Packing up this morning in Goondiwindi, I was confronted by a man who yelled “Where’s the knucklehead who parked his car like that?” Pointing to the inconsiderate motorist who had parallel parked taking up 3 angle parking spaces “I reckon I might just knock his block off!”

“I wouldn’t know I’m riding a bike” I replied. So as he went in search of mayhem, I went in search of tea and raisin toast.

A couple of carloads of coppers were seated out the front of the bakery, eating hamburgers and making cop small talk: “Where you headed?” one of them said.

“North” said I

“I could’ve guessed that, but where specificity?”

So was this some informal morning banter or was I being officially questioned I thought. “Well Rockhampton, then Townsville across to Three Ways and up to Darwin.

Plod said “Well that’s about as far North as you can go!” and promptly went back to cop chat.

I was hoping they may receive an “All units” call from an hysterical dispatcher; “all hell’s broken loose at the low rent Caravan park!!!” but nothing happened.

I finished my tea and hit the road. A gentle South Westerly wind today. After 3 days of rain it was good to feel the sun again, most traffic was headed toToowoomba or Brisbane, I turned left along the Leichhardt Highway and to The Darling Downs, where large cattle stations and homesteads are the order of the day. On the darling Downs I was greeted by thee unmistakable beauty of soaring wedge tail eagles and wallabies in the kangaroo grass.

The riding was great.Few trucks, mostly caravans and locals, station staff.  What trucks there were are large road trains full of cattle facing an uncertain future. The road is flood prone and because of the recent rain there’s sheets of water everywhere. The washouts and cutaways that run along the road have turned into billabongs around the creeks. I was held up for 20 minutes due to road works on the outskirts of Moonie, which is an old oil field and now a highway crossroad pit stop. Apparently it has Australia’s biggest feral pig collection.

“No tents in the caravan park allowed” it’s another 130ks to the town of Miles so I do a little scouting about and find a free camp site amongst some pine trees which is my home tonight.