Cycling Stats: 149 kms
Cycling Average: 30 kms per hour
Conditions: Fine & very hot with a light head wind for the first 100 km of the journey then it became quite a strong headwind for the last sector which slowed the average speed on the bike from 33kms per hour to 30 kms.
The traffic on the road was very light. The highlights were the beautiful expansive grasslands stretching as far as the eye could see and coming across a pair of beautiful cranes (very large grey birds with long legs and red heads - Sarus Cranes) close to the side of the road. I was only around 5 - 10 kms in front of Walter so I enjoyed watching them and photographing them and waited until Walter caught up so I could point them out to him. It wasn't until I started the engine that they very majestically and oh so gracefully spread their huge wings and took flight. I was awestruck by the beauty of the moment !!
We arrived in Julia Creek at 11.30am and checked into the caravan park which was totally booked out to over capacity to house the huge numbers of people arriving for the famous Julia Creek Dirt N Dust Festival. The population of Julia Creek is 450 and this swells to 3,500 for this very special iconic outback festival.
Walter & I were booked in for 3 nights - we had heard so much about this event from our son Samuel who has competed in the Triathlon there for the last 4 years and has won the last 2 years.
The first event was the kids Triathlon - I enjoyed helping out as a technical official - the country kids were so excited and this was obviously something they had been training for and looking forward to for some time. Kids had come from as far as Townsville (8 hours drive away) to participate. They were very vocal in calling to support each other.
The town's water supply is all artisan bore water pumped up out of the ground and it is so hot it is then pumped into The Julia Creek water tower (see photo below) to cool it before to can be used but it is still very warm water coming out of the taps !
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| Sarus Cranes |
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| Julia Creek - creek at sunset (amazing photo by Walter) |
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| Water tower - Julia Creek |
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