August 9, 2022
Day 22: Adcock Gorge to Silent Grove
After being worried about things that went bump in the night, what kept me awake was the heat. It was so hot for ages. I was sweating with my fly open and lying on top of my sleeping bag. It only cooled down enough to get into my sleeping sheet at about 2am.
I was quite efficient in the morning and was on my way by 6:15.
Of course it took me about half an hour to meander back to the road. As I pulled up to the road, an orange bus hurtled past. It looked like an empty tour bus. After that, I didn’t see any vehicles for more than an hour when the same bus hurtled back the other way. It still seemed empty but had a school kid sign on it. It was going pretty fast but not fast enough to have got all the way to Imintji, I wouldn’t have thought.
I thought that this was the king leopold range crossing but it wasn’t, it was another low hill crossing. It was delightful riding through the hills in the early morning. The road did seem to get better, particularly after it leveled off again. I had thought about continuing on but there didn’t look anywhere great to camp around the turn off to Mornington or Charnley both of which are closed I think. It was all cattle country with lots of cows.
The road went through a great stretch of packed red dirt and I was flying.
I was pretty sure I was getting close to Imintji when I ran out of water in my frame bottles but decided against pushing on and stopped to fill them up and eat a pear. What a luxury. Of course after that, the Imintji 5k sign was just around the corner.
The Imintji shop is a bit sad. The community was apparently set up by Aboriginal people in the 80s when they wanted better conditions than on the stations. There was some info on how they’re trying to be self sustaining with the shop and campground but the campground looked pretty empty and the shop was staffed by a not very friendly white woman and had run out of chips. Still she made me a delicious cheese and tomato toastie which I enjoyed with a magnum, mars bar and ginger beer. Quite restrained after yesterday. There’s no phone reception but they sell wifi access but I declined. A couple who were sitting there using said wifi told me they’d camped at Lennard river gorge and gone exploring down it til they saw crocodiles and then camped at a spot just on Bell Creek near the silent grove turn off. Another girl arrived and asked me if I was Clare. She said “the other cyclist” had told her about me. I thought she meant Davin but then she said “I think his name is Ralph and he’s heading into silent grove now”. It’s my friend from Wyndham caravan park who gave up on the Gibb. Then the woman who’d given me a magnum at Ellenbrae turned up. Honestly sometimes I could go days at home without talking to this many people.
Buoyed by the idea of catching up with Ralph at the campground I set off, via the depressing Imintji tip/hole in the ground and another 7k of pretty corrugated road before the turn off. I picked up Ralph’s tracks straight away. The road was pretty average, much like the rest of the Gibb so far (except the bad bit around the Kalumburu turn off). There was a creek crossing which I walked across first to find out that it was less deep on the left hand side, which was useful, although I should’ve left my bike further back out of the wash zone cause I had to hustle to move it when a car came. I took my shoes off and pushed across.
I was sure Ralph would beat me to the carpark as he had at least a 7k start on me. But after the creek I started to notice footprints, like he was walking his bike, then I saw him up a rise, pushing his bike. It was by now about 1pm and he appeared like an apparition in the heat haze. He was very surprised to see me, he thought I wouldn’t be this far along. How I came up on conversation with that girl I don’t know. Anyway, he was not enjoying the road. He had some kind of duffel bag balanced on his back rack. I walked with him a bit and we chatted about where we’d been. He’d been into Purnululu and had a good time then decided to leave his car at Windjana Gorge for about a weeks riding into Bell Gorge. As we were pushing, the APT tour driven by Clare, who Ralph had met at the bungle bungles, passed and stopped to give us cold water, fruit, muesli bars and lollies. After eating an apple each we decided to ride again. Ralph goes much slower than me on the corrugations, and it’s not great to ride together cause you generally want the same bit of road. It wasn’t very far into the campground but there was another small creek crossing. Ralph arrived as I was dithering at the pay station, having stupidly paid card at Imintji and not broken a $50. Ralph paid for my camping from his smaller notes, thanks Ralph!
Then we rolled around and found a few shady trees that looked nice to set up under. Ralph is going to stay two nights so wants a shady tent tomorrow. Then a guy came over from a camper trailer nearby and offered both any bike cleaning or maintenance equipment we might need and dinner tonight. When I said I’m vegetarian he replied, it’s your lucky night, we’re having veggie burgers and damper. Sold.
The showers were delightful, I washed some clothes, filtered some water, cleaned my chain and chatted to Ralph and the vegan family who turned up next door with an 18 month old. To be fair, they didn’t announce the vegan thing straight up, it came up talking about what food we eat on the bikes. I ate the last of my sweaty Mt Barnett cheese and then it was time for dinner with Phillip and Sal and Shannon and Dave, who have been friends since they had kids at the same time in Sydney although Phillip and Sal moved to Melbourne. They’ve been planning this trip for years but something went wrong with Phillip and Sal’s engine and they had to spend a month in Mackay waiting to fix it while Dave and Shannon went on with the Queensland leg of the trip. They only caught up in Kununurra. Makes my week in Kununurra seem very quick.
The damper and veggie burgers were delicious with caramelised onion and relish and they were all lovely people. Dave is a retired geophysicist and explained how he thinks corrugations are made which was useful. My best theory before that was from something I heard on Macca as a kid about snakes all sliding across the road at once.
I also found out that what I could hear last night was probably wild pigs cause there are some in the creek here.
They gave us a cup of tea and scotch finger for dessert, and gave me the left over damper with some little butter sachets for breakfast tomorrow!
Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,387 km (861 miles)
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