GTG - Day 24–Mt Isa rest day

It’s always a little odd these days to not pack up a tent, and we head off to the local Sports Power to see if they had any bike tools to help fix the creak in the Giant’s bottom bracket. As luck would have it, not only did they have the tools, but the manager had a bottom bracket that he had taken a less “noisy” one off his bike the week before. Score. He then elevated himself to legend status by giving it to me for $0, so I have promised to send it back to him once we get back to Adelaide(*).

So if you read this and ever get to Mt Isa, drop in to the local Sports Power @ 20 Miles Street and have a look around. It’s a great store, and the people running it are champions.
(Sportspower Mt Isa, Ph:07 4749 5157, Email: mountisa@sportspower.com.au)

With the right tools in hand, and some spare parts if required, it was a b-line to the Mt Isa hotel for a big breakfast (in name and in size). Yummo. Urgh. I think I ate too much.

With the hamsters fed and watered, it’s off to the shops looking for dress up gear for the Cowboy night at Kajabbi. As much fun as shopping for $20 guns and hats was, I started getting itchy fingers to see if we could fix up the Trance, so it was back to camp for me.

With the usual help from Kym, the cranks and bottom bracket are finally off the bike. As it turns out, all the noise was due to one of the bearing casing being too loose. After a quick clean and re-grease, the bracket and crank is all back together, and yippee…. no noise. Listen to that serenity. Now I need to grease the chain, ‘cos it sounds terrible (now that I can hear it…!)

Unfortunately, the mine tour we had wanted to do was not on after all, so it’s a restful afternoon, with Andy getting started painting the t-shirts we had chosen for cowboy costumes.

Dinner at the Coffee Club was rather more subdued than the night before, and aside from Pete and Rosi making a rather humorous mess of trying to cut a corner off a vanilla slice, an uneventful ( and quite restful) day was at an end.

Off to Cloncurry tomorrow, which is rumored to be the hardest day of the trip. Hmm. Time will tell!

< end of day 24 >

* – as it turned out, all I needed to do was tighten my bottom bracket, however, Andy needed to use the parts at Burke and Wills, so we dodged a bullet there me thinks.