Ride Bikes, Not Elephants: Miles Not Smiles

I've adopted a fellow touring cyclists mantra of 'Miles Not Smiles', watched beautiful humpback whales and crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.

I know, I know its been a while since my last update but its been a pretty hard ride this last 600km. Last time I wrote (September 5) I was having a rest day in Hervey Bay, I decided to try one of the many whale watching tours for the day and all I can say is that it was sensational. I joined a half day cruise and we saw about 12 whales in 4 hours, 2 of them even came up to our boat to say hello which was really beautiful to see. I read the other day that "The more acute the experience, the less articulate the expression," all I could conjure up was one word "wow." We were also lucky to see 3 male Humpbacks fighting over a female, they chased after her for over an hour, thrashing and bashing each other, it was crazy!

Getting Closer

Whale and Sea Snake Underwater!!!

Playing next to our boat

Popping up to say hello

Waving Goodbye

After this amazing experience which I highly recommend to everyone I had a relaxing afternoon in my cabin which Mum and Dad kindly paid for me to stay in. I even had a sleep in the next day as I can't really see the next time I'll be lucky enough to sleep in a bed. So I was back on the road on September 8 and finally had the magical South Westerly wind that I had been dreaming of every night for the last 37 days. Funnily enough I was travelling West that day, another damn headwind! I think the Bruce Highway is generally getting better the further I travel north, the shoulder is almost always there now, I did travel through about 15km of roadworks though! Day 39 was a shorter day through Sugar Cane and Macadamia fields on the road to Bundaberg, I rode through town and stopped at the little town of Oakwood. The owners of the Oakwood caravan park were among the friendliest people I've met so far; they gave me free camping, a bag full of fruit and a box of cereal. They also waved me off the next morning shouting "good luck" and "stay safe" as I rode off into the sunrise. Fantastic!

Day 40 shaped up to be the longest day so far from Oakwood to Miriam vale. It was a total of 115km and very desolate riding, no towns and only one roadhouse. I stopped a few times trying to find some shade as the temperature crept up over 30 degrees, the roadhouse at the turn-off to Agnes Waters was an oasis with coke and chocolate! Re-energized the last 40km was a breeze. I stopped in at the Miriam Vale Info centre and had a really good chat about the world with the owner, he told me stories about all of the industry in Gladstone that made my skin crawl, seeing that I was headed that way, I hoped to gain some more insight.

I'd actually read a bit about Gladstone over the last year, with their Coal Seam Gas/Fracking ideas and multiple industrial zones, but the town itself was just like any other. In fact, I met up with Rebecca (reporter) and Tom (photographer) who sat down and had a chat with me for about an hour about the ride and Rebecca published the best article of the trip so far. I was also lucky enough to have the afternoon off to go to the cinema, I watched Sapphires which is one of the best films I've seen in a long time. After all this I was starting to think the Gladstone wasn't so bad after all.

Read this article online here: Gladstone Observer: On the road to saving elephants

That was until I rode out of town the next day through the mega industrial zone, I counted 6 massive sites all revolving around mining, gas, coal and explosives. For me the most frightening part was the trucks. I rode 10km and counted 150 trucks, that's one truck for every 67 metres!!! I was worn out after that first 10km but still had to ride another 100km to Rockhampton. Had some fantastic stretches of road today as the traffic control at the many roadworks meant I had no traffic for long periods and I loved being able to safely ride on the road and not on the shoulder.

The information centre at Rockhampton recommended I visit the local rodeo, this was after I told them about my trying to raise awareness about animal cruelty. Anyway... Rockhampton actually became one of my least favourite stops for two more reasons; The local paper were not interested in writing an article because I am fundraising for an overseas charity and the local bike shop who serviced my bike left me with only 6 workable gears out of my 27! I was very happy to pedal out on September 14th. I did however, cross over the Tropic Of Capricorn and enter Australia's tropic zone

Crossing over the Tropic of Capricorn

Days 43, 44 and 45(September 14-16) were the most remote days of the ride. I stayed out the back of roadhouses and in very old caravan parks with no other guests. It was fantastic! I've been reading Alastair Humphreys book called Moods of Future Joys: Around The World By Bike and I've adopted one of his mantras which is "Miles Not Smiles". These past 3 days I rode 320km. I encountered a 8km detour as an accident occurred on the Bruce Highway, 4 supersize trucks hauling loads that took up both lanes, these trucks needed a police escort to guide traffic out of the way, I rode through about 40km of roadworks and was stopped for a total of 25min because of said roadworks. I was rained on for about 15 minutes, 5 minutes of this being at the really annoying time when my gear and tent were half packed up! I was given free coffee at Outback Gems on the Bruce Highway and performed minor surgery on my big toe (well, I basically dug my big toe nail up as it was growing down into my toe). It was also during these days that I cracked the 3000km mark of the ride! There were no real towns, just roadhouses and 2 caravan parks. I only realised how fantastic it was being out there when I rode into the next big town, all I wanted to do was get back on the bike and ride. The bright lights, thousands of people and supermarkets with long shopping aisles really inspire me to get out there and find the remote roads of the world, to meet people out in the middle of these places and basically to just keep riding!

But, first things first. The aim of Ride Bikes, Not Elephants is to visit the populated east coast of Australia and raise awareness for the elephants. I sit here now in Mackay and have organised an interview with the Mackay Daily Mercury and an interview with the Townsville Sun for next Monday. Yes! Stay tuned for the next post which will have more publications and hopefully some interesting tales. 3200km down, only 800km to go!!!