Day 1: Rockhampton to the side of the road somewhere

(25 June): left a park at 11am in Rockhampton after a blessing from a minister and rode to Different Cycles for initial repairs. We spent a couple of hours adding bits to our bikes and watching the shop owner try to make Evan's bike/trailer work properly. Ev took delivery of his new Kotzur bike and trailer the week we left for the ride so there's a few first-time bugs to work out of the system. Mine is working pretty well, I've got most of it set up properly after a month in Sydney. Adjusted the toe-in on the steering and now it's noticeably easier to push the quad along.


Rode most of the day through drizzle (well, the bit from 2pm or so when we were actually riding). We're on the Bruce Highway so there's an awful lot of really big trucks. And in the wet they throw quite a cloud of water as they pass. Comfortable cruise on the quad with a big load is about 15kph.

Val has her baby Hope along and it's not enjoying the cold and wet at all. Towards the 40km-ish mark I somehow ended up out in front of the group with Val, and about 4pm she stopped to do baby stuff. I cruised on a little looking for a campsite. We ended up on the other side of the railway line from the main road, camping in a small band of trees. Trees and prickly pear. Anyway. We camped for the first time and cooked dinner as dark fell.

Covered about 30km in about 2 hours.