Leaving this morning I felt that this was the real start for me, with Darwin being my next major stop. My old school mate Ernie was getting a visit. It was the first time I had to make a decision of planing a route, stick to the coast, mountains or inland. The coast is busy and boring. I have done the Warrego Hwy out through Roma before and it’s straight flat road country. Although about 100k’s further, I chose to stick to the mountains. I went down the other side of Mt Glorious and hooked up with The D’Aguilar Hwy heading north through Esk. At Nanango it changes to the Burnett Hwy. I was running parallel with the coast road, but doing it in the hills.
It was a great day riding and definitely the right choice. At about 3.30 and 6hrs of being on the bike, I arrived in Monto and called it a day. Although I had camping gear with me, I had decided not to use it until I got to the North West coast where it would be warmer. I knew there was always a town with pub with a room in the outback otherwise all the servo’s are Road Houses and they have rooms and food so accommodation was never an issue, anywhere.
I rode around the main block a couple of times, casing the town out and found The Albert Hotel. A room for $55 with brekky. I sat in the main bar and chatting with a local mentioned I was heading out through Emerald on the Capricorn Hwy to go to Mount Isa. He said that the best way for me to go tomorrow was to turn left at Biloela and go out through Banana. Reason being that it’s a less traveled road and I could probably average a higher speed.
Motorbike Touring 