August 3, 2024
Cycle day 74 - 52km east of Cocklebiddy RH to 46km east of Madura RH
Cycle day 74 (Saturday 3 August) – BC 52km east of Cocklebiddy RH to BC 46km east of Madura RH = 86km. 5892km cycle toured so far on this trip.
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Another cold morning and a frost. -2.4 was the lowest at brekky and when we went to start to pack up we saw that our flannels were frozen stiff as we put them over our seats just to protect the seat cover from ice, funny enough when we took the flannels off they remained in the shape of our seats!
We are having trouble finding weather for our locations as out here there are no weather stations and you can only get generalised ones from places that are a few hundred kilometres from you so we weren't quite sure what sort of winds we were getting but we had a headwind today and it was blowing, initially, from the north east before swinging to an easterly and then a damn cold south easterly by the end of the day. The temperature probably did not get above 15 degrees.
One thing is for sure is that I need to wash my hair, unfortunately when we do stop to set up camp it is too late to quickly rinse the hair as it will be too wet to put a beanie on as the air quickly becomes cold after 3pm, so I haven't washed my hair for 5 days now and it is becoming a little matted and clumpy in places and basically it is not a pleasant look, but hey I always knew this would happen for the Nullabor as water is not exactly freely available. Hoping Madura has public showers.
When we were about to leave we noticed Neils trailer tyre was a little down and sure enough he had a slow puncture. Because it was still only 2 degrees by the time we left he decided that he would pump it up and change it at Madura as the fingers were a little too frozen to be nimble enough to change a tube.
We continued on towards Madura which is about 40km away. We do know there is a pass to go over so we were not sure what constitutes a pass here in Australia but from memory in past tours it is what I describe as, if you are lucky to be going in the right direction, a “drop of the cliff” so either you have a short sharp downhill or a short sharp uphill. Neil couldn't remember which we would have – but we would soon find out. We start to gently climb the pass at about 26km and climb for about 12km. It is not steep but you do notice you are climbing. After the first hour of riding we noticed the wind began to blow from the north east, it is gentle so we could still cycle at a reasonable rate of around 16km per hour. By 38km we were at the top of the pass and clearly it was us that was going to get the drop of the cliff
You can see in the photo that we have a range to the north of us (I think they are called Hampton Tablelands) and the road drops down to flat open country.
At the top of the pass we pull over to watch a truck in very low gear come up the pass and I have to say the truck was going marginally faster than us.
As we start to go down there is a shoulder for us and I took this photo to show you how much room a truck gives us – and before anyone judges the poor truck driver in saying this is not much room – this is more than adequate room for us, the truck was going very slow (less than 60km per hour) and most trucks usually are on the other side of the road when over taking us but in this case because we were going down a hill and he had a blind corner so couldn't move over too far to the right.
Madura roadhouse is just at the bottom of the hill so we stop there for our cuppa. Not a great place and we couldn't see any public toilets so assumed they were inside and you probably had to buy something to use the toilet. We didn't need any water or bread so we just had our cuppa and were on our merry way.
The sun was shining and it was warm when it wasn't behind a cloud but one thing we noticed when we came of the hill was just how strong our wind was going to be for the remainder of the ride today – strong! The road is out in the open while it follows this tablelands and there is no wind protection from bushes and trees on the sides of the road as there is no bushes or trees. Just the odd tree and lots of saltbush and native grasses.
There is livestock – sheep as we had to cross 2 grids today
The traffic was heavy for us today and lots of trucks compared to yesterday, still heaps of motorbikes and probably a little more caravaners too. The shoulder is ok, it is wide enough for us to duck in there when required and no have any overhang over the road. But the increase in traffic was both ways so we had to get of the shoulder quite alot today and over the course of the day it can be quite energy sapping as we have to stop and restart these heavy bikes and that takes alot more energy to restart than what it does to do continuous cycling. So by 80km we were weary and the wind was becoming stronger and had swung around to a south easterly and was bitterly cold. The roadside was becoming increasingly bare and exposed that we called it in at 86km and we found a spot nestled in amongst some small trees
It was after 3pm when we stopped and the sun was gone and it was cloudy and looked like it was going to rain. It did rain a bit over the tablelands and we could see heavy rain back towards Madura, we were lucky to not have called it quits earlier in the day as we would have had rain! Still not chance to wash the hair so now I am at day 6! I really didn't want to have a British Bath as it was windy and cold but I persevered and got it over and done with before having a cuppa and biscuit before dinner to warm me up.
Tomorrow is Mundrabilla and we have decided to stop there and have a shower and a roadhouse meal.
Today's ride: 86 km (53 miles)
Total: 5,892 km (3,659 miles)
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