16.5k’s across the neck of the island ahead of us
… to Wathumba.
It’s back into the deep, loose stuff…some parts are as bad or worse than yesterday afternoon, the stuff amongst the trees is a bit firmer…sometimes.
We start to dread any open, sunny patch….and the sun
IS pelting down.
In no time we’re laying in the sand beside the track again, gasping for air.
Bugger the safety gear and protectors… the jackets will stay off from here on.
Not that I fared any better
…and some of the climbs and drops take EVERYTHING out of “men and machine”
Along the last few k’s to the west-coast, our earlier euphoria has evaporated and we’re an hour and a half late for this run….1.5hrs of sun that has dried out the sand and makes it even deeper.... 1.5hrs loss against the dead-low tide for the beach run to come, 1.5hrs late on the time available to catch the 4pm barge across to Hervey Bay….:???::???:
I run ahead a little and pull into the camp area at Wathumba.
The milling crowd of fishermen and “beachbums” falls silent… again:
“What the hell are YOU doing here?? We saw you on the hardpack on the east-side yesterday…did you just take the posties across from Orchid?
Shit, you’re keen, mate…can you gimme a hand getting the canoe off the roofrack?”
Christ, I feel like collapsing but yeah…heave-ho!
Strange, Goodie hasn’t come yet….:evil:
A few minutes later I get that sinking feeling in the guts…only saw her about 1k back??
Knees shaking, head spinning, I let the postie fly for all it’s worth… and there she is, standing next to the bike! Standing, at least!
“No idea, there was this horrible screeching noise and she wouldn’t really go anymore….”
It’s in neutral and I can’t even push the bike…????
The front end is somehow locked up….a second later it dawns:
Sand in the brake-drums !!
Loosening off the brakes at both ends, we’re mobile again…
“Mate, you look rooted….wanna beer?”
This guy’s got ICE-COLD beer in the back of his Landcruiser!!!“Wouldn't take my own Cruiser over here, this one’s rented”
…yep, the place is like THAT !!
It’s heaven here…the shade of the tree-canopy and ice-cold beer.
Out there is the weird and somewhat intimidating Wathumba-“foreshore”….a labyrinth of creeks, puddles, mangroves and dried-out mudflats.
“You wanna go f’ing WHERE??? There’s NO WAY you can get onto the beach from here and there hasn’t been a 4WD along that beach for weeks…make that months!!
You can’t get across Wathumba Creek…no way!
There are welts of seaweed buried just under the surface all along down to Moon point and if you pelt into one of those, you’ll need a tow at best….at worst, the next tide will finish the job….forget it!!
Go back to Orchid…”
We look at each other….a long look…
Go back to Orchid? Then the Indian Head Bypass? Jeezaz Christ….
The rest would be easy though…
This side is only 40k’s to Moon Point…if we make it across the creek, if we find the beach at all, looking at all the flats and mangroves….
We’ll try for the creek first, then see what it looks like from there….
….and off we wobble through some rapidly changing sand, mud, hardpack, mud again, skirting mangroves and bigger puddles….it’s hot out here.
The 4WDs and fishermen disappear from the mirrors, there are some old tracks sloping into a wider creek…that’s gotta be Wathumba Creek. The opposite sand-bank climbs near-vertical for about 5m straight out of the creek, no surprise they can’t get a 4WD across.
It’s quick-running water, too…that’ll be quite a drag when crossing….and the sandy bottom will make anything sink when standing still in the water.
The only way is to push the bike in first gear and on the throttle, move quickly through the water and go into a diagonal traverse up the other side, with the bike hopefully digging it’s own way up the side of the bank as I’m slip-sliding my own track half-above it….
We go in, the angle is wrong, I’m at 90deg to the waterflow, the wave is building quickly, I forgot to pull the choke before going in and the carb and engine are under water, cooling rapidly, the bike stalls ¾ way through !!!
Goodie rushes in for the push and somehow I get the engine running again for the traversing climb….DONE!!
Learning from the mistakes, the V6-RR goes in on an angle, choke in….and just cruises through and up the bank on the other side.
DONE!!!
Mistake No 3 and 4:
Shoulda bludged more of that beer….and….never count your chickens yaddayadda…
Right across that sand-hill, mangroves narrow the sloping track dramatically….with a BIG, rotten- stinking mud-hole at the bottom.
To make it short…the first bike takes heaps of effort, we get stuck, the mud is a good ½ meter deep and of the gooey-sucking variety….and Gosh, it
REEKS!!
Goodie slips while trying to push and falls backwards into the disgusting slop.
Trying to pull her boots back out of the stuff, she nearly gives up and abandons them, truly hard work…. without gaining an inch.
Again, learning from the first one, the 2. is a piece of cake….and this time we have more speechless fishermen and their kids as spectators.
A bit more loose stuff and
we’re ON THE BEACH!!
There ya go….impossible, my arse!!
Now for the rest of it, down the western shores to Moon Point…
We’re STUFFED…and exhilarated by having come that far…but it’s cost time.
Any big obstacles like that and things will get very tight, the barge still leaves at 4pm.
With dead-low tide and some luck we should be able to make it….
Virgin beaches
….not even footprints