Day 6 Augathella to Blackall
219km
Well what can we say about day 6?! It was officially the hardest day in RideWest history. It was hot – 38.9 degrees at one point. It was hard – there was a headwind the whole way. It was long – our riders were on the road at 6:30am and didn’t roll into Blackall until 6pm.
Tambo was a great lunch stop with the unmissable quick shop at the famous Tambo Teddies. We are going to have a few happy faces when they receive these beautiful gifts from their riders when they get home. Our team are so looking forward to the reunions with their families and friends, and none of us can quite believe that this time tomorrow we’ll be in Longreach.
We also got a little pick me up, as Les and Shelley Hancock (the founders of this ride) drove past for a quick hello and stopped to have lunch with us.
As we rolled in past the iconic Blackall sign, the sun was starting to drop on another day and the sky filled with beautiful colours. Our whole team was spent, it was truly exhausting.
The only thing that saved us from hitting bed right then and there, was that the P&C from St Joseph’s primary school had invited us (and half the town) down to the Blackall Racecourse for a fabulous dinner. The venue was stunning, with party lights strung, cold beers and plenty of food. The local businesses donated some beautiful prizes which were auctioned off and over another $3000 has been donated to RideWest.
A few highlights from the team today:
Tanya – seeing my first echidna (roadkill) and then seeing my first live echidna crawling across the lawn.
Brett – Coming into Blackall. The bite had come out of the sun, the wind finally dropped and as we rolled past the iconic Blackall sign, we knew that we’d finally made it.
Jo – The pumpkin and quinoa salad!
