Started the day uphill with short rocky push up over Richman Pass, descending back down the Eastern side to soft clay roads. The soft track made it fairly slow going - felt like riding on flat tires. Beautiful, unulating country along Old Gunyah Road, East of the Mt Brown Conservation Park - wheat and a few sheep.
A local farmer stopped to chat - rain was delaying the reaping but otherwise a good year. "That's farming!"
Eventually the track flattened out with a few drops of rain starting to fall. Then finally, the first tail-wind of the trip, but that meant that the rain was on its way from the system that had been held in the North East corner of the state for the last couple of days.
A fast downhill, enjoying the tailwind into Wilmington for a vegi burger. Good fuel!
Just out of Wilmington I passed a church that whilst in good condition, didn't look like it had been used for a while. It seems that most effort was put into building churches and pubs. The church had lapsed, but the pub looked well utilized.
With a black line of cloud chasing me across the plain, I headed off with more fat rain drops and a sticky road in places - water right across the road in parts.
About 5km out of Melrose it started to rain pretty hard. Stopped next to a monument to Goyder (who mapped a line of reliable rainfall) in the rain. Is that irony...not sure?
Pushed through the rain into Melrose. Turned into the main drag to see it full of cars and people. My heart stopped: thought it might be a festival or something and that there would be "no room at the inn" so to speak. Unfortunately it turned out that a local girl had died under a quad bike and it was the day of her funeral. She came from one of the larger families in the area so there were a lot of people. Pretty soon, the town emptied again.
There was a cabin available at the caravan park, so I didn't have to huddle in my tiny tent after all. The rain was really thumping down by this stage. Went to the general store for a meal to heat up and the pub for a bottle of local booze and spent the evening looking at the low cloud on Mt Remarkable.
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