I feel let down, deflated but now I'm Pumped - 25th September 2012

A few km out of Atherton on our first day of exploring the bike was not handling well, the feeling you get when a tyre is going flat. My first suspicions was that it was the front tyre but a quick call to Trish on the intercom and a safe parking spot in a side street soon revealed that it was my back tyre. With 10psi still left in it I decided to ride back to camp to do the repairs rather than on the side of the road and anyway it was only 3km back. Our plans for the day would need to be put on hold until this was sorted. With motorbikes you don't have a spare tyre and calling the RAC is not much help. We have done close to 20,000km without a flat but I have been carrying a repair kit for just this situation. Plugs to patch the hole or in this case as I found TWO holes, caused by of all things small sharp stones. As it is hard to carry a pump on a motorbike I carry small CO2 cylinders like what is used in soda siphons. With a special adapter valve you hook it to the tyre valve once the plug has been put in and by using several of them you can inflate the tyre.

Afterwards I headed for town to replace the CO2 cylinders but also decided since we have the trailer I would buy a small cheap compressor to carry as a backup. With all that done and a couple of hours behind schedule we headed off again for Herberton. On arrival we did the street strip, where we get out of our bike clothes and boots and into shorts and walking gear. Trish has it down to a fine art where she wraps the sarong around and does a modesty strip much to the amusement of any passers-by. Herberton's claim to fame was its history in Tin mining which has long finished so is now a pretty little sleepy town. First stop was for food and we found these amazing grilled prawn and avocado Turkish breads at a local café. Delicious ! !

There had been many roadside ads for a Camera Museum in the town and as a camera collector I couldn't let that go by. At $15 for the tour Trish opted to go walkies while I did the tour. It was a bit strange as the guy had this speedy, fast talking patter that he did for all his visitors and was speeding past things that I wanted to see and even when I said I had a collection and pointed out things that I had and that I had taught the history of photography t student, he still continued on with his well-rehearsed patter. Not that it wasn't interesting but when he finally drew breath I asked if I could go back through and look for myself. This was me in my heaven. When I finally emerged Trish had just arrived back so we headed for the mining museum. The museum was well set up and based around their tin mining history which we found very interesting.

After doing the reverse strip back into bike clothes, followed by a kick of the tyre to check that the repairs were holding, we headed back home and ready for a swim in the great swimming pool at the camp. A great day out for The Intrepids even if we did have a bit of a hiccup at first.

Crystal Caves and Crater Lakes - 25th September 2012

A quick check of the tyre and the pressure gauge said all was well. Time to go to the Crystal Cave to look at rocks - Intrepids love rocks! Two and a half hours later we left the Crystal shop and Trish had two rings and a necklace in hand. It was a bit strange as the woman that had been serving Trish would walk off and leave us with thousands of dollars worth of stock in our hands, multiple rings of varying value, necklaces worth around $1000, even though we said we were interested in looking at them but not buying. At one stage she had disappeared for quite a while but we couldn't just leave the items on the counter in case someone else walked off with them. We had to wait until she finally returned before moving on to admire other precious stones. Very trusting!

Our next trip was to Lake Eacham via The "Curtain Fig" and Yungaburra. The Curtain Fig was a very large strangler fig tree that had grown in a bit of an odd way so that there was a massive "curtain" of roots. Yungaburra was a cute small town where people can at the right time of day, go Platypus spotting, just happened that we were not there at the right time of day. So we moved on to Lake Eacham which is a fresh water lake in an extinct volcano. We had been told the water was freezing but it turned out to be very refreshing once we got out of all the bike clothing. Trish was determined to swim in a volcano come hell or high water but she did not need to be a martyr in the end. Once cooled down we did the 3km hike around the crater edge. When we were nearly back and having read signs about all the wildlife we came across a viewing platform at the edge of the lake. First we spotted large fish in the water then a Saw Back Turtle, then many more turtles. We were all excited about this then we spotted a very large lizard down on a log, even more excited now then finally to cap it all off there were a couple of bright blue fresh water crayfish under the logs. It was a wonderful wildlife experience in this one little spot.

We returned home very satisfied with our Intrepids day out.

Dave the big white hunter