Day 26 – Riding from Cardwell to Millaa Millaa

Yeah well, I knew it was gonna be tough to climb over 1,400m in the last 40km, after riding 100km, but there it was…

It was quite a pretty route, taking the back roads a couple of times, among banana plantations and some very nice country. The infamous left turn happened today. Kinda interesting now going west instead of north. A while ago I made the joke that this lap was going to get done counterclockwise because we drive on the left-hand side of the road, but now going west it feels like the right thing to do anyway!

The sun cooked my head as I was climbing, so tomorrow I will switch to the white helmet. It was a solid 7h on the bike by the time I finished, which trashed my speed average on the flats 😂 I even ran out of water, probably for the 1st time on this trip. Which reminded me that today the Clarkes Gambit race was on in Nelligen. Last year, I lost one of my water bottles and was in the cooking heat for 4h drinking half of what I had left. Crazy. I thought I was going to flop on the ground at one stage. Well done to all those who finished it today – it’s a hardy one, that one.

Justin had a flat tyre in the morning, so we regrouped at the Millaa Millaa camp, where I drank copious amounts of water and ginger beer, and then fell asleep for a long time. We managed to squeeze in a visit to the Millaa Millaa waterfalls. Very nice indeed. The place is so remote though that one really needs to make an effort to come all the way to see the falls. There are many others in the area, and we said we may even come back and spend some time exploring – at some stage!

More climbing tomorrow. Most of it up front, so I will need to think about how I recover the legs fast tonight. Not used to the hills any more! (If I ever was…)