Well, 5 hours later, I'm back where I started in Cardwell.
The day before rode over a hill to see two cyclists on the road! Wow.. Need to catch them. And I did for a bit. But I think they didn't like my music, and soon pulled away. We met up again and spent the night at a caravan park in Cardwell. They are riding for Break the cycle campaign 2015. Great stuff. We talked long into the night. Was really glad that we'd chanced to meet up.
We rode out next morning, but my destination was Long Pocket. Will and Safi were off to Ingham. Unfortunately the "road" to Long Pocket closed in 1881, and is now a very rocky walking track. Never letting that stop me, I spent an hour pushing up hill before admitting defeat having covered less than 1km. Running out of water also, and pretty stuffed, battered and brused, I returned to Cardwell for the night.
The lyrics from the Toby Keith song were running in my head;
'Now my body says, "You can't do this boy"
But my pride says, "Oh, yes you can
I ain't as good as I once was
Thats just the cold hard truth'
Maybe it wasn't a wise decision to have tried that. Now I'm bruised and sore. And will have to take it easy for a while to recover. I've also reconsidered my plan to head to Charters Towers by a similar route, that would have involved much much more climbing.
