a lot of fun.