Round Australia by bike - Day 005 - Gympie to Miriam Vale

Day:	005
Date:	Tuesday, 24 July 2007
Accommodation	Cheap motel ($35!) in Miriam Vale
Summary	Riding from Gympie to Miriam Vale
Start Time:	4:15am
Finish Time:	6:20pm
Daily Map Kms:	299
Total Map Kms:	1,351
Map Kms To Go:	13,060
Map Kms ahead (+)/ behind (-) schedule:	0
Daily Odometer Kms:	299.3
Daily Average Speed:	24.87
Weather:	Rain at first, partly cloudy later with mild temperatures.
Nutrition:	Big brekky for breakfast.  Pie and pastie for lunch.  Burger with the lot, chips and ice-cream for dinner.
Encounters:	None really.
Highlights:	Finishing for the day
Lowlights:	Starting out in the dark and rain.
Daily Pictures:	Here
Daily Podcasts:	Here & Here
Journal:	I imagine I will have plenty of more days like today.  Fourteen hours of riding with a couple of short breaks in the only towns I passed through, interspersed with long road sections through mainly arid forest. I’m still not getting enough sleep, but survived the day OK, although I did a lot of dreaming about spending the rest of my retirement lying on a couch watching the midday movie and being served with lime milkshakes.  When I wasn’t dreaming about that, I was reassuring myself that I will never have to do anything like this again.  Sounds good! Given the terrain, which was undulating to hilly all day, I don’t think I can ride 300km faster than I did today.  You just can’t maintain a high average speed when you encounter long hills every few kilometres that slow you to 15kph or less.  I have learned to hate the sign that says “Overtaking Lane Ahead” because it almost always means you are about to start climbing again. \ The scenery was quite pleasant, with the arid forest giving way every now and then to agricultural or grazing land.  I saw vineyards and banana, pineapple and sugar cane plantations.  In the distance to the left, and from higher elevations, I could generally see high mountain ranges.  The towns were small and authentic country towns although the tourism industry is obviously also important. Although I am eating plenty of junk food, I am also consuming about 3 litres of flavoured milk a day plus plenty of fruit juice, and actually feel pretty healthy for someone burning so much energy. I toyed with the idea of getting the bike serviced in Rockhampton, which I pass through tomorrow, but have decided that it seems to be OK and I am keeping a close eye on it.  This means it won’t get a service until Karratha, some 6,000km further on, although I will change the tyres in Townsville on the coming weekend.