Day 17 - Hilary Creek to Boulia

All good thing must come to an end, and so it was after another wonderful night under the stars, Ric's watch alarm roused the boys at 5.45 for another day in the saddle.

The ride was scheduled to be a shorter one of just over 80 km into the small town of Boulia. We covered the pretty flat countryside quite quickly, and even ate up the 20 km or so of unsealed road at around a 25km/h average speed. The pitted, rutted and really stony surfaces of the Birdsville Track, where we struggled to make 15 km/h, seem a long way behind us now.

We had to push a little harder on the pedals over the closing 20 kms as our lovingly praised tailwind of the past few days deserted us, and we were back to peleton formation with each of us sharing the load at the front.

We arrived in Boulia, a pretty and neat town by the banks of the Burke River, just after 11 am. We were disappointed to hear that the Min Min cafe was currently closed, so our plan of sitting around in our lycra and sipping lattes would have to be deferred. Instead we pitched our tents and swags at the local campground on a novelty item - green grass. After a quick sandwich lunch we set about changing the tyres over from the knobby all terrain treads we have been running since day 3 to our hybrid and slick tyres. We're expecting sealed roads all the way through now.

We strolled back into town around 3 pm to check out the local grocery store - the largest one we have seen since Port Augusta, to post a couple of parcels, letters & cards, and to check out the local pub. Dom & Ric left Pete and Andrew at the pub - working on local and international relations - and headed off to the "Min Min experience" at the tourist centre. We were treated to a cleverly assembled entertainment of lights, stage sets, talking mannequins and stories about the mysterious Min Min lights. Ric and Alan are converts, claiming to have seen them over the past day or in our bush camps - it's either that or the red wine and isolation is getting to them!

Back to camp for a wonderful dinner of curried vegetables, and then it was a few phone calls home and another early night.