I got up again just before two in the morning. The big bright moon was now right up high, a centrepiece in the starry sky, and it provided me with more than enough light to take my tent down by. The wind began to blow against my face as I looked down at the empty highway. This was going to be fun. Night riding at its very best. I pushed my bike down over the grassy verge and onto the shoulder and began to pedal. With the wind at my back I flew across a big bridge spanning the Murray river and on down the highway. For the twenty or so kilometres to the next town of Tailem Bend the highway was mine - no more than two or three vehicles passed me the whole time.

Tailem Bend was eerily quiet, but I didn’t stop long, and headed straight out on a smaller road south towards the coast. It was pancake flat and there were absolutely no vehicles at all. I put my Mp3 player on full volume and sang along like crazy as I raced across the land, eating up the distance in no time. At seven in the morning came twilight, just as I reached the next little town of Meningie, with 70 kilometres already under my belt. Across the land to the east the sky started to turn orange as the sun began to announce its intentions, whilst to the west I watched over my right shoulder the extraordinary sight of a full moon setting, its perfect circle reflected in the still water of an ocean inlet. I gasped at the beauty of the moment. What a way to start a day.

I stopped only briefly for water in Meningie and continued my journey as the wind gained its own momentum, encouraging me on. I was alongside the sea now, almost. A spit of land enclosed an area of wetlands, but the effect was the same. I was catching the wind as it ran along the coast, and I was sailing south-east on the flat road. It was magnificent. There was little reason to stop for anything, except, that is, for an emu that I saw behind a fence on the opposite side of the road. I wanted to get a photo so I did stop. The emu tried to run away, but halted when it came to another fence. Then it strutted back towards me until it was close enough to realise I was there, at which point it ran away, as far as the fence, where it once again came to a sudden stop. It then strutted back towards me, apparently forgetting what it was running from. This was repeated several times, and probably would have gone on for several more times had I not remembered how awesome the cycling was and decided to get back to it.

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I’d made very good progress throughout the day but with the wind fading I planned to stop before I reached Kingston SE and get some rest. The road was also getting a little busier and the shoulder was narrow. Then a rather nasty incident occurred which made me change my mind about stopping early. As usual I was checking my mirror every time that a vehicle came up behind me to make sure that it was giving me enough space. Having done this so many millions of times it had almost become a reflex, but I must have been getting a little complacent with it, because I saw the truck that was passing too close rather late, and the caravan that it was towing even later. It was going to hit me. There was no doubt about that. I dived instinctively out of the way. Just in time. Not a split-second to spare. Grounded in the dirt at the roadside I watched as the wide caravan bowled off into the distance, its left side overhanging the shoulder all the way. I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could. I wanted that caravan to stop. But it didn’t.

I started sprinting like mad again. Suddenly I had a lot of adrenaline, and a hell of a motivation to get to Kingston SE. I wanted to find that caravan. I needed to tell that driver a thing or two. He or she probably had no idea what they had just done, probably had no idea that their caravan was so much wider than their truck, that they needed to give cyclists more space, and somebody needed to tell them. For years I’d been looking in my mirror and moving out of the way of things that were passing too close, but this was the first time that I’d dived out of the way of something that was absolutely definitely going to hit me. This wouldn’t have been a close pass, this would have been a guaranteed take-down and I know I’ve said this before, but I’m going to say it again, and I’m going to write it in capital letters, and use a bit of bold text too – IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO CYCLE ACROSS AUSTRALIA YOU BETTER GET A GODDAMN MIRROR!

I raced to get to Kingston SE before sundown, and just made it as well. I was determined to find the muppet driving that truck, and headed for the seafront, where I circled around behind a couple of caravans that were parked up there. I’d not had a chance to see the licence plate, but I remembered very well that the word ‘Freedom’ was emblazoned across the back of the villainous caravan. Neither of those at the seafront matched the description, so I went along to the caravan park. Parking my bike up I walked in through the back gate and wandered around, hoping to find my careless driver there. But there were few tourist caravans present, with most of the ones there seeming to have taken up permanent residency.

Unfortunately it was clear that I wasn’t going to find the caravan. But the incident had at least spurred me on to reach Kingston SE, and that meant that I could stop for a couple of hours and use the wifi outside of the library whilst I waited for the rush hour traffic to rush away, and for the moon to once again rise and offer to light my way. Sadly watching the moon set and then rise again in the same day was a privilege that I was denied, however, as the skies grew heavy with cloud, and some light rain began to fall. It was a shame. I had felt like going for the record, for a new biggest ever daily distance. But getting soaked and putting my tent up in the rain as well as in the dark appealed to me little. And I would be heading inland as well, and without the moonlight to comfort me I had a fear of cycling in the dark. Some sort of irrational fear of being hit by kangaroos. So I stopped and camped just outside of Kingston SE, and settled for a respectable 231 kilometres.

Distance completed: 3227km

Distance to go: 583km

Days to go: 5.5

Average distance required: 106km/day