Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

After yesterday's dry cycling we were expecting a right spanking today but, in fact, we rode in the dry for all but 20 minutes.  We passed areas where the road had clearly been closed quite recently but we dodged the bullet again. BUT.....we are heading to Townsville which seems to be on the northern edge of  a massive but very localised tropical storm.  I just checked the forecast and Townsville can expect ONE METRE of rain in the next week.  A f@#$ing METRE! We have asked around and the consensus is that we can probably get to Townsville but, once there, may have to wait for a lull in the rain and catch a train south for a couple of hundred miles to the southern edge of the storm.  Bugger. We are staying in Lee's Hotel in Ingham.  The hotel is advertised from 10km out with a hoarding that proudly boasts that it is Australia's only pub with no beer.  We nearly turned round and went back to last night's stop!  It turns out that this is...

The deluge eased at about 9:30 so we set off.  We popped into a gas station for breakfast (sausage rolls) then headed south with wet roads but no actual rain.  6 hours later we are tucked up in our motel STILL DRY.  The lady on reception  reckons this is a miracle on par with the feeding of the 5 thousand. The whole rain thing has started to get a bit more serious than we had anticipated. In 2 days time we will be in a place called Townsville.  Yesterday Townsville got 20cm of rain.....in 2 hours.  The coastal highway, actually THE highway, is under water and completely closed.  The weather system is heading North and the advice is to make sure you have 3 days food in the house.  Bugger. We are not yet sure what this all means for 2 cyclists so, for now,  we will continue  south and see what happens.  We might do a bit of practicing to see how long we can hold our breath  and try to convert our pumps into snorke...

Air travel is pants! This time we had the added stress of 2 very tight  connections, made even tighter because of delays with the preceding flights.  Anyway, we arrived into Cairns at 11pm yesterday after 36 hours of travel and fell into our beds. We woke this morning to the noise of someone having a very loud shower in the room next to ours , or so we thought.  A quick look.out of the window told the real story....someone was emptying olympic swimming pools from the sky.  Jeez it rains here!  After considerable exertion, quite a lot of muttering and many many hours, Neil seems to have most of his crap packed away and his bike almost looks complete so maybe by about Friday we should be on our way!

Well, it has taken 4 months but I am finally ready for another long-distance bike trip!  Last summer's Trans-am really took it out of me and I barely looked at a bike for a couple of months after getting home, but I have been training hard since Christmas and have managed to shed a few pounds in preparation for...........CAIRNS TO BRISBANE. A circumnavigation of Oz has been a work in progress for a while now; having done Brisbane to Adelaide in 2016, and Adelaide to Perth early last year, we are now going to tackle this 1100 mile chunk.  This little cycling 'mini-break' was chosen for no better reason than it fitted the available time and had an airport at each end, though in many respects it is a poor choice since we will be there in the latter part of monsoon season.  Looking at the weather forecasts it seems that rain is a certainty, possible LOTS of it. However, it should be warm rain as the average high seems to be in the high 20's/low 30's. ...