April 22, 2024
Cycle day 1 - Darwin to Acacia caravan park
Cycled 48km & journey total is 48km
Temperature = todays high was 34 degrees (minimum 25 degrees)
Winds = South Easterly/ Easterly around 15km per hour and a head wind
Unpowered camping = $25 at Acacia roadhouse/caravan park
So on Monday we left our cabin and went to an unpowered tent site ($34). It was in shade for most of the morning but in sun during the afternoon. We set it up with the fly on, not that we thought it was going to rain but more for allowing stuff to be stored safely in the annexe ... as you know when we get stuff stolen from us it is always in these hoity toity expensive parks! Cleptomaniacs like to stay at expensive caravan parks!!!
It hasn't rained in Darwin for 3 weeks so the ground is a little hard and they are watering the grass already. Lucky we have our mallet and steel pegs for the impending hard grounds ahead.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We managed to get the rest of our supplies in the morning and spent the afternoon beside the pool or in the pool.
Our dinner for Monday night was our last fresh food meal for around a week – we are carrying 6 days worth of food (mainly tinned and packet soups with precooked packet rice or noodles) and hopefully that will last until Katherine. We had soy chicken and Thai salad.
We hung outside the kitchen as it was cooler than inside and then at dark we were driven to our tent by the mossies and boy were we in for a shock once in the tent – it was a Swedish sauna in there! I think the outside was around 28 degrees while in the tent it was pushing over 35 degrees and the sweat just poured of us. We just laid on the mats and the sweat just saturated the pillows and sleeping mats (fortunately they have cotton covers on them but even then that doesn't stop sweat from getting on the thermarests). So we just laid there in absolutely misery waiting for the tent to cool a bit. I put it down to having the fly on. It was a miserable nights sleep – eventually we stopped sweating and drifted off only to wake at midnight to the noise of the incoming planes – about 6 of them – 3 arrivals and 3 departures.
It was still hot in the tent but the sweating had stopped. We drifted off again but still had a restless sleep drifting in and out.
We woke surprisingly ok – so although a broken sleep we must have managed to get enough sleep that we didn't wake feeling like crap.
We packed up everything and wheeled our bikes over to the kitchen as it doesn't open until 7am and had our brekky there – we are back to weetbix again with fruit and nuts and apple and banana (although banana will be replaced with tinned fruit soon).
When I see the bikes packed up it doesn't look like alot! Although with 6 days food and 7.75L of water the bike is heavy. Neil carries 8L. Probably an overdose of water but I have learnt in the past that it is best to carry too much water than not enough. And with these temps in the mid 30’s we are certainly guzzling through the litres – albeit warm water!
We leave the park at around 8.30am and jump on the bike path for about 8.5km
This path took us right to the turnoff to Howard Springs. From there we had to jump on the Stuart highway. Now last time I was on this highway around this area was with my father about 28 years ago. Boy have things changed since then. It is now a double lane highway and this goes all they way to the Litchfield NP turnoff to Berry Springs (not the Batchelor turnoff which is further south). And just because it is a double highway that doesn't mean a good shoulder. It was narrow in places and too narrow and uneven for us to ride in. Most of the time we could ride in it but just in a few places it was dodgy!
We got friendly toot from a wide load support car and when we looked in the rear vision mirror we saw 2 massive loads coming towards us ... we just got off and waited for them to pass and we could see another 2 more after that so we waited for them as well.
Traffic was heavy from Howard Springs turnoff and through to Coolalinga and then onto the Humpty Doo turnoff which is where the majority of the traffic was going – this is the turnoff for Kakadu NP and also where the bulk of the road trains were going – to the mines in Arnhem land somewhere. So after the Humpty Doo turnoff the traffic eased off tremendously and the shoulder even became better. But that didn't last.
We pulled over at a truck stop near a roadhouse and there was a road train there carrying scrap metal
Man they are big – and I think this is a small road train as I am sure some of the ones that passed us today were longer. As usual the trucks were pretty good with us and as usual we established a relationship with them indicating that should one overtake us and they can't get over in the next lane we will get of the road and we don't do it at the last minute. For us we feel this sets a precedence for the thousands of kilometers they will encounter us and we assume they inform each other that there are nice cyclists on the road (if we didn't get off the road they would inform each other that there are shitty cyclists on the road and make our lives miserable!).
We had a cuppa at the Berry Springs turnoff as there was seats and shade. From here we continued south and Neil was beginning to feel the heat, me? I felt ok and although sweating like an absolute pig there was a breeze and I have a light shirt on (even if it does make me look like I am wearing a PJ top – I think my choice of a very light cotton baggy shirt was a good idea in these hot conditions.)
And here is a sign for you Dad ...
Since you like to speed now – you should find these signs reassuring!
We got to the road house at around 12.15pm and it was really hot – already at the days high of 34 degrees.
Happy to get there, have a shower and just sit under the shade and then eventually sit in the pool. We didn't put up the tent as we wanted to see where the sun was going to set as our shade was getting less and less as the day wore on. We decided to put up the tent with just the summer fly on (I revamped an old fly of ours as the inner needs the fly to stay up – it is not free standing), I think by using this cut out fly the tent won't get as hot and will be the same temp as it is outside so when it drops down to 25 then the inner is 25 and not 35 like last night. I will let you know tomorrow if this theory of mine works!
Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 48 km (30 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 5 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |