Atherton to Irvinebank

The climb from Atherton to Herberton was unexpectedly long and steep, but not as bad as the Gilles would have been. Thankfully, there was a lot less traffic too!

Not to be outdone by the chaps from Spinal Tap, whose amps "go to 11", Aussie fire danger ratings go to "catastrophic"! Luckily for us it was only "high" when we were around...

Once in Herberton, we stopped at a park by the Wild River for a short rest. This always gives Ciel an excuse to take lots of pictures (like she really needs an excuse)!

Past Herberton, the road soon turned to gravel, but they were just levelling and watering the surface, so it was almost as good as pavement. There was one nasty climb left for us before Irvinebank, but luckily that one was paved - even in low gear, it was a bit of a grunt!

In Irvinebank, there's a free campground, complete with toilets and showers, right in the middle of town. It was a great place for us to lie around and kill time after getting to Irvinebank early in the day. We sat at a picnic table and ate lunch while a kookaburra watched us. They have the most amazing calls, kind of like a carton monkey going oo-oo-oo-oo-aa-aa-aa-aa! They wouldn't do that while we were watching them, though, so we weren't sure the birds we saw were actually kookaburras until we saw pictures of them in a book.

Later on, we went to the pub across the street for a ginger beer (Ciel would move to Australia just for Bundaberg ginger beer - it's really good). Then dinner and an early night in preparation for an early start in the morning.

-mark.