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Journal: |
I got up at the usual time, but seemed to take longer to get
ready to leave. The brain wasn’t working properly! I
planned to ride the 105km to Marlborough for breakfast but decided I
needed a snack first and pulled into an all night roadhouse in
Rockhampton as I passed through and bought myself a pie and some
Coke to keep me going. I then headed out through the sleeping
town and was riding through grazing country by moonlight. It
wasn’t as cold as yesterday and I shortly had to stop and strip off
some of the extra clothing I was wearing. There was still a
fair bit of truck traffic, but less than yesterday. After an
hour I was exceptionally sleepy and nodded off a few times just
catching myself before taking a dive…..not good procedure with
trucks whizzing past every minute or so. I was contemplating
stopping for a quick nap but, as the sun rose, I felt better.
At Marlborough I went to the BP Roadhouse and introduced myself to
the proprietors, parents of Kath who is a regular with my Thursday
morning track group. I had a delicious big brekky and lime
milkshake which they refused to accept payment for.
From
Marlborough I continued north into more sparsely settled country,
crossing the occasional low mountain range, with higher mountains
visible in the distance to the east and west. It got warmer
and warmer as I neared my next objective, Clairview, where I planned
to have some lunch/dinner. However, about 10km before getting
there, my rear derailleur cable snapped and I was left with just two
gears. I carried onto Clairview where there was nowhere
obvious to eat without venturing off the road, and I didn’t want to
do that. I called Dan from the bike shop back home and got a
quick lesson on how to replace the cable (I have a spare) but, since
there was nowhere good to do bike maintenance, I decided to continue
onto Sarina, another 90km, my target for the night, from where I
would call Dan again and make the repair. At Cl;airview, I
could see the ocean again, briefly, the first time since leaving the
Gold Coast.
About 20km later, I found a roadhouse and had
fish and chips for dinner as the sun gradually set, and then set out
for the last 70km to Sarina in looming darkness. After about
5km, I got a strange feeling about my rear tyre and, sure enough, I
had a puncture. The first I have ever had with a Schwalbe tyre
in about 15,000km of riding. I just couldn’t believe it.
It was a bad place to make a repair, with little grass verge and, as
I soon found out, a population of voracious mosquitoes, with trucks
whizzing past a few metres away. In darkness, with the help of
my helmet lamp, I changed the tube after spending time trying to
detect what had caused the puncture. I found nothing. Im
pumped up the tyre and set out, only to get that sickening feeling
again after 5km and sure enough the tyre was flat again. I
contemplated suicide and would certainly have hopped on any bus to
Brisbane that might come past. I couldn‘t believe my luck.
The trip so far had been dogged by minor problems, each conspiring
to make the journey harder. I lost my iPod on the first day, I
dropped my phone the second day, and it only now works effectively
when I have it plugged into a large antenna I brought for my
wireless modem. Also during the first days I had constant
time-expensive problems with my laptop and, to top it off, have a
persistent cough hanging over from a recent cold and a sore right
Achilles tendon that you can practically hear squelch as I walk.
Of course, forecast tailwinds have turned out to be headwinds
instead.
Anyway, after feeling sorry for myself for a few
minutes, I set about changing the tube again and, when I still
couldn’t find the puncture cause, decided I needed to change the
tyre as well, using my spare which is foldable and not as durable or
protected as my primary tyres. To my great relief, it stayed
up as I continued riding until I reached another roadhouse (where
some truckie made some comment about idiots riding bikes on the
highway at night….I smiled and said nothing) where there was a
telephone box. Did I mention my mobile phone battery had died!
I called the motel in Sarina to tell them I was still coming and
continued on, getting there at 10pm (grunting up the hills in my two
gear bike). The motel was connected to a pub and there was one
girl left working there who was settling the tills for the day.
She couldn’t do enough for me, and insisted on giving me a large
bottle of Fanta for nothing when I asked whether I could buy
something to drink.
Mackay, 37km away, has several bike
shops, so I will leave here about 7:30am and ride to a bike shop
where I will get them to look at the suspect tyre and change the
gear cable. It will potentially cost me half a day riding,
which is very frustrating after working so hard to keep to schedule.
I’ll just have to make it up later. My mood has improved, but
I’m still very tired.
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