Townsville to Hughenden

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Today is the last day of the Australian Winter-

250 miles West of Townsville in the start of the outback is Hughenden, Pop. of maybe 1,000 not including wind farm and solar farm workers.

The ride out was surprisingly similar to the last hour up from Rockhampton to Townsville. Lots of cattle and horses. I started seeing the a huge number of ant and termite mounds all shapes colors and sizes and stretching out as far as the eye can see. I stopped and took pictures of White Mt. National Park. which was about half way out to Hughenden. I learned by experience that Kangaroo's aren't the biggest threat to a biker during a daytime ride... its the Kangaroo's corpses from the night before that are the big threat. The Carrion birds that gather in groups of 5 or 6 to snack on the buggers in the middle of the road are a bigger threat. Fortunately, the birds have great hearing and get scared off by my very loud horn on my bike - as long as I see their dinner table far enough in advance. After the birds the next biggest pain are the triple section semi's. The last section sway's in the wind and gives off a heck of sidewash. I've developed a technique which only works because of the size of my bike and the custom large windshield I installed. I go to the left edge of the road then angle back to the rear of the semi just as the truck passes and then I tuck down under my windshield for the 2 seconds the truck passes. I imagine smaller bikes just slow down to a crawl or pull over altogether.

All of Northern Queensland is in a 7 year drought but when they get rain it can be 10” in 3 hours. I'll try to get a picture of the flood warning system that I see during every ride.

On my original itinerary, I had planned to go from Townsville to Mt. Isa, but at some point decided to make an easier day of it and add a stop at Hughenden. I keep a spread sheet with all of my hotels, flights,etc... confirmations but when I got to Hughenden - I found everyone of my confirmations EXCEPT for Hughenden. So.... I checked with the two primary hotels in town and neither had a reservation for me. But no worries - the Royal hotel had a room for me and a seat at the bar.

My whole experience in Hughenden is why I like small towns better than big ones when doing a ride. When I checked at the Royal Hotel; Rob took care of me and directed me to my room. I unpacked and went straight to the bar. The first bloke I met was Mark (see pic.). Mark works machinery for the wind farm. He lives an hour North of Townsville and works 14 days on and 7 off. Which means that’s a 5+ hour commute. Mark’s a rider so he gave me some tips on the road ahead. Besides having a nice bar (with a round pool table), the hotel serves as THE restaurant in Hughenden, as well as, the local sports book and casino. Mark shared his picture of a Brown Snake that visited his work crew today. The brown is one of the most common snakes in Queensland and likely all of Australia it is one of the top ten deadliest snakes in the world (most of which also live in Oz). Included this in case my son Jason reads this blog page. If he wasn't working for Harley I think he wanted to become a Herpetologist 😊 .. Not!

Interestingly enough all of the workers are from off continent. Kayla from England, Sara from North Carolina, Audrey from Paris, and Joanna from Budapest Hungary. They all have work visa’s. But if they work in a rural community (believe me this counts as rural) they get a one year extension on their visa.

I spoke to each of them briefly as they were very busy once the construction workers were off of work and looking for food and drink. Kayla was living in England and just decided she needed a change and picked Australia. Sara from North Carolina met an Aussie while traveling in Thailand and moved here with him when they split she decided to work on getting a visa extension so she could either come back or stay longer. The stories were similar for the others. I could easily see my daughter or niece Candice doing this gig for 3-6 months. The owner Linda runs a tight ship but it seems everyone enjoys working for her. I had Bangers and Mash on Mark’s recommendation and it was awesome. Mark also introduced me to Des (a local real estate man), another local I think his name was Les. Everyone is so much more prone to conversation than city folk.

I walked the 75 feet or so to my room and made an early night of it. The ride to Mt. Isa will be about 80 miles further than the Townsville - Hughenden run. I wanted to be able to stop and have a regular breakfast somewhere tomorrow so I will need to get an early start. I truly enjoyed the experience in Hughenden -Thanks all if you checked the blog. *** Don't forget there are more pictures but you have to click see to see all the pictures.

G'Day

Jim

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