June 14, 2024 to June 16, 2024
Cycle days 40-42 - Nanutarra roadhouse to Minilya roadhouse
Cycle day 40 (Friday 14 June) – Nanutarra Roadhouse to bushcamp (approx 20km before Burkett rd turnoff) = 92km. 3130km cycle toured so far on this trip.
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It was a very warm night last night – 20 degrees when we got up this morning at 4.30am. Right now it is damn hot with no wind, cloudy and probably around 28 degrees and because there is no wind the damn flies are hanging around us so much that we had to ride with our fly nets on for most of the day and still have them on now while at our bushcamp – they are not likely to disappear until nightfall!
Have to say it is a relief to be in a bushcamp – what we are finding as we go into caravan parks and roadhouses is that everyone wants to chat to you – most are nice but some you just wanna run and hide from them!
At Nanutarra roadhouse we were quite exposed and quite often people would sit at the picnic tables near us and quite a few were just passing by and saw the bikes. We had a Swedish passing by that came over to us and said he has done bike packing and yesterday we had a Dr come over and he too has done bike packing – just nothing like here in Austalia – both in Europe. Now the Dr was a British person – how could we tell? – he wore unashamedly socks with his sandals and it was 26 degrees! Plus he had a slight accent but what was interesting is that he worked in Bendigo Hospital for 3 years in the Emergency Dept! And he came over with 2 cans of beer – we just took 1 as it was a boutique beer from Perth. After chatted and left Neil opened it and I could smell it and it smelt nice so I had some and I have to say I can't stand beer taste or smell but this one was really nice!
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4 months ago
3 months ago
Neil drank most of it but I must admit I probably had about 1/3 of it!
The night before we got dinner from the roadhouse – me a barramundi fish burger and chips ($24) and Neil a 12” meatlovers pizza ($23) of which I had 2 pieces! As far as roadhouse meals go – expensive and probably the smallest burger I have had since a having an McDonalds cheeseburger. But it saved me from having to carry another meal!
We managed to get a wholemeal loaf of bread $8 not quite the record which is held by Willare roadhouse!
Our first night at Nanutarra roadhouse wasn't as crowded as last night and yesterday they started coming in really early in the day and by lunch it was nearly full. There is probably about 30 powered spots available and more unpowered. But when you check in they give you a map and obviously the powered sites are given a number to go to and the girls checking them in are oblivious to the size of the size of the checked in caravans but they all want to remain hitched. So as the day progressed and we watched the caravaners come in and some jumping out of their cars grumbling and moaning and groaning (like they normally do!) about some caravaners aren’t going forward enough and their car sticks out too much. We realised we are in for an afternoon of entertainment when the late comers try and fit their oversized caravans into the remaining tiny spots because whoever is in front of them hasn't gone forward enough! So Neil and I step up the chairs, got the lollies out and snacks out ready for the show – and boy was it fun watching them all. One thing the caravaners from yesterday (and I will say not all caravaners are like this) were all ignorant of any other caravan it was a all for 1 and 1 for all.
Anyway onto today. An early start at 6am. We expected light winds today but none really eventuated which was good for us. The sky was cloudy which allowed for a nice sunrise through the mirror but we did stop to take a photo of it
Not long on the road and the road became an emergency airstrip but not emergency occured so we never got to see it in use. Basically it was exactly the same road minus the shoulder lines!
The surrounding scenery is a bit better today – no mining around so the landscape is pretty natural and we sort of rode through an area of tiny ranges and hills all on a flat road!
We only had one interesting thing to look at today and that was this cave at cave creek. You could see it way back but the cave is not very
deep and in a terrible spot for us to consider it as a suitable bushcamping spot!
Traffic was light, not many trucks but still alot of caravans heading north. A few towing boats today.
We stopped at 90 odd kilometers as this was a good spot -although we did think we would have more shade but there is a fence line stopping us from getting to the shrubs that would provide good shade. So instead we used the little ones knowing eventually the shade would elongate.
Eventually we will set up the tent when the cleared area is fully in shade.
One thing that has increased over the past week is the amount of flies that are now accompany us whether we are riding or in a bushcamp. We think they will be with us for a while or until we get to cooler weather which will be soon as tomorrow or the next day we will be crossing the Tropic of Capricorn and when you look at the temps there is a couple of degrees difference between Nanutarra and Minilya roadhouses.
Cycle day 41 (Saturday 15 June) – Bushcamp to Bushcamp (approx 20km before the Minilya-Coral Bay road) = 107km. 3237km cycle toured so far on this trip
I am just over flies! We need to invest in a fly swat! We did get relief from them at 4.30am this morning – not sure if they just can't see at night or 20 degrees is just a tad to cold for them! On the road again at 6am and there is not much traffic around at that time. We continued on the same road as yesterday and the surface (which begun yesterday) was small gravel in the bitumen and where the tar has melted and traffic has gone over it produces a lovely smooth line to ride – we did this ALL day! Actually it went a bit chunky in the last 10km. But with this smooth road, no traffic all day, no wind except for a light tailwind from about 40km on until about 90km (then it swung to a northerly to give us a crosswind) we were humming along this flat road.
At day break we could see it was going to be a cloudy day but still warm at a top of 26 degrees. The sun never poked its' head thru but a rainbow did
Although the last 2 times we have had a rainbow in the morning it has ended up raining at some point.
Traffic dropped off because of the turnoff to Coral Bay and Exmouth so it was great riding today with not so many caravans overtaking us.
After the 40km mark we noticed a few kangaroo carcasses on the side of the road plus the edge of the road was remarkably green – hence maybe why there are dead kangas. But where there are dead stuff there will be birds of prey – we spotted 2 kites and we disturbed 1 wedge tailed eagle feasting on a carcass and it flew low over me that even the caravan about to over take me drove really slow to watch it pass over the road – I bet that driver never saw that before – they should ride a bike and this becomes a common occurrence when they are around!
I could see just up the road in a dead tree something and since we had just seen a wedge tailed eagle I wondered if that was its' mate in the tree. As we got closer it didn't move so I got yet another photo of a wedgie!
We were making good time and sitting on about 22km per hour with this flat smooth road and gentle tailwind. As the morning wore on the flies joined us but were not hanging around the face and annoying us so they just sat on our backs and helmets and hitched a ride. It was beginning to warm up that Neil decides to go all “Tour de France” on us and rides with his shirt wide open
As you can see his puku is getting smaller! Coming up at the 84km mark we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn so we are roughly in line with Rockhampton Queensland on the East Coast of Australia. Crossing this line is quite significant as it means the temperatures for us (heading south) will start dropping (Neil already has his beanie ready!).
At the 90km mark the flies were beginning to be a nuisance and were hanging around the face and getting in behind the glasses so out came the fly net again and wore it while riding. We were meant to only do about 90km today but there was just no where to camp it was all open area. So we continued and finally found something at 107km. We are a little bit out in the open but it is ok.
Because of the grey skies we set up camp, had a cuppa and just as we were having our British Baths it began to lightly rain and now we are in the tent, there is no breeze and it is very warm in the tent. There are still flies and a few have managed to get in the tent with us. Since we don't have a fly swat we are using anything we can get our hands on – shirts, tablet cases, bags etc to kill the buggers! They are camped in the vestibule waiting for us to open the door to get in here.
We will sleep in tomorrow as it is a very short day to Minilya since today was such a long one. But the winds are meant to be swinging to a southerly and getting stronger and we are expecting more rain tomorrow and Monday! Fingers crossed it is not heavy rain.
Cycle day 42 - bushcamp to Minilya roadhouse = 33km. 3270km cycle toured so far on this trip.
Warm last night - 21 degrees but the day is sooooo cloudy and only around 24 degrees, not cold as there is not much wind about.
Lucky we managed to get set up yesterday as just on 3pm it began to rain lightly and continued right through into the night. At times the rain got really heavy. We woke to a very cloudy and damp tent. But also plenty of flies too! Since we didn't have far to go we got up later than normal. We were hoping that this rain we had last night was a day early and we will have to check to see if we are going to get anymore.
On the road again and this is a nice road to ride without all the traffic but at the 25km mark we joined with the Minilya-Exmouth road and the traffic picked up. Our shoulder got considerably narrow at this point. Another 7km further and we wereat Minilya Roadhouse at around 10.30am. Hope we can check in this early. Apparently this roadhouse is owned by the same crowd that owns the Fortesque Roadhouse (first one we stayed at after Karratha) - we thought the Fortesque one was overpriced well this one is even worse - for $35 all we get is a piece of dirt plus a shower/toilet in a somewhat dodgy cubicle
and our piece of dirt ...
yeah I was annoyed at having to stay here especially as we don't get water - we will have to buy ours. A caravan did give us 5L but we need to leave here with at least 20L. So it is a very expensive place. To make matters worse we did think that maybe we should cycle on as the next few days are incredibly strong headwinds (southerlies) for us but the weather on Elders said that the winds will start this arvo so we decided we were hot and sweaty, needed water and a shower and the cycle gear needed washing so we would stay - it is now mid afternoon and not a breathe of wind! So we will get up early tomorrow morning in the hope that the wind doesn't get up with us to see if we can get some kilometers done before the headwinds.
It is another 140km to Carnarvon and we will do it in 2 days.
Today's ride: 232 km (144 miles)
Total: 3,270 km (2,031 miles)
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