Packing up this morning in Goondiwindi, I was confronted by an angry  man who yelled at me  “Where’s the bloody  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 mate I’m riding a bike” I replied. So, as he went in search of mayhem, I went in search of tea and raisin toast.

In town, 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?”

I thought, is this some informal morning banter or was I being officially questioned? “Up to  Rockhampton, then Townsville  across the Barkly Tablelands to Three Ways  then up to Darwin ”

My Copper said “Well that’s about as far North as you can go!”  then promptly went back to chatting with the other cops.

I was hoping they may receive an “All units” call from a hysterical dispatcher;  saying “Mayhem has broken out 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 to Toowoomba or Brisbane, so I turned left along the Leichhardt Highway to The Darling Downs, where large cattle stations and homesteads are the order of the day. On the Darling Downs, I was greeted by the unmistakable natural beauty of soaring wedge-tail eagles with swamp wallabies popping up amongst the kangaroo grass.

The riding was great fun. Few trucks, mostly nomads in caravans, locals, or station staff.  What trucks there were consisted of large road trains full of beef cattle facing an uncertain future. The road is flood-prone and because of the recent heavy downpour, there are expansive sheets of water spread out across the flat landscape, while 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 started out as an old oil field exploration site and is now a busy highway crossroad pit stop. Apparently, it also has Australia’s biggest feral pig concentration,.

“No tents in the caravan park allowed” said the disinterested receptionist, it was pointless to plead my case and it’s another 130ks to the town of Miles so I  did a little scouting about and found a wild campsite amongst some pine trees on the edge of town which is my home tonight. As a precaution, i purposefully mark my patch by pissing in a circle around my tent hoping it will act as a wild feral pig deterrent.