42
RALLY HO!
AUGUST 2022
the motel, with the world’s most formal waiter complete with bow-tie apologising for anything that wasn’t absolutely perfect to people who were thrilled just not to be having to eat chilli jerky.
was right up there with the best in any major population centre though, and the presence of two other Triumph riders resulted in a very long break chatting and sipping lattes.
Just about sums up the weather Triumph 1050 Twinsies Into Charters Towers for a late lunch and a visit to the camping shop to try to replace a tea cup with a hole in it, and we had one of the better nights of the trip at the Charters Towers Motel cooking up a feast on the BBQ. We had a few beers with the laid-back owners, a surer sign we were in the tropics than any Tropic of Capricorn crossing ritual.
Suppose the rain at Carnarvon Gorge could have been worse The commute north continued, with the expectation we’d cross the Tropic of Capricorn just out of Clermont and get the mandatory photo. No signs appeared, then the realisation dawned that we had actually crossed it just out of Emerald. Too late to turn back. The Gregory Highway is not dripping with major population centres, in fact there is only one at Belyando Crossing, which has no population. The coffee
Wherever I wander my memory will dwell, on those happy 2 minutes at Three Rivers Hotel More northerly commute the next day to our first tourist experience since Carnarvon Gorge – the Undara Lave Tubes. Distances are fairly large up in this neck of the woods, it was still nearly 400km. Fortunately, we passed through two major population centres – Greenvale and
