Cummlative totals = 3180km and 23,181km
We get up at just after 5am and it is really dark! Just as well with the long walk to the toilets and kitchen and we still left at 7am. There is a shoulder on the road all the way to Blair Athol and then the shoulder either doesn't exist or narrows ... but that doesn't matter as there is considerably less traffic after the bulk of the mines.
We did come across a wide load with a police escort just out of Clermont and I think they may have bungled it a bit with us as they didn't quite get to us before a bridge that was at least 100m long and we all know with bridges that they are narrower compared to the road and also they have no shoulder so there is no where for us to pull over ... just at the end of the bridge the first police car mutters something to us and by now it is safe and there is room for us to pull over off the shoulder as the wide load comes
We are using an older map for this leg of the trip and funny enough they have moved the Mackay turnoff, on our old map it is 10km out of Clermont ....now it is about 17km out of Clermont!!! We did come across this conveyor belt on our side of the road and it started just before the turnoff to Mackay and goes to Blair Athol Mine we think and it is transporting the coal down to the intersection, under the highway and to the railway connections not far from the Mackay intersection.
So we are merrily riding along and the traffic is not too bad and Neil has decided to count the amount of vans and caravans going in the same direction as us. The road is pretty good and the traffic is light. This is a long stretch of road with nothing much in between so we expect traffic to be in the morning and very sporadic for the rest of the day. It is rolling for the first 65km, not hard hills, but enough to remind you that you are carrying alot of extra gear. Once past 65km it becomes relatively flat for the next 40km. We calculated that between us we have around 27 litres of water! It is hot at the moment so we are carrying extra as we expect to be guzzling it down! Along the way we came across this upturned car on a very straight stretch of road 
Looking at its' tracks off the road we think that the driver fell asleep. I am no car accident expert but there is a nice curve of the road to the upturned car. I am assuming if it swerved to avoid hitting something then it would have a more wiggly curve off the road!
We have our first coffee break at 45km then a bread break at 70km and a cup of tea at 90km at a truck stop that was full of rubbish so we went to the end and perched on an embankment where there was shade
While there a very long road train came and parked on the other side of the road ... I haven't seen one with 4 trailers (I have seen petrol ones with 4 trailers years ago) 
It is hot now but the legs feel okay, we have a slight cross tailwind that pushes us along so we continue on to hit the 100km mark and then we will start looking for a bush camp. We find one at 105km and it is a track that has been bulldozed to clear bush under a power line. Both sides of the road are fenced but there is so little traffic that it doesn't matter if we are close to the road.
But this spot is behind some low lying shrubs and we can get our pegs in the ground
It is a little on the dusty side and we are covered in red dust ... even kouta is ... Mum and Sharon you would hate this spot ... no sooner was I washed that my feet were covered in red dust again and Kouta was walking in and out of the tent so all our bedding and floor has little red paw prints everywhere.
Dinner is hokkien noodles, Heinz Spicy Pumpkin soup and dehydrated peas
easy to cook and minimal water used.
Tonights sunset was lovely.
We had a little visitor this morning ... an echidna but I was too slow with the camera and it was walking to fast across the campsite. But Kouta loved it and wanted to go and visit it when it entered the long grass and that dog refused to listen to us and Neil and I are both yelling and growling at the deaf mutt to get out of the grass and stop hunting for the echidna as if he found it and tried to take it on Kouta will come off second best and all we needed was a deaf mutt with thorns coming out of him in the middle of no where!!! An Echidna is an oversized hedgehog (for the kiwis!)
We get away at 7am and the road is very quiet with not much traffic this early. The wind is blowing (it has been blowing all night) and was blowing from the east and followed the progression of the sun so that what started as a crosswind became a cross headwind by 9am. Lucky we did the extra kms yesterday! The road is still flat for the next 40km so the butt is beginning to feel it as there is no free wheeling!
Not too many caravans today compared to yesterday. Neil counted 41 caravans going in the same direction as us day one and today only about 20 by the time we got to Belyando Crossing at 12.30ish. We are hot, sore and dusty. We have only travelled 72km today but the legs feel good just the butt is not fairing up!
The roadhouse charges to use the toilets - $2 if no purchase or free if you purchase something from the shop.
We take unpowered and try to set up a spot that is ant free ... they are everywhere and really where they put the unpowered is just a dust bowl with very little shade and more ants than dust particles! I get fed up with trying to find an ant free site, I am hot and angry and Neil is keeping his distance. I am stewing as there is no shade, hard ground and f#%ken ants!!! We set up a spot regardless of the ants and I decide to keep the food on the bike trailer. To make matters worse the showers are cold and apparently there is a problem with the hot water service! Really I am thinking we should have paid the $15 filled up with drinking water and continued on up the road!
We were suppose to have a rest day here but we decided to move on tomorrow as even Kouta can't settle as the ants are annoying him and it is hot for him.
Look Mum I have my feet on the table as even I can't get away from the ants that crawl all over your feet while they are on the ground
The night was extremely hot and even Kouta didn't sleep that well due to the heat. It didn't cool down until well after midnight.
I will continue tomorrow with day 3 & 4 ...
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