Day 22 – Bundaberg to Esk (407 km)

Another tour around Bundy, mainly to see the Bundy distillery. Unfortunately, it didn’t open until 10am – way too late for me to be hanging around given the weather. Oh well – mail order it is.

As mentioned before, I spoke to a fellow m/c rider in Yeppoon (who was from the Sunny Coast) – he gave me some advice as to roads to ride. I’m glad I followed it. It was a great ride through Childers, Biggenden, Ban Ban Springs, Goomeri, and then on to Esk via the western side of Somerset Dam.

Loads of twisties, some gentle some not so much, nice large trees lining the roads, and not too much traffic.

It rained for pretty much the whole trip, mostly just light drizzle but with the occasional heavy dump. Wearing the gear meant I didn’t mind – if you have the right stuff you don’t get wet. However, some of the roads would have been a little better without the rain.

Again, the old grand-pa came out towing the trailer. The roads weren’t exactly well maintained so they had a fair bit of standing water – just the thing for aquaplaning if you’re not careful. So, easy does it.

Highlights were the exit out of Childers…

and the entry into Ban Ban Springs…

then, the ride along the dam topped it off very nicely. The road here though was terrible – lots rough spots, lumps, bumps, etc. – but well worth it…

I arrived at the Esk caravan park while it was still drizzling. Pain-in-the-butt! I used my chit for the cabin last night, and I bought a tent specifically for this purpose so – camping I went.

 

While I got quite “warm” erecting the tent while still wearing all my gear (minus helmet), the tent went up no probs – all dry inside. This was the main purpose of this purchase – the Vango Sierra 300+ tent goes up with internal mesh and fly together (mesh hangs from the fly). So you can put it up in the rain and the inside never gets exposed. Anyway, threw bedding in there, grabbed stuff for a shower, had that – then fook me – it bucketed down!

After some careful dashes I managed to extricate my electronics from the trailer/bike and make it to the kitchen area where I’ve been for the last 2 hours. It’s a quagmire out there – it’s been raining here for 2 days straight they tell me. I have a feeling I might curl up here for the night instead – there’s even a fire… as long as I can find some dry firewood.