Today was a pleasant roll from one excellent river campsite to another excellent riverside campsite.
The day was most memorable for a close encounter with a dingo. I'd seen many footprints in the roadside sand in the precious days, an we'd heard howling at night but this was the first sighting.
The 6th day in numbers looked like this:
56 km 4 hrs 25 mins of pedalling Average 12.7 km/hr Max. 25 km/hr
And the scenery starting with a delightful sunrise, looked like this:
The first rays of the day poke through the tree canopy and halo the grass ... seen from camp on the Gibb River
Roadside signage at the junction of the Gibb River Road and the Kalumburu Road...confirms that we are plunk in the middle of the Kimberley.I like maps with "You Are Here" arrows!
Yep...it is sandy! Riding in this stuff becomes tedious after a hundred or so kilometres.The road is an alternating series of slight rises and slight depressions signed as "Floodway"The flood ways were often deposits of deep, coarse sand which is not obvious until the wheels sink.
And the highlight of the day. This dingo just trotted up toward me through the grass, then crossed the road right in front of me.The dingo breed is thought to be a relatively recent introduction to Australia, having being brought from Asia sometime within the last 10,000 years. Perhaps as recently as 4,000 years. Aboriginal people have been living continuously in the Kimberley for more than 40,000 years. The dingo closely resembles a breed of dog I saw in north Vietnam villages. When travelling there several years ago, I asked our translator what the type of dog was called he said, "I don't know; I just call them 'The Delicious'"
Well dusted bikes on a Bendigo family caravan stopped on the road with a flat tyre. (At the Hann River crossing where they were doing the repairs.) The driver said he was looking for a nice, deep river crossing to give the bikes a cleansing dip.
