Hinces Creek – Walwa
Tuesday November 29, 2016, 12 miles (19 km) – Total so far: 2,655 miles (4,273 km)
There is not much today to finish off the ride. We just need to go up and over the saddle that joins the Burrowa part of the national park from the Pine Mountain part of the park.
Yesterday’s funk doesn’t taint too much of today, but I still can’t get going until about 9.30am. It doesn’t really matter. We don’t have far to go.
I climb up the gravel. The road surface isn’t as good as it was in May, and I have to keep the speed right down on the downhill, but I still really enjoy this road. The cockatoos seem to follow me for a bazillion kms – their ear-piercing screeching following me through the forest. But other than that, it’s a good peaceful ride (see video below for the cockatoos sreeching). And for the first time in three days, I don’t have heaps of gravel in my shoes! Oh yes, it’s the little things!
We cruise the long downhill and are lucky not to meet any logging trucks once we meet back up with the main road into town. The only one I see is after I get into the 60kph zone.
I head back to the caravan park. The flies are soooooo bad as I’m packing up the bike. I think I even swallowed one. I swallowed some sort of insect anyway!
I’m really happy with my ride. I thought it might be too ambitious, but we did it! That was a heck of a lot of climbing and a heck of a lot of steep gravel. But we drove on when we wanted to stop, and we got there in the end. We pushed steep gravel, we crashed, we broke the tent, we rode hard. I’m pretty certain that those 36 miles on the Cravensville and Gibb Range Road qualify me for this week’s TRUE GRIT award. Or the TOTALLY BONKERS award – depending on your view of what is a worthwhile activity on a long weekend.