The Great Outback Bike Ride

So here we are in Bourke, having just completed Stage 4 of the Great Outback Bike Ride! The last week has gone quickly, but it seems we've packed a lot in and been to some interesting places. The temperature has been dropping, and dropping... the frost on the ground this morning (and on tents, swags and the table!) confirmed what we all knew - it was a cooooold night!

Leaving Quilpie on the Queens Birthday public holiday, we headed for the pub. That is, the pub with no town! Toompine was a former Cobb & Co staging point, and was quite a busy hub in its day! Now, it's population 2, as well as camels, goats, sheep, llamas, a pig, pups and a cocky! We ate a fantastic meal in the pub, and slept 'school camp' style, swagging it on the floor in the big hall next to the pub. Toompine was also the location for our inaugral outback golf challenge, playing on the recently made golf course - the greens are more like reds, and there's not much (any?) grass around!

From Toompine, it was a pretty long day on the bikes to Yowah. It was late in the afternoon when we arrived there, and cooling down quickly. It was a great surprise to find the artesian baths, in open-air bathrooms! The sky spread out above as you lay soaking in a soothing hot artesian bath... bliss! A bath and the roaring fire made it a cosy night, although chilly! There was no pub in Yowah, which was the original opal mining town, but the next night at Eulo made up for this fact.

Camping behind the Eulo Queen Hotel was luxurious - luscious green grass and majestic trees! The town of Eulo has a few interesting characteristics making it unique... there's a date winery, just out of town are the mud baths (but they didn't look very inviting when we were there!) and the town used to hold the World Lizard Racing Championships! We had a great night in the pub with the publican, Ken, dishing out a couple of great stories about the hey-day of the lizard races, and the tragic and untimely death of the champion racing cockroach, Destructo, from Sydney.

From Eulo, we headed on to Cunnamulla, where we were greeted by Mike who runs the Outback Masters Games every second year. Cunnamulla is on the Warrego River, and the town is known for the 'Cunnamulla Fella' who sits on his swag in the middle of town.

This was our last night in Queensland... From Cunnamulla, it was time to cross the border, but only just! Barringun is a border town and used to have the gates for passing traffic and stock. These days, there's the brightly decorated Bush Tucker Inn, and across the road the Tattersalls Hotel, with Australia's oldest publican, Mary Crawley, who is 84 years of age and sharp as a tack! We had a great night chatting to Mary (and her son Paddy) and spending time in the 1870's building.

After a long day's ride to Barringun, it was a quick spin down the road to Enngonia, population 90-100. Still a tiny town, but a little bigger than up the road! We had a fantastic night here at the pub with Pam, the publican, and then later a bit of a pool match between our guys and a couple of local shearers! The funny thing about outback pubs is that the locals will always jump in and help out if something needs doing. If someone's waiting to buy a drink and the publican's busy, then there's bound to be a local who jumps behind the counter and pulls a beer for you. Here, the phone rang and one of the shearers, Sarge, reached over to pick it up. Except that it was his wife calling, wondering if he was at the pub... couldn't talk his way out of that one, now, could he!

We've just had dinner and have been entertained by a bush poet and yarn spinner, and tomorrow we'll have a look around Bourke and get things ready for the final leg of this trip and we head on towards Griffith...