29th April 2022 St. George to Charleville - Sponsored by Ross Steele

 Distance travelled: 491 kms

Cumulative distance: 1404 kms

Donations to date $8,261 TARGET by end of ride is $10,000

Breakfast at 7am again. Getting used to the "early" start. A team photo was taken before we left for Charleville at around 8.15am.

Team photo outside motel in St. George

A number of riders took the shortcut to Charleville via Mitchell. I stuck to the official route west to Cunnamulla then north to Charleville. This is the route the sweeper takes and if you deviate and breakdown you're on your own. The weather was fantastic, blue skies and 26C for the run to Cunnamulla then 31C to Charleville.

About 100 kms out of St. George there is the village of Bollon. A couple of us stopped there for a coffee and look around. The local store/cafe was doing a roaring trade as it is the shearing season and a lot of the shearers were in town for breakfast. A levee is being built to protect the town from being flooded by the Balonne river.

This is the weir on the Balonne river at Bollon.

Further down the road to Cunnamulla I met my favourite fauna .... a bloody Emu wandering accross the road. I reckon it was the same one I hit on the road to lake Mungo in 2009 as it had lost a lot of its feathers!!! I kept a wary eye out for the rest of its family but saw nothing. Kathy who was driving one of the support vehicles and was just behind me told me later that she saw them wandering accross the road in front of her!!

This a view of the road to Cunnamulla... not many bends!!

Cunnamulla has changed a lot since I was there in 2012 with the Thursday riders. They have improved the street scape with flower beds in the median strip and main roundabout. 

This is the Cunnamulla Fella from the song by Slim Dusty

I managed to buy some elastic at the local hardware store to repair the boot straps on my wet weather gear. Opposite the hardware store I found this ...

A water tower with artwork of female AFLW players!!

The ride north to Charleville was uneventful and I arrived at 2.30pm.

Most of the roads we travelled on today were flooded only a week ago. You could still see pools of water on both sides. The red dirt shoulders were very soft and there were warnings all along the road to avoid them otherwise you were liable to sink up to your axles. Erica proved this by going to visit the "Beach" at Wyandra and riding into a bog.

The hotel in Charleville was the Corones, the same one Colin and I visited to watch a Motogp race in 2014.

We had dinner at the hotel and it was very good.  They weren't sure they could provide dinner when Kathy made the booking as they were still looking for a chef. Luckily they found one who could actuallt cook.

Tomorrow is a big day to Winton .... 695 kms!!