June 21, 2022
Day 26: Lennard River to Birdwood Downs Station
Start: 4:35 am
Distance: 113 km
Ride time: 5:23 hours
Average: 21 km/hr
Max: 33 km/hr
Finish: 11am
Wow, a pretty early morning start for me. With a big day ahead I wanted to get a lot of kms done before it got too hot.
The moon was up and bright as were the stars.
They were aligned for me as the rest of the Gibb is now all bitumen. What a huge sigh of relief. No more corrugations. No more getting covered in dust or inhaling dust when cars sped by. And I can do greater speeds on the smooth surface.
The road was flat and smooth and I had a little tailwind. I was flying along. I was putting in a lot of effort early on to try to beat the heat.
An amazing surprise was running into Ian who I met a week ago. He was cycling east. He had finished the Gibb and was now driving it again from west to east.
When he rode it, he didn't go to any gorges or take any side roads. This time he will visit the gorges etc.
We discussed bikes etc. He will probably get a rohloff hub on his next bike. And he liked the way I carried water in the bladders on top of the panniers.
He kindly offered me a cold soft drink or a beer. It was only 10am so I took the soft drink. He also gave me 3 mandarins.
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After my longest day of this trip, I arrived at Birdwood Downs Station.
The check in lady kindly charged me $16 instead of $35 for a camp site.
I had noticed a large workshop so I asked if they could help with fixing my stand.
An hour later, 2 guys arrived at my camp site with some tools. They removed the broken bolts. Then found some bolts that would fit. These were too long so they cut them to fit.
It's now better than new.
It took them about 45 minutes and they wouldn't accept any payment for their help. This is very generous and I am very thankful.
Today's ride: 113 km (70 miles)
Total: 1,338 km (831 miles)
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It’s a challenging variety of surfaces.
2 years ago