Most incredible ride of my life

just us

Well we have just safely returned from the most incredible riding experience
of my life. Myself,(50yrs) husband (53 yrs) and 3 others (64, 59, 55)
(2 females, 3 males) went on an incredible adventure over the Easter
weekend. We left Mt Garnet (far North Qld ) early Friday morning bound for
Greenvale via the station roads. The first day was a great ride firstly
through dirt roads with no traffic, no corrugations, and a well formed bush
road which was just bliss to travel on. We camped by a creek after a
leisurely 70kms. We were unsupported and carried our bags etc. Day 2 saw the
road deteriorate somewhat with us slowing down for sand, loose gravel and
rocks but still on a basically well formed road. We had to cross the
headwaters of the Burdekin River which is a little "in flood" at the moment
which meant bikes carried high and bags carried across the river 4 times! At
this point we met some motorbike riders who told us that the Burdekin was in
flood further down and our only chance was to take a side road thru stations
and maybe we would be able to cross the river. At camp on Saturday night we
talked about our chances of getting to Greenvale at all and decided to take
our chances. 80kms accomplished. Day 3 - WOW!!! I ride a Trek Hybrid and so
did the other lady (btw she turned 59 today! and had never gone off road or
with panniers before!) The station road went from a track to just patches of
road - eventually we met some people from the station who very luckily
carted our bikes and gear 10kms thru the hills for us as we were getting
very tired. After 80kms we got to the mighty Burdekin - OMG it was surely in
flood with the river being at least 100m wide where we were to cross. I
managed to walk over and back 5 times, with bags then bike. Hubby did 6
trips across the river. We were under a bit of stress to reach Greenvale as
mates were meeting us there and would panic if we had not arrived. We ended
up leaving the other lady at the River on her own for the night as she was
truly exhausted and the 4 of us rode 15kms on a crazy dirt road in the pitch
black. The "road' was all bends and gullies and the men all had a tumble. Me
of little MTB knowledge managed somehow to stay on my bike. Finally we hit
the bitumen and after a frantic ride stopping well off the road for
roadtrains we staggered into Greenvale - 97 kms of the wildest roads. It was
8.15pm and we had been on the road for over 12hrs. Needless to say 2 beers
and a huge steak was enough to have us all staggering back to the van park
to put up our tents and snore the night away!
Anyway that was my Easter - WOW what an incredible trip and one that I
thought I was not capable of coming close to being able to do. Sheesh what
next!

Alan Erskine

"just us" <kilpatsnojunk@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:47e773ff$1@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> Well we have just safely returned from the most incredible riding
experience
> of my life. Myself,(50yrs) husband (53 yrs) and 3 others (64, 59, 55)
> (2 females, 3 males) went on an incredible adventure over the Easter
> weekend.

Well done to the lot of you!

Tell me, how did the off-road and paniers feel? Was it easy (by the k's you
covered it sounds like it wasn't that tough compared to city roads/bike
tracks etc)?