July 17th - Mount Molloy to Palmer River Roadhouse

Nigel says.... A great day cycling up the Mulligan Highway from Mount Molloy to the Palmer River Roadhouse. The Mulligan Highway is an excellent road. Not much traffic, smooth surface and a wide shoulder.

We had a good evening in the pub. We ate hige steaks and drank a number of beers with Kurt and Sam, a local couple who were seated at the same table. Kurt is a German who came to Australia in the early 1980s. He is, by his own admission a very direct person who always wants to get to the root of a problem. We discovered that he did not understand that the answer the the question: "Does my bum look big in this?" is always NO! He also challenged Gordon's fluffy views which was quite amusing....

As a result of the beers we slept in a bit and heard Colin calling out our names as he tried to find us. Gordon hugely pleased to see Colin and a vehicle, but more importantly he was relieved and grateful that he was now reunited with his makeup bag and platform shoe collection!

After a cup of tea during which we sorted the day we set off pedalling north. We made good progress and were in Mount Carbine at 0930 hours. Not much in Mount Carbine!

Hundreds of termite mounds along the route. Am told they get bigger further north. Cattle have free range across the road. I managed to cause a minor stampede. Must have been the marmite shirt...Saw buzzards circling above the road.... I figured they had spotted Gordon. En route drivers have been really friendly, most of them waving. One driver even stopped his vehicle to have a chat.

North of Mount Carbine we had a shocker of a hill. It was a 10% climb over 1.5 kilometers, but the views from the lookout were great. It gave us a good workout and was not that much of a problem. Gordon ate half a pie at the top. Bring on another hill and stop being a pansy Gordon.....
A few kilometers up the road, Colin had pulled up the vehicle and set up an awning and we had lunch. There was not much shade, so it was very welcome. Gordon happy and beaming...

After an undulating ride north to the Palmer River Roadhouse we rolled into the campsite where we were greeted by the welcome sight of pitched tents and Colin with cold beer. Tonight Gordon cooked the meal and washed up, and has not laid on his bed comatose.....is there something wrong with him?.....Today we cycled 114 kilometers.

Thoughts and Comments:

• There is bull riding in Mount Carbine on 14th August - be there!
• Most of the rivers are dry and rainforest replaced by dry bush
• A number of dust devils seen - we had a strong tail wind for most of the day.
• Snack of the day: Mount Carbine - sausage roll
• Tune of the day: Elton John - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Tomorrow Laura and the start of the dirt road

Gordon says ...

I hope everyone out there in blogland is smart enough to realise that all Nigel's dribbling bravado about 'bring on another hill ...' is some kind of deluded defense mechanism, since it takes him about 20 minutes to haul his sweating, rubbery carcass up the most moderate of slopes, where I've normally been waiting for him at the top having a nap. Each time we get to a hill now, he wanders around at the top telling anyone who'll listen that he wishes it was bigger, or that he hopes there are more down the road. They all examine him with the same look of bemused pity that I have now mastered. I think it's getting a bit weird ...

Needless to say, very happy to have Colin here. We have a very civilized camp, and Nigel has even had a shower. Only seven days of peddling to go, if all goes according to plan. I don't have much more petrol left in my tank - mostly, I think, because I'm missing my family a lot. In retrospect, I'm not sure nearly seven weeks away was a brilliant idea, but like most of my ideas, I didn't really think this part of it through.

Note to self: remember to contact my publisher to have my philosophy book pulped. I have made a terrible mistake in the chapters on epistemology and logic. Silly me - thinking that truth is largely a phenomenon shaped within given social contexts, and according to a variety of specific logical rules. Not so. It seems the universe is constructed of two ontological forms - 1) those things that Nigel thinks, and 2) all other states of being, which are 'Wrong!'. Can't wait to start publishing this revelation in the journals. I have some hilariously spectacular examples of my new-found 'wrongness'.

Seven days to go ...