Leaving Townsville and further on

Well, I left Townsville and headed to Mackay. I thought it was only 250k but it was closer to 400. Wasn’t the most exciting day. When going through Bowen,  I’m not sure why I went through there as its a few k off the main road, I was sitting in a carpark eating some lunch when I looked up and saw the following.

It took me a while to read it and after seeing the name, I went over and introduced myself. Theres not that many withnalls around so its interesting to find one, especially by chance. That’s Lex in the photo.

On leaving Bowen, I passed the Big Mango and took this photo.

Then, when I arrived at Mackay, I found the bike service place first so I could get somewhere close to sleep. I found somewhere a few k away and it was quite nice.

I got to the service place at 8am and wanted them to do the service quickly. They told me it would be 10am when its finished. I went to waste some time at a cafe and read the papers. At 10am, I went back to the dealer only to find it was still 30mins to go.

After I picked up the bike, I started riding out and decided to go to Bundaberg for the night (I was previously thinking of Rockhampton).

When I reached Rockhampton, the sky looked bad. The previous nights news said there would be 1mm or so rain (and confirmed by the paper I read that morning) so I decided to put some wet weather gear on. I’m quite glad I did. I had serious rain (although only for about 30 mins) that was going sideways, and again when I thought It couldn’t get worse, it started hailing. Hail really urts your fingers when it hits.

While riding, I decided I might go straight to Noosa and see if my brother could house me early. About 2 mins after programming the GPS, he called and said he couldn’t and I ended up in Bundaberg.

So, I’m now sitting in the hotel room (its cold and the aircon is taking ages to heat up) and I’ve already booked the tour of the bundaberg rum factory in the morning. Then, I’ll get to noosa by about 4pm and see some more family, although this family visit will be expected.

Then, Onto Coffs Harbour and Home.