Kim and wife Sally have made everything they own available to me so I can plan my return journey; I start up the computer and get connected to the internet. RACQ site is found and the road trip planner does its job. Next the BP web site where I see if there is available fuel at the times I will be riding through these towns. Phone calls are made to make sure and one very helpful lady at Charters Towers BP tells me they shut at 10pm (I ended up getting there at 10.08pm) but the Shell is open and also aids me with information on the next stop at Clermont.

It’s all go, the plan is doable and I feel good apart from a dull soreness in my hands. I plan to leave at 3pm so I lay about for the remainder of the day. This is the 24 hours I do not get on my bike at all, from 4pm the previous day. I try to get some sleep but it doesn’t come, I did read once that even laying down resting is good for you so I persevere. I make notes into my tape recorder and think about the next evening.

I chose to ride at night for a number of reasons the main one being that to do this many kilometers in 24hrs one must ride at night. It makes sense to me that its better to ride the night when you are fresh rather than ride all day and be tired going into the evening. So that’s what I do.

Sally returned just before 3pm as I am getting ready and is there to wave me off with daughter Marni. At 3pm Monday the 16th of May I get my start docket at Mission Beach and head for the highway. I will be running backwards by going to Tully before heading for Cairns first and returning back to Tully for the extra klms. The lady at the BP at Tully is like most I have found along the way and is curious as to what and why, I hand her a printed sheet I have prepared for this to explain my trip and tell her I will be back in about 3 hours.

Busy time at Cairns as workers head home but I slip through the traffic and head for Tully where I pull in at 6.37pm. I gear up for the cold night ride and head off.

From here it’s onto Townsville and then west to Charters Towers reaching there at just after 10pm. The lady at the Shell servo was interesting, she said “you’re not going to ride the Clermont road in the dark on a bike are you, even the locals don’t do that because of the kangaroo’s” That’s just what I wanted to hear…. I gingerly headed off south.

The run to Clermont would be the hardest stretch of road I traveled. Its 370klms of nothing, well in the dark it is. Over its length it goes from good two way sealed road to single width gravel and in between long sections of single width sealed roadways. Now add the ever constant worry of Kangaroo’s plus an occasional three trailer road train and you get the picture. It’s a short cut for many road haulage companies so a regular sighting of trucks either on the road or off to the side while their drivers caught up with sleep was common.

2.05 am and into Clermont. As I paid for my fuel a conversation arose about why I was on the road in such a desolate place on a bike at that hour and a road train pulled in. I returned to my bike to get geared up for the ride into Emerald and the truck driver comes out and says “I think you’re pulling my leg mate, it’s not possible to do 2000klms in under 24hrs. I been driving these rigs for 30-35 years and it can’t be done”

I am in no frame of mind to argue with a stranger as to if it can be done as I know it can so I reply in my nicest voice (at 2.20am it’s not easy) “well my friend I was talking to the lady so I am not trying to pull your leg, I have a date with home, see you mate” and rode off.

3.26 am and into Emerald, quick fuel up and I hand a flyer to the couple there to explain. I am trying to keep a flow going and not be delayed.

The leg to the coast from Emerald through Springsure, Moura and onto Biolela was COLD. On the way up north I had been keeping myself amused by deciding how cold I was on a scale of 1 – 10 with 1 being cool. I had decided then I was only a 6 so stop thinking you are cold. I have been very cold on a motor cycle when we lived in the Southern Highlands near Bowral so I use that as a gauge of 10. Now I think I was a very close 9, hands were shaking and I was shivering as I got fuel in Biolela. Phoned my wife as I had done at every stop even at 2am in the morning and told her. “How do you feel though” she asked, “overall I feel good apart from that and the suns up so I will be ok”

It’s about 7.20am when I leave Biolela and head for the coast, sun in my eyes and hoping to warm up soon.

Calliope on the main Bruce Highway gets me another fuel docket to prove I had been there and I head south for home, its only 450 klms to go and I know this road well.

This section was uneventful apart from one annoying thing, I came upon two cattle trucks heading my way and I needed to get past them. Now I don’t know if you are familiar with these trucks but they are double level and full of cattle on their way to a better place, well that’s what they tell the cattle I am sure. Now cattle like any animal need to … well let’s say that I have never seen a cow go to the bathroom so it has to go somewhere and running down the back of the truck onto the road it goes. Literally runs out the back of the truck and sprays anything behind. My bike becomes covered in cattle do do. Not nice!!

Gympie and almost home, I call my wife and tell her I am going to run past Cooroy and go to Yandina to pick up a buffer of extra kilometers in case the IBA come up short when they certify my ride. I am not going to ride 2000 klms to be a few short and not achieve my goal. She says she will see me in Cooroy in an hour.

Cooroy, home and its 1.12pm on Tuesday 17th May 2005 I have done it!! 2067 klms in under 24hrs. Short but regular stops and careful planning has done the job.

Hugs and kisses and off to the office to let the team know I made it back.

Places named are fuel stops.

What did I learn.