Day 37: Sandfire to Pardoo

August 24, 2022

At 3am, a flock (if that’s the right word) of squawking bats returned to their roost in the mango trees. I decided them to turn my 5am alarm off and not try to hustle away so early in the morning. The workers staying in the cabin a left at 5:30 anyway but I enjoyed the extra half hour sleep.

Ingrid has mentioned peacocks at Sandfire and I’d seen a few last night.

My German friend was still asleep on his rest day when I rolled out at 6:45. It was actually a little cool with such a tailwind! It was much quicker than yesterday. I started at almost the same time but could go 20kph from the beginning today. Mum and Dad has left 80mile beach by 8 so they came back up the road just under 20k to say hello and give me an apple before heading into Port Hedland.

Wapet (WA petroleum) road, leads somewhere out to near Fitzroy crossing. John Hill told me he’d driven it many times and never seen a single other vehicle on it

Just after the halfway mark I stopped to eat Dad’s apple and some double stuffed oreos. Potentially in normal life I would think these are too sweet but now I think they’re such an improvement on normal oreos. I think I might be even more in calorie deficit than usual.

I didn’t help matters by deciding to push on to the roadhouse for lunch.

I only stopped to take a photo of these brolgas in a clay pan. They just sit there while road trains rumble past but take off when I stop to photograph them

I made it to the roadhouse by about 2. I was so hungry I bought a veggie pattie and salad wrap and ate half of it before I remembered I had to organise camping as well. So I went back into the roadhouse and bought an ice cream and paid my $15 for camping. It is much nicer to be able to set up and shower in the daytime. I also bought another sandwich from the roadhouse as afternoon tea before pasta and pesto for dinner.

Today's ride: 140 km (87 miles)
Total: 2,517 km (1,563 miles)

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