Sunday the 14th November 2010
Not much happened today on the actual ride except Alan trying to kill himself… Alan has a water bottle which he keeps in the left hand side pocket on his gearsack which is positioned behind him. The problem is, whilst he’s riding and if he wants to get a drink he has to reach around behind, pull the drink bottle out of the side pocket. Typically he then starts riding all over the road and his speed drops dramatically. (He doesn’t believe me but I’ll get it on film as evidence) once he had finished his drink the same thing happens as he is attempting to put the drink bottle back. On this occasion Alan was attempting to put the drink bottle back in but missed the side pocket, Alan then swerved off the road and onto the gravel, he sprayed me with rocks, which clearly did not please me (you may have gathered I’m a bit precious about my bike). The drink bottle hit the road and water sprayed out as it bounced to a halt. We then pulled up and Alan went back to retrieve the drink bottle. Later when we stopped for fuel I suggested to Alan that he might want to rethink the drink bottle placement scenario and possibly replace it with a camel pack (like mine) tied to the handle bars. Alan thinks I look gay whilst sipping from the tube whilst riding, but I’ll take that as opposed to crashing my bike at 110 clicks. The suggestion was rejected.
The Litchfield National Park is impressive. The Termite Mounds are massive, and then you get to the Wangi falls. Imagine its hot and unbelievably humid and you’ve been on a Harley for several hours, with a scenarios like this I’m even looking forward to a nice dip in a relatively warm watering hole, but alas first we needed to setup camp.
After a couple of laps of the campsite on the bikes we chose the best spot available (everything was because it’s not tourist season) we then looked for a place to set up the tents, and trust me when I say it has to be the perfect place. It truly dose take lots of contemplation and pondering to find the right spot, it has to be on nice grass and where the water won’t flow through your tent in the middle of the night when the tropical thunder storms hit. Under the right kind of tree so that it provides shade all day but the tree can’t be a widow maker (Lemon Scented Gum Tree) as they tend to drop branches and squash anything underneath them. Once we had determined the perfect spot we put up our tents and bolted for the water because we were both absolutely soaked due to the humidity.
But as fate would have it as we approach the Wangi Falls Swimming hole it starts to rain, which means the temperature drops by about 15 degrees so I don’t need a swim. (It was too cold) Alan still needs a swim, so I left him with the other tourist and did the walk 1.7Klm’s up and over the top of the falls, it’s a spectacular view and to see the creeks that flow into the waterfall is as impressive as it is interesting. The water is clear and the rocks are this beautiful burnt orange colour that glistens with the water flowing over them.
After dinner Alan spotted a live Cane Toad, unfortunately killing one whilst not riding does not count so we had to introduce the Cane toad to a log from the fire. Let’s just suggest it didn’t end well for the Cane toad.
After such excitement we had retired to our Separate Tents (that’s for all of those of you that think we behave like a old married couple) I was awoken to hear the gurgling of air being pushed out of a sprinkler system by water under enormous pressure, that was then followed by my tent being hit by the spray from said sprinkler. As it turns out Alan had left his tent fly off so he could get some his air flow through his tent, apparently that wasn’t such a good move as he was directly in the line of fire from said sprinkler. Alan had to get up and quickly put the fly on, but whilst Alan and his gear did get reasonably wet, the fact that he did get up so quickly did save him from getting completely soaked. At this point in time I had already fallen asleep again because I wasn’t getting wet due to the fact I had put my fly on. Good Times…
However my luck was about to change, at about 3am another set of sprinklers came on except they were like fire hoses that that are held down by teams of firemen fighting those massive building blazes and one of them was only half a metre from my tent. I then leapt into action, sure it actually took about 15 minutes before I could be bothered getting up and stop asking why had the Gods forsaken me once again and thinking it will end soon. (and yes George I was thinking I should just say no) once out of my tent I discovered the close proximity of the sprinkler so I decided the Cane Toad killing log wedged up against the sprinkler and between my tent and the sprinkler would do the trick. And it sure did… Whilst it wasn’t a complete disaster I did have to sponge the inside of my tent down.
Who would think that in the Litchfield National park would have sprinklers, not just your average sprinklers but the fire hydrant kind.
Cheers
a
No comments:
Post a Comment