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July 27, 2001

Overland Australia - Update 4

Day 4: July 27, 2001

from Kenny

Last night ended amongst the relative luxuries of the Laura campsite - showers, beers, a telephone box and good food. Today was a harder slog: long sandy road leading to our first real show-stopping challenge.

The Maytown track is an old gold rush trail built in the late 1870s to allow horse-drawn stagecoaches passage across the Great Dividing Range to the then-booming town of Maytown. I cannot imagine how they got horses and carriages up the steep rocky climbs and down the deep sandy ruts. The terrain is challenging, to say the least.

kenny_helmet_camera.jpg

As one of the expedition cameramen, I had stayed behind in the morning to interview John, our support vehicle driver. We were trying to catch up with the rest of the team in our four-wheel drive when it started to become obvious we weren't going to get our large supply van any further. The track had been built almost the exact width to accommodate a stagecoach and our van just that little bit wider. Since the bike crew had already gone ahead, I found myself loading my bike up with some food and water and taking off up the hill alone. I suddenly realized how wild this environment is. My high tech bike and years of cycling were quickly humbled by the heat, surface and incline - one mistake out here and it's all over. I caught up with rest of the cyclists on the first ridge a tired and hungry lot. Mike had the worst day of all; his bottom bracket (the bearing assembly that holds the pedal mechanism together) had given up the ghost. He'd been walking for about 20km pushing his bike up and down the range like a sick relative.

jason_mike_walking.jpg

We built a fire, had lunch, and had to make a crunch decision: without the support truck we didn't have enough water, food and equipment to go on. So we turned the whole show around and started a hair-raising decent back down the hill, flying down the rocks and skidding through the sand. Backtracking was a little demoralizing but this was great riding. Jim was managing to maneuver his BOB trailer through the technical twists and turns. Josh and Crister blasted ahead jumping obstacles and laughing all the way. The rest of us slipped and slid back; our expressions alternating between happy grins, intense concentration, and a slight furrowed brow - knowing we had to climb back here another day.

Our slightly 'free-form' planning and subsequent backtracking made us realize us more planning and communication is going to be needed to pull this thing off successfully. We finished the day figuring out how to make a second attempt on the Maytown track and collapsing into our sleeping bags.

Posted on July 27, 2001 5:01 AM