April 22, 2021
Morton Bay bugs in a dry creek bed
Dutchman’s hut to Kanyaka ruins
Dutchman’s hut was more than adequate, with electricity, hot water and showers. Somehow the hot water failed just after I soaped up, so it was a brisk end to what I thought was going to be a lingering soak. The others had no such issues.
We rode a quick 10ks back in to Quorn to join up with the Mawson Trail, and took the opportunity to have 2 quick coffees at the Quandong Cafe.
Quorn takes COVID 19 seriously. Most shops won’t let you in and you have to order at the front door. Even the servo did it to Pete, who then refused to sign in as he wasn’t allowed in! This didn’t happen in any other town on the way.
My first graduate job was in Port Augusta which is only half an hour from Quorn so I used to come up to this part of the Flinders a number of times. That was exactly 40 years ago which is somewhat scary. Even scarier is that Quorn doesn’t look like it’s changed much.
A tail wind and a hard packed corrugation free dirt road meant just putting up the mainsail and cruising along chewing up the kilometres. We’re in remote country now, with long straight roads, with mainly mallee bush between infrequent dry creek beds, where the few gum trees around are massive and quite healthy looking. All the time the Flinders ranges are in the backdrop so it’s by no means boring and tedious.
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Just as I was thinking how isolated we were we came across a BBC film crew shooting an upcoming movie called ‘The Tourist’. I’m not sure if anyone famous is in it but with no internet coverage I haven’t been able to google it yet. I did sneak around a tent and took a couple of snaps before I was ordered away and sternly told not to upload any photos to the internet. It sounds like a fairly big production as they had helicopters there for the aerials and a bucket load of people hanging around seemingly doing not much.
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After that barely a car went past until we hit a short stretch of the highway before turning off to the Kanyaka ruins, where we’re free camping tonight.
The Kanyaka homestead and station was the last post office heading north in the 1800s and several hundred lived here in a small community. We’ve passed so many abandoned stone buildings that are crying out to be saved, but they’re just slowly crumbling away.
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We waited til the sun was setting before pitching tents and having our first campfire of the trip. Closer to Adelaide the fire ban lasts until May, but for some reason here it was mid April.
Dinner was the usual fare for touring cyclists struggling to get some variety to their usual pasta or dehydrated goop. We had Morton Bay bugs pan fried with chilli and parsley on lightly toasted pita bread and then rolled. Then followed rib eye steak with zucchini and baked potatoes courtesy of fire. All washed down with a Shaw and Smith shiraz. Best meal yet. We left the bug shells down by the dry creek bed to hopefully confuse some archeologist in years to come.
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I’m sending this from Hawker, the last town until our destination of Blinman. I think that might be it for internet coverage.
Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 728 km (452 miles)
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