Cattle Women Wrangle Tough Terrain

A group of five cattle women from properties in outback Queensland have spent months cycling rough roads to prepare for the Gibb Challenge in Western Australia.

The 660-kilometre adventure race, which takes cyclists through the Kimberley region from Derby to Wyndham, raises money for various charities.

This year the chosen organisation is the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS).

Vonda Kimber, Julie Bauman, Lee Clews, Rebecca Comiskey and Leah Gleeson have prepared for the gruelling track by cycling around their cattle properties and on remote roads near Alpha in central Queensland.

“Bec Comiskey, she’d jump on her bike and do a water run around her property,” Ms Kimber said.

“I work at the Alpha Hospital, which is 50km away from my house. Sometimes I’d ride my bike into town and work a shift and then ride home again.

“And when we all get together we’d do a 50–100km ride and just try and pace ourselves with each other.”

Preparing for tough conditions

Ms Kimber said the local community had inspired their team name.

“That was how we came up with our name because we all live on or near the Belyando River,” she said.

“When we were riding around, deciding on the name, all these butterflies were out in the millions, so we decided we’d call ourselves the Belyando Butterflies.”

She said the team was prepared for some tough conditions.

“They’ve had the most amazing wet season up here this year. I think it’s the wettest they’ve had in 30 years, so we’re expecting a lot of good, wet crossings,” Ms Kimber said.

“There’s hundreds of creeks that we go through, so we’ll be on the bikes, off the bikes, and there’s quite a bit of corrugation.”

“On day one we will relay it but we do plan to ride all together the rest of the days, but we’ll just see how our knees are handling it and our backsides”

Source
ABC News