June 21, 2024
Cycle day 45 - Carnarvon to bushcamp 20km before Wooramel Roadhouse
Cycle day 45 - Carnarvon to bushcamp 20km before Wooramel roadhouse = 99km. 3511km cycle toured so far on this trip.
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Poor Neil his tailwind that he was expecting didn't occur today - why am I not surprised! We did have an easterly for most of the ride and then after the 80km mark the wind basically dropped completely, so that helped us for the final 19km. Yip we should have gone another kilometer but we stopped at this great campspot right next to some sort of repeater station (at least that is what we think it is called.) and we can get internet. It is not too bad the internet - enough to be able to listen to AFL Geelong vs Carlton who are playing tonight.
Damn cold night last night in Carnarvon - 9 degrees this morning - in fact both nights there was rather chully and both mornings Neil goes on like a pork chop about how cold his sleeping bag is (remember we are still using our summer bags and the winter ones are being sent to Perth as I type this!) and he is now wearing his thermal tights and t shirt to bed as well ass socks!
We had a nice rest day yesterday but we didn't get to see the mile long pier but that was ok - it was a day to catch up with family and get the final lot of food for this next leg.
Each leg we do we always carry 3kg of muesli! It is alot but comes in handy as a spare dinner or emergency dinner when you get stuck with rain. If I only do a half batch I always find that it is never enough.
As I mentioned our morning was cold today and guess what came out of the clothes bag ...
They only stay on for about 1 hour or until the first break and then it becomes too hot to ride in.
We took a back road to the main highway and when we joined it the traffic was constant. Not uncomfortable but just alot maybe because we left at 7.30am along with everyone else! The road is going in a south east direction and the wind is coming across us. The shoulder is varied and is narrow at times. What we found today is the traffic was really good to us and alot decided to slow down as they passed us even when we were in the shoulder ... I think the narrow shoulder spooked them as we rode in it before they got to us but being so narrow we still overhung in the driving lane - hence why they slowed!
The terrain is a bit different to what we had before Carnarvon - a green version of the terrain just before Port Augusta in South Australia - alot of salt bush but due to the recent rain there is alot of green weedy grass.
It also reminds us of one of the years we went north to Queensland when they had the major floods and it cause alot of green weeds in the stations and the conditions were perfect for feral goats to multiply - this is what we saw alot of today - wild/feral goats everywhere!
The road is relatively flat, although having a full load of food and water the bike is very heavy and it feels like we are climbing but I don't think we are but the legs are telling me we are! Just at our 20km break I was watcing the road and realised there was a floodway ahead of us and there was a 2nd warning yellow sign with the floodway sign - the first caravan ignored it and my gosh what happened I think the driver regretted not paying attention to the warning sign - it looked like a deep floodway as the water spray just went everywhere. The next car was paying attention and took it slowly so did all the trucks to follow.
We joined the queue to go through the floodway and it was in 2 lots. We waited until it was clear both ways to do the first one and as we rode through it I realised what had happened to the caravan - it had hit a massive pot hole that was really deep! You knew there was a pot hole as you could see part of the bitumen broken and in clear view seperate to the water - the caravan should have been paying more attention to that. The 2nd part of the floodway you could see the water is flowing from the left to the right and is deep on our side of the road but after watching everyone going through it the most shallow part was in the middle of the road
Fortunately we don't go fast enough to create that sort of wash!
That was the only exciting part of the day! There are still heaps of people coming north and it is a Friday and like previous Fridays we find traffic is alot more on that day - perhaps people take lots of long weekends as they are not all caravans.
There was a nice rest area at 80km and we took a longer break then to give the legs a break and a chance to rest up. We had a couple come over and chat to us.
A further 19km later we find our camp spot. There were a few feral goats hanging around and when they saw us they moved away. The seem very wary of us and while typing this I did hear them not far from the tent perhaps they are on their way to green pastures!
Hopefully we can do another big day tomorrow. The rain that was possibly going to occur this weekend has now either lessened in chance of rain or moved to when we get to Kalbarri!
Today's ride: 99 km (61 miles)
Total: 3,511 km (2,180 miles)
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