Today was going to be just another long day on the bike – not much to see out here really. The same longs roads, the same mud-people waiting to strike, the same high temps. I have to keep telling myself that I’m just on my way to the Daintree. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still interesting, but 1000s of kilometres of it does get a bit tiring.
That said, approaching Moutn Isa the scenery started to change, with a lot of hill/ranges appearing. The last stretch was quite nice.
On arrival at Mount Isa I immediately located their Bunnings – the place that had the DIY steel I’d used to make the brackets for the mudguard. In I went. Crap! They’d run out ☹ . Nevermind, I just grabbed one twice the width it needed to be, but with added strength – so good result in the end. I’d discovered one of the screws I’d used had snapped off at the head, leaving the the shaft still in the hole. I didn’t want to buy a drill (a. cos I have 2 already, and b. I didn’t want to lug it around with me) so again I asked nicely, and they brought their own out for me to use.
One broken drill bit and a bit of lost skin and I was done. Kinda good as new. Luckily there was shade nearby:
With the trailer fixed, I could have a scout around Mount Isa and still make it to Cloncurry. Mount Isa really is a mining town, or rather – it’s almost a town within the mine.
The road to Cloncurry (only 100-ish km) continued the nice scenery as before. Arriving at around 5, I quickly setup camp, cooked an early dinner, showered, and got inside the tent before the mozzies carried me away. The appearance of more work crews drew my attention – so I took a sedative.