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Journal: |
As usual, I didn’t get to bed as early as hoped, and ended up
with 5.5 hours sleep and a 3:30am departure. Initial going was
good, with clear skies and no wind and I made it my goal to have a
break every 60km, which would coincide, in two places, with rest
areas where there would be picnic tables and shelters. The
road has a marker every 10km and you find yourself looking for these
and anticipating them. When having a break, I usually just
lean the bike up against the kilometer marker and sit on the road or
a groundsheet while having a break. I noticed at one of the
60km markers there were the tracks of a single narrow-tyred bike
that had lent up against the same marker. I bet it was Erik
Straarup’s bike from his completed record attempt a month ago.
During the morning it gradually got hotter and a tail/crosswind
gradually blew up. At my rest area breaks, I was always
immediately visited by grey nomads offering food and drink and
wanting to have a chat. The countryside was an unchanging
scene of spinifex, acacia and red dirt, with some gentle
undulations. From occasional higher rises you could see
identical countryside stretching out to the horizon, although the
Indian Ocean is only about 30km to the west.
Around noon
some ominous clouds began to form, including a particularly long
grey heavy strip. Rain could be seen falling in a few places
and the wind strengthened nd swung around to become a headwind.
I was cursing my luck at encountering headwinds for the second day
in a row for the last 100km, and my progress slowed dramatically.
I finally reached the Sandfire Roadhouse shortly before 6pm and
found out that nothing had changed since I was stranded there with a
torn thigh muscle ten months ago. They were still selling very
limited supplies from a portable cabin and none of the buildings had
been rebuilt since the fire of Easter 2007. It had the feel of
a very remote outpost. Some motorbikers, on their way back
from the Ulysses meeting in Townsville Just after I had passed
through there were gathered around chatting in the gloom while I had
a couple of pies for dinner and bought supplies to see me through to
the next re-supply point.
I left around 7pm for the 280km
run to Port Hedland and further, hopefully. I intended to ride
as much of the night and next day as I could manage in an effort to
make up some of the time lost earlier in the trip. However,
progress was slow, primarily because I had developed some bad butt
chafing which made it difficult to sit on the seta for extended
periods (too much information, I know). I didn’t want to stand
up on the pedals for too long, however, in case that caused other
injuries. I messed around for a while stopping every so often
to apply creams, change knicks, or try the lambswool cover I had
brought with me for the seat. Nothing seemed to make that much
difference and I knew what I really needed was to get off the bike
for a while, and get the shorts off. However, I had made a
commitment to myself to ride through the night and did not want to
quit. I kept going, painfully and at a slower pace. Then
it started to rain and I had to stop and weather-proof my gear.
The rain was occasionally heavy and I had some miserable periods.
Around midnight, I reached the closed (for the night Pardoo
Roadhouse and found myself a dry telephone box to sit in while I ate
some of the sandwiches I had bought at Sandfire, while the residents
and guests slept in the buildings and caravans behind me. It
was a gloomy and surreal scene. The roadhouse driveway was red
dirt which had turned into slimy red mud which stuck to everything.
I continued on through the darkness and occasional rain, hoping
that I could make it to Port Hedland for breakfast. However,
around 4:00am I started to lose my focus and just got off the side
of the road, lay the bike down and crawled into my tent without
erecting it, put my wet jacket under my head and immediately went to
sleep on very hard and stony ground. I woke up about 90
minutes later, as dawn was breaking, and forced myself to get up,
pack up, and start riding again. The nap had refreshed me and
I made good time, with the help of a following breeze, towards Port
Hedland. As I got closer the landscape turned into spinifex
pastures with few trees and some low mountains heara and there.
Signs of human activity increased with high tension power lines,
rail lines and earthworks gradually becoming more prominent, as did
the ubiquitous mining vehicles, red-mud-spattered 4WDs with high
flag masts so they could be more easily be seen in heavy equipment
areas. In the last kilometers, there were significant
roadworks, which also left me and my bike well-spattered with the
red mud. I reached the Port Hedland Roadhouse around 11:45am
and ordered a big brekky with the intention of eating it then
heading off to Whim Creek (117km) for the night. However, I
called them while having breakfast and they told me they were
fully-booked with miners. I then decided to stay in Port
Hedland and get some much-needed rest. Prices are crazy
here because of the mining boom and I declined the budget motel rate
of $199 and paid an exorbitant $140 for a crappy cabin in the
campground.
I washed out my gear in the hope of minimizing
the risk of aggravating chafing and am going to bed early in the
hope of starting at midnight and making another attempt to regain
some lost ground.
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