2,836 km in 29 days
Day 29 Route Map
It rained several times last night, but I was in that crappy motel wedged between the railway line and road viaduct, so I was glad I hadn’t camped out. The weather was still iffy when I set off again early this morning but it cleared up OK and I only it drizzled on few times.
However, the riding, or rather the navigation, nightmare continued, culminating in me riding into the Bowen Hills tunnel by mistake (bicycles prohibited) and two ‘incident trucks’ pulling me over quite brusquely and carting me off out of there. And I was so glad they did too. I don’t think it would have been possible to cross the 4 lanes of 100 km/hour traffic I needed to in order to get out of there, without risking serious injury or worse. Never again!
Still, I made it to Brisbane Electric Bikes in Milton by 11.30, where Rio and Alex did a bit of work on the bike for me: first new chain at 4,515 km on the odometer – they were amazed it lasted so long – and a ‘new’ second-hand kick-stand from off a Dominos Pizza delivery bike.
The cycle paths in inner Brisbane are great, but the nightmare continued in terms of finding a viable route out of the city to the Gold Coast. At 4.30 I’d had enough and pulled in to a vacant lot behind Woolworths at Beenleigh and just slept on the ground. There was already a young Belgian guy there sleeping in his station wagon and surviving by dumpster-diving into the supermarket bins. He offered me some of an enormous quiche that was ‘only a few days old’, which I respectfully declined, but he and I did share 4 cans of Jack Daniel and coke premix that I went and bought at the local Sip ‘n’ Save.
