Long Ride - Day 7 - Townsville to Atherton

Long Ride day 7 - Townsville to Atherton

This time of the year this part of the world is supposed to be warm and sunny, it's still warm but far from sunny at the moment.

 

We awoke to grey skies at the Hotel Ibis Townsville and were promised at cooked breakfast at $10 each.  The Ibis staff and suppliers had donated their time and produce to create the breakfast and all proceeds were donated to the Long Ride.  On hand was also the North Queensland branch of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia to help share the moment.

 

The promise of the Sunrise morning television show doing a live cross didn't eventuate, but there's no surprise really it seems that men's health isn't as media worthy as that of females, maybe we aren't pink enough, or maybe not enough high profile Australia's jump on the bandwagon like they do with pink.

 

Media coverage did eventually come.

Eventually channel 9 attended which seemed to be enough to force 7 to attend too.  So there was some great coverage, at least on local television.

 

A massive thank you must go to the Ibis and their staff for the support they gave us.

 

From Townsville the ride would take us up into the hills surrounding the area to Atherton.  The ride first of all took us north along the coast to Ingham, and then on to Innisfail through Tully.  We had been warned about the weather around Tully as it is regarded as the wettest place in Australia.  They day before they had received 200mm of rain, their yearly average is 4 metres of rain.

 

The area was certainly wet and as rain began to fall it looked like we were in for a pretty wet day however, with temperatures still pretty high it wasn't too much of a problem, the same couldn't be said for the roadworks which seemed to go on for kilometre after kilometre.

 

It was broken up by amazing scenery.  Fields of sugar cane; tea; and banana's were actually very picturesque, especially contrasted against the darker green hills.  As we rode on I was fascinated by the number of railway crossings.  These are small gauge trains that are used to transport the raw cane.  There must be literally thousands of different lines covering the area.

In this part of the world there is literally an endless sea of
cane fields.  Pretty impressive.

 

Once out of Innisfail we headed to the hills and while the scenery was magnificent, it really did look similar to the hills that form the Otways on the west coast of Victoria.

 

The rains continued to fall all day which was a little disappointing as the roads in the hills would've been fun to have a bit of a squirt on.  Oh well, maybe another time.

 

After 356 kilometres we arrived at Atherton and like most of the towns around here I was surprised at just how large the town is.  Unfortunately getting straight to the motel meant that I didn't really get to see the place.

 

That night the Atherton International Club put on a night for us, possibly disrupting a night of country music and dancing, although the show did still go on.  It was quite funny watching a group of 4 old dears line dancing.  Their concentration was so high that they seemed to not enjoy what they were doing.  Oh bless them.

 

The night saw a silent auction were I was able to raise $80 for the pair of Ugly Fish sunglasses, as it seemed that no one wanted to submit a photo of themselves.  I did however catch up with Terrence Shaddick who won a pair of the sunnies last Long Ride, and he told me they are one of greatest pair of glasses he has ever owned.  I couldn't agree more as mine have both protected me from the sun and also a wayward stone that while it took a chip out of the right lens, they were more than adequate to protect my eye.

 

The night was a great success with me also purchasing an Ace Cafe jacket in the auction.   But more importantly a number of personal donations have been made, now taking the total raised to $12,776.  The minor target of $13,000 could still be reached.

 

With 356 kilometres being covered today, the total has now gone past 3000 to 3185.  Tomorrow will see us travel north to Port Douglas and then south to Cairns for the final destination where we are all together.