August 21, 2022
Day 34: Broome Gateway to Barn Hill
The Broome’s Gateway gate is shut until 6am, so I set my alarm for 5. I woke up feeling refreshed, realised it was only 11:30pm and didn’t sleep that well after. When my alarm went off, I fell back asleep for half an hour, which is the first time that’s happened this trip.
My front tyre was disturbingly soft so I pumped it up a little.I got going just before 6:30. The wind was quite light so I made good time to the Roebuck roadhouse for iced coffee and hashbrowns. Then I finally turned south!
It was pretty quiet on the road to begin with, although about 15 Jayco hire vans passed me in the first hour. Are they having a convention?
After about five kilometres, the road opened out onto plains.
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The road was heading south east so lucky the wind still wasn’t very strong. It was picking up by the end of the plains. Although I was a little sad to leave the plains for more red dirt scrub, I was happy to turn a corner and get more of a tail/cross wind.
It was quite quick going but my front tyre was getting softer. I decided to try and pump it up and ride fast hoping the sealant would work. It did not, when I pumped it up, it got flatter like it had on Friday. It’s probably user error. Maybe I’m messing with the valve too much?
I limped into a parking bay, which actually had shade, and declared myself defeated by the tubeless tyre. I tried to clean out the new sealant and put in a tube. Hopefully the remaining sealant doesn’t mess with it too much. I originally got the tubeless put on cause the tyres were so hard to remove but now they’ve got a bit easier, and I’m off the Gibb where I wanted to run low pressure, so hopefully the tube will be fine.
Although after only 15k, I turned onto the Barn Hill entrance road which is pretty bloody sandy. My newly pumped up tyre was not that useful. I had to take it pretty slow cause it was hard to see which bits were sandy until I was sliding in them. At least there were lots of people coming in so I didn’t have to open any of the three gates myself.
Barn Hill is an operation. I went straight to the cafe and got myself a coke and vanilla slice. Apparently all the numbered sites are booked tonight but they have overflow areas and I found a nice shady tree right down the end, after pushing my bike along the sandy track!
Today's ride: 110 km (68 miles)
Total: 2,149 km (1,335 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 7 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |