Cycle day 92 - Kapunda to BC Black Hills road - Far too much luggage

August 24, 2024

Cycle day 92 - Kapunda to BC Black Hills road

Cycle day 92- Kapunda to BC Black Hills road = 96km. 7420km cycle toured on this trip so far.

Warm night and the wind just blew all night and the tent rattled all night. Warm too - about 15 degrees when we got up. The wind died down as the sun rose. On the road at 7am. Stopped of to pick up a loaf of bread and just down the road as you leave Kapunda you come across this chap ...

Kapunda Man - early settler miner of copper

We are on the road to Gawler and Adelaide for a few kilometers and turn off to Greenock. It is a quieter road but not for long. This road will take us to Nurioopta. You climb for most of it and along the way you start to see wine grapes growing

Between Greenock and Nurioopta the road is narrow and hilly and traffic is heavy and we don't figure it out until we cross the A20 or Barrier highway over pass and realise that everyone is heading to this on ramp to get to Gawler and Adelaide.

We ride through Nurioopta and this town certainly is alot bigger than when we last came through - alot of new housing and we assume it is because there is easy access to Adelaide via the highway.

We find a railtrail and take that to Anguston which is 6km away on the rail trail - it is a gentle climb to Anguston

riding the rail trail between Nurioopta and Anguston

you know spring is nearly hear when you start to see cherry blossoms

not sure of the wine maker but this is the back of the factory while we were on the rail trails

at the end (or start) of the rail trail at Anguston

It is a nice rail trail and it runs from Anguston to Nurioopta to Tanunda. It really is a lovely day to cycle as there is hardly any wind, it is not too hot and the sun is shining and we are happy and feel good (can't say we felt like this at the end of the day! - read on!)

We ride through Anguston and take the Stott highway to Sedan and Swan Reach. We always knew today was going to be hilly for us especially the first half of it (Kapunda to Sedan). The Stott highway was alot busier than we anticipated and it is an old highway, narrow and really undulating and it was very slow going for us. The ups are steeper than what we have ridden so far since coming over from Horrocks Pass. The legs are ok and we certainly use our gears. It is 26km to Sedan and 16km of that is predominantly up - there is the occassional down but not much. Looking at the map I could see that for the first 15 km it is up and down, then along and then a final climb up to the top of the range

we are about to drop of the edge of the world

down to the flat plains and the Murray river somewhere

Sure enough that is what occured. The final up before the decent was short and steep and I was in my lowest gears for that hill. The downhill was steep and winding for about 5km and then the last 6km in Sedan was coasting.

We had lunch at Sedan and while there, out of the blue, Neil suggests that we change plans and instead of going to Swan Reach we head down to Cambria (10km away) and then take an unsealed road for 23km to a memorial bushcamp site (on Wikicamps) then tomorrow we take the Walkers Flat ferry crossing. We are umming and ahhhing about the unsealed road being maybe too rough to ride for 23km. But in the end we decide to go for it as I didn't fancy bush camping near the ferry crossing in Swan Reach. So off we go ...

The road to Cambria is flat and about 10km from Sedan and we see lots of canola fields - all a differing levels of growth.

At the cemetary we turn onto our road. We see a tap in the cemetary and top up our water and across the road is a deer behind a house gate and it is really curious about us and just stands there watching us!

We start on our road and it is sealed and we are happy about that ...

Black Hills road is sealed for the first 9km ...

then it starts the unsealed section ...

then unsealed for 2km of freshly graded road ...

and from then on it just turns to shite - the road slowly becomes corrugated and gravelly and you really had to pick your line and then to our disgust it becomes undulating which is the last thing we need as our legs are becoming very tired!

then the remaining 19km gets progressively worse and worse - corrugations and gravel and undulations ...

We get to the small township of Black Hills and the camp spot is a few kilometers further. Oh the legs are beginning to hurt doing the steep undulations. We get to the memorial where the camp spot is and there is one other van there and I am not happy with it, there is no where for me to pee (unless I brave the not so attractive looking long drop) and wash. The area is big but I get an uneasy feeling about it. I think Neil put it in my head that everyone that lives along here are those sovereign citizen types and that spooked me. We look around and find that no matter where we go we were getting little black ants crawling all over our legs and biting us so we move on!

We just keep going as there is no where along the road to bushcamp as there are lots of farm houses and fences along the roadside. The undulations are becoming longer and steeper and then we come across this ...

and it culminates in the mother of all munters to ride up ...

we start going down to it and begin climbing it - it is about 9% and normally we would be ok with this but to do this when you have already ridden 90km of which the first 50km was hilly! Neil is ahead and I decide that I am going to get of and walk it when it gets too much .... riding along I see that Neil is probably thinking the same as me - I will get off and walk when she does and I am thinking I will get off and walk when he does! Neither budges and gives in -nec minute we are at the top of the hill still on the bikes!

which we managed to do without having to get of the bikes -this is at the top looking back down.

I think I was going about 4.5km per hour up that hill with alot of huffing and puffing going on! The legs were actually ok with it and didn't seem to hurt at all!

We get to the intersection with a sealed road and on the corner is a large area that we can camp in behind bushes and well of the road and out of sight.

One thing we did notice today while riding this unsealed road was we saw at least 4 different Blue Tongue Lizards!

plenty of Blue Tongue Lizards spotted today

now if we are beginning to see these then more than likely the snakes are out and about too - the weather is getting warmer and today got to about 25 degrees and the evening is really warm. So it won't be long until we encounter the snakes - I have always thought that South Australia is littered with snakes as we always encounter them here.

tomorrow we make for Karoonda and will have 2 nights there and rest our very weary legs.

Today's ride: 96 km (60 miles)
Total: 7,420 km (4,608 miles)

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