Well I made it to Brisbane no problems at all, had Christmas with my Father and Sister. After Christmas I had to abandon my plans to go further South as my Father had only been released from hospital on Christmas eve, I took him to his home and looked after him until New years day and by then my best option was to come home.
Moral of the story, when you are 84 years old there are no "simple procedures" - he went in on the Monday for what was expected to be an overnight stay to have stents inserted in his heart. The procedure was slated to take 2 hours and in fact took 6, during which an artery was unfortunately punctured - not an uncommon problem but having a drain in your chest is never pleasant.
Then to make matters worse his diabetes went into bizzaro mode and his kidneys shut down (for this I suspect that the hospital did not adequately hydrate him), so the result was he didn't get released until Christmas eve and was still very shaky and frail.
To return to the trip home, I could see a developing weather pattern that was going to make travel by motorcycle fairly obnoxious - torrential rain and very high winds, so I left early on New year's day with the object of getting in front of the weather. Day one was a "leisurely' 950km mostly in 35 to 40 degree heat - I do not think I have ever drunk so much water, I drained my 2lt CamelBak twice and at one stop drank an entire 2lt bottle of water before it was my turn at the checkout to pay for it.
For Australians, day 1 was Brisbane to Mackay. Day 2 was a much more relaxed 800km as the sky was mostly heavily overcast which whilst it didn't reduce the heat much did at least keep the blasting rays of the sun off me. I had lunch with a friend in Townsville and afternoon tea with more friends in Tully, arrived home at 7:00pm.
Ate a bread roll and crashed, surfaced this morning and went looking for anti-inflammatory meds.
No photos were taken on the way home as I was focused on makking as many Ks as possible and, to be honest, I was too heat stressed.
At Rockhamption I had to sit down on the forecourt of the service station in order to avoid the bother of simply falling down. The owner came out to ask if I was OK and I replied that I'd be fine once the water I'd drunk did its job. In the meantime I asked if I could just leave the bike next tot he pump because if I tried to move it we would both end up in a heap.
The owner was fine with that and brought me out more bottles of cold water, one of which I simply poured over myself (whilst congratulating myself on remembering to take my phone out of my pocket first). Twenty minutes later I was ready to travel again, but noting the lesson I'd just been given I stopped every 120km thereafter to have a big drink of water.
If I were to write a travel dialogue it would have to be dedicated to Panadol Osteo, with assistance from Iboprofen.
On the way down after the first 100 off kilometres I was mildly guilty of not taking the R65 - not the only time I had silly thoughts. The GSA was magnificent, comfortable to a fault, long, long legs (greatest distance between fuel stops 525km Mackay north to Callipoe), used a total of 500ml of oil there and back and if I were physically up to it I could go downstairs right now and after an oil change the GSA would do the while trip again with no dramas.
Me not so much. The genesis of this trip was my looming 60th birthday and it took on something of a personal challenge. I am so glad I did it
