Not very interesting: Nothing very much happened

June 20, 2015

I awoke the next morning unable to quite comprehend whether or not the previous night’s experiences had really happened. It all felt somehow like it had been a surreal dream. Cycling through a herd of migrating kangaroos? Really? But it was real, I still remembered the genuine fear that I’d felt - that at any moment a kangaroo was going to jump out of the blackness and smack straight into me. Such an extraordinary experience. And after that unexpected night of excitement, the dullness of another eight or nine hours riding in daylight now loomed rather tiresomely ahead of me. And guess what? My headwind was back.

Well this sign got a whole lot more serious, didn't it?

I had a viewpoint of the Roe Plains to look forward to, but it turned out to be rather a depressing viewpoint, pointing as it did to a view of very flat and unprotected plains that I would have to traverse into the wind. Then a brief stop at the Madura roadhouse, quiet even by roadhouse standards, where I managed at least to charge my camera. Then on I went to the Roe Plains.

Some stretches of the Nullarbor highway double as emergency airstrips for the Flying Doctors

I saw a couple more kangaroos during the day, although the most exciting thing that happened on the wildlife front was that I saw an eagle. It was absolutely humongous, I’m pretty sure the largest eagle I’d ever seen. It was near the side of the road as I approached and then flapped its massive wings and took off across the skies with a wingspan as wide as a really wide thing. It was so big it looked like it fed on kangaroos.

Eagle! It would have looked bigger if I'd been a bit quicker on the camera. Or if I'd zoomed a bit more

Nothing else happened during the day. I waved at a lot of Grey Nomads. Almost all of them waved to me as they drove past in their campervans or towing their caravans, and I waved back. A few didn’t. Sometimes there was an awkward moment when I’d look and think they were going to wave, and I’d start to wave back, but they’d actually just be lifting their hand for something else, to scratch or to pick their nose or something, and so I’d have to abort my own wave, and pretend I was just lifting my hand up to rub my eye.

I tried to think of ten famous people with the initials MB. It was a game that kept me occupied for most of the day. 1) Mr Bean 2) Mr Benn 3) Mel B 4) Michael Ball 5) Michael Buble 6) Mario Balotelli 7) Mark Beaumont 8) Martin Brundle 9) Marcus Brigstocke 10) Mitch Buchanan

In the last hour before sunset the Nullarbor came alive once again with kangaroos. They were suddenly everywhere, hopping across the plains, and allowing me to get a few good photos. It really felt like I was crossing Australia to have these iconic marsupials leaping along parallel to me. I saw that they were very aware of me too. They all twitched their ears as I passed, looked towards me. I realised that they, as nocturnal creatures, more than likely knew what they were doing in the dark. Sure, they got taken out by road-trains, but that’s only because the road-trains go so fast. Something going at my mediocre speed the kangaroos were super aware of, and I figured my concerns that they might accidentally bump into me was absurd. It wasn’t like they went around jumping into trees all night was it? They didn’t land on each other. With this conclusion drawn I decided it was quite safe to cycle on into the night again, and didn’t even bother to shout as I went. I’d run out of things to shout about anyway. And with the wind gone I was able to get a decent distance done again, though this time it was uneventful, with no repeat of the dramatic kangaroo shenanigans.

Holy moly! Is that some cows now as well?!!!

Distance completed: 1525km

Distance to go: 2285km

Days to go: 18.5

Average distance required: 123.5km/day

Today's ride: 134 km (83 miles)
Total: 42,406 km (26,334 miles)

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