Movie stage XXII, XXIII, XXIV & XXV

I went back to my roots - finally trekking along the trail in the national park. There was sun, rainbow, rain, walking along the beach and paths, overnight at the campsite, and for the first time in three months I had a period of more than 24 hours without seeing another human being. Great Sandy National Park was interesting, but I left it halfway through and headed to Cooloola Cove.

There was another package waiting for me, from which I pulled out a folding three-wheeled scooter. Not exactly what I wanted, but the Polish customs office despite our promise to pay the tax, sent the scooter back to the sender. And as Australia is the end of the world and I couldn't buy such scooters in the whole country. I ended up taking my son's scooter, with too low handlebar, with too small wheels, and I was afraid to even check the maximum load.

I went out on the road. Super smooth concrete in a garage is not the same as a rough outback road. I was fighting. It often happened that even going downhill the road I had to push myself off. But fortunately, as in life, everything bad passes, so smooth sections of bituman also happened to me from time to time. Pavement is one thing, traffic is another, and the shoulder is a third. The highway along the coast terrified me, so I decided to detour more than 200km and ride inland. Despite this tactic I changed the route twice more, all so that I was passed by one car every five minutes, not five cars every minute.

There was also the problem of whether to go against the traffic or let the trucks overtake me from behind. The strategy was variable depending on how sharp the corner was, how steep the hill was and what the shoulder was like. It was important for the drivers to see me early, otherwise I was getting off the road with the scooter. It was the worst on the downhills, because the machine accelerated to over 30 km/h which is not easy to stop. The sole of the shoe quickly began to wear off, but worse, the knee of the braking leg began to hurt.

Fortunately, the number of steep hills was less and less, the area began to open up, kangaroos and emus appeared, it became green, steamy, humid. No wonder since I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in the rainy season. In addition to the extreme humidity, the temperatures were above 30 degrees Celsius, so I was sweating profusely and quickly learned to carry more water with me. Often the distances between buildings were over 40-50km, twice I had to stop cars and ask for a drink.

Returning to the coast I descented steeply down into the kingdom of sugarcane. Like a knife cut it suddenly became flat with a meandering road between charming hills. I can't remember the last time I wore a jacket, or when I slept in a sleeping bag instead of on top of it. In the afternoons it rained often, the norm in the wet season, but it was warm enough that I didn't put on a raincoat because I would sweat in it. But I dreamed about this warmth after frosty mornings that accompanied me for over half a year - I'm glad it's hot.

Such riding on a scooter was demanding, because first of all, the feet were sitting high above the ground (compared to a skateboard), so pushing off with your leg caused a lot of bending of the opposite leg, and the heavier the backpack the more difficult it was - the quadriceps muscles can confirm this. While resting in the tent for the first time in several months, I started to get cramps, I also lost a lot of weight. The intensity of the effort was very high.

After riding over 1000km (a section like Sydney - Noosa) with 6000 meters of elevation gain, without a day's break doing an average of over 60km a day, I was glad that the stage had finally come to an end. The scooter passed the test, because with the exception of the grained steering bearings, the construction and above all the wheels did a great job.

And unfortunately I messed up with electronics again. I decided to mail the drone not to carry it around, so I wanted to record one shot. I fired it up, took it into the air, turned right… oh bugger, left. Too late, the drone crashed into a tree and got destroyed completely. Expensive lesson :(

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