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Journal: |
This was to be my second easy day in my transition competitor to
tourist and I slept in until 5am and left as the dawn broke although
lights were necessary for the first hour or so. There were
signs of activity in the Roadhouse kitchen and I presume I could
have got breakfast at 6am, but I had bought a few sandwiches the
previous day to take with me, and liked the idea of getting to Port
Hedland in the early afternoon, maybe even watch some football and
cricket on the TV.
The country started out to be a mix of scrub and grass plains,
with few trees and plenty of red earth and red rocks. I had a
headwind again which seem to grow in strength as the sun rose and
the road seemed forever slightly uphill. It was probably a mix
of optical illusion and headwind, but I seemed to have to push on
the pedals all the time. I don’t think I’ve had the luxury of
rolling down a hill for three days and today brought up about 600km
of constant headwinds. On the plus side, the spoke I replaced
hadn’t broken and the gears seemed to be working despite me dropping
a few cogs off the rear sprocket in the dirt when replacing the
freewheel yesterday afternoon (it had taken me a little while and
much cursing to work out how to put it all back together again).
Although I felt physically refreshed after 9.5 hours of sleep my
morale was still low and the day dragged as I averaged between 15
and 20kph into the headwind. My knee hurt. After about
60km a few low rocky outcrops and hills began to appear, along with
more traffic, particularly roadtrains, and signs of industry.
A railway appeared to my left and I later saw a very long empty ore
train heading into the outback. Soon there were powerlines and
the odd mining installation and even more roadtrains. It was
occasionally scary as the left margin on the road was only a couple
of inches wide a lot of the time and I tried to remember to check my
rear-view mirror every time something was coming from ahead in case
I needed to get off the road. There were also a lot of
oversize loads of mining equipment.
I finally reached the edge of Port Hedland airport around 2pm,
about an hour later than I had hoped, and discovered the big
roadhouse/supermarket adjoining the caravan park where I hoped to
get a cabin, was not longer there, apparently destroyed by a fire in
the last year. So much for today’s big brekky! Not only
that, but the caravan park had no accommodation available. I
tried the outrageously expensive motel next door and got a room,
rather than continue on in the hope of finding something else.
The global financial crisis doesn’t seem to be affecting Port
Hedland or the mining industry. The place is buzzing with huge
roadtrains pulling in to refuel at the service station (the fuel
tanks didn’t go up in the fire, apparently) every few minutes, and
the motel full of construction and mining workers. They begin
serving breakfast at 4am for the workers, apparently, so I will have
that before I leave (especially since it is included in the
outrageous room price). With the roadhouse gone, I was forced
to eat at the $38 all-you-can-eat seafood buffet dinner at the motel
where I did my best to get my money’s worth. A very large
portion of rhubarb crumble and custard just about finished me off.
As usual, the warm conditions and dry winds left me dehydrated, and
I must have consumed about four litres of fluid since finishing
riding. I did get to watch some football and cricket, which
was nice.
I will continue on the bike for the time being, knowing that if
my motivation is too low I can get the daily Greyhound bus to Perth
from any of the towns/roadhouses along the way.
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