A slow news day

March 28, 2024

Donnybrook to Jarrahwood (Nala Mia hut)

The Donnybrook hotel was clean and comfortable with a spotless shared bathroom that was less spotless by the time we left. It’s incredible how much muck comes off you in the shower despite scrubbing furiously for 5 minutes, yet the towel still ends up a slightly beiger tinge than it started.

Donnybrook, much like Collie is a mid size town of maybe 5,000 people and both seem to have over-zealous council gardening crews that like nothing more than creating an almighty din with whipper snippers and edgers the moment anyone sits down to have a quiet contemplative moment. The guy with the edger in Collie was more intent on carving a groove in the pavement than trimming the grass. There was a shower of sparks burning the grass off rather than the blades doing any cutting. The last guy had the noisiest blower vac known to mankind and an enterprising local was walking behind them selling Panadols.

I get it now. The earplugs in the courtesy pack were for the morning coffee.

Despite being busy highway towns the cafes don’t open until 8am which seems a missed business opportunity to me. There’s almost bumper to bumper pre Easter traffic yet no where can you get an early coffee. So we just sat in the park cowering from the sparks until 8am rolled around. As we approached the only cafe that looked like it was opening an older local resident called me over and, in a hushed voice, said that if we were looking for breakfast to go elsewhere as our chosen cafe was horrendously expensive with a cup of coffee being $9. With nothing else open we went in and had a perfectly good brew for the normal $4.50. Good old home town gossip.

We were going to put in a big day and try to get to Nannup and have a rest day but it’s Easter and everything is booked out. So plan B is to stop at a closer hut and keep riding until after Easter is over. Within a kilometre of leaving town we were back in the forest on single track. It’s so much better than being on the road but the going is slow, with a steady uphill single track for a good half an hour. Eventually we reached a dirt road that turned to tarmac and a solid downhill spin chewed up some easy kilometres.

It’s hot again today, with another cloudless sky but luckily there’s a swimming spot 20 kilometres in which keeps my spirits high as I wipe the sweat from my eyes. My high hopes were shattered when we crested a small rise and found a dust bowl with a dribble of water at the bottom.

The rest of the day was spent firstly in a pine forest then a scrubby wooded forest and finally a jarrah forest. It’s very sandy as well as we’re not far from the coast. Whilst theres a fair bit of pushing involved the sands preferable to pea gravel as it’s more predictable (and softer to land on).

A DSE of about .01. For those non farmers out there DSE stands for ‘dry sheep equivalent’, is the amount of feed required by a 50kg Merino wether to maintain its weight. Fascinating I know but I’m struggling for material.

Having not seen anyone bar 2 road workers early on in the day, as we reach the Nala Mia hut another rider pulls in. Turns out Simon is a really nice guy, but my first question was “do you snore?”. As much as I like chatting with Pete, after nearly 2 weeks we’ve just about exhausted all our material. Asking Pete how his day has been typically gets a response of ‘similar to yours’, so it’s nice to have someone different to chat to.

Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 512 km (318 miles)

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