Author: stragglingstu

Hard work today.

The road is a minor road short-cutting from Winton down to the Birdsville road. It is basically the old stock route following the Farrars Creek down towards the Sturt’s Stoney Desert. As such, much of the road …

A simple day – get a hundred metres onto the road and discover that the handlebar bag bouncing over the corrugations had worn through the gear cable covers over the front wheel. The gear cables couldn’t support compression so I …

No snakes overnight despite camping on deeply cracked grey soils on a shrubby creek bank! No rain either so all good.

A quick first 20 km on good road with a tailwind past the Davenport house to the boundary of …

Chris Mitchell the National Parks ranger told me how to get to the Diamantina Gates (a gorge through which the river surges when in flood) and saw me on my way. Thanks for the talk about the recovery in soil …

A quickish 16 km cross wind ride up the ‘Cork Jump Up’, a well known local mesa, to the dinosaur footprints at Lark Quarry. It is surprising to see how much effort is being put into developing the rich dinosaur …

Mud holes and headwinds for the first 50 km from Brighton Downs to Old Cork turnoff. Slow grinding work riding a bit, getting off the bike and push it around the bog hole, back on the bike and 500 m …

Whooo whooo!!! Made it to Winton and then on to the sheep station on the catchment divide between the Thompson River (becomes Cooper Creek into Lake Eyre) and the Diamentina River (goes down past Birdsville to Lake Eyre).

An earlyish …

Finally on the bike again.

A bit of a tailwind to get me over the rolling hills to Broad Arrow pub, all that is left of this mining town. A photo and onwards.

Nothing much to note about the day. …

Left Coolgardie for what seemed like an exceptionally hilly and long 37 kms in to Kalgoorlie.
I think it was the frequent traffic that put me off, lots of road trains going to mines and Toyotas and HiLux’s doing same. …

Hardest day yet.
Lots of corrugations.
Lots of loose sand.
Mostly reasonable road from Victoria Rocks north to Coolgardie but hard work getting to that stage.
As I said to the concerned tourist going past I was ‘shaken but happy’ …

Wheweee! Big day.
Thankfully a tailwind for most of it and a beautiful 20 m wide hard clay dirt road that only lacked bitumen to be an urban arterial.
Even so, the first 70 km to the Daybreak (?) mine …

Up at 7 am, pack up the tent in a spurt of optimism and then ride in to Hyden to check the post.

The spoke tools have arrived!!!! Thankyou Robyn and Australia Post!

About two hours to replace the spoke …

Just luck to arrive at Wave Rock on a Thursday night.

The Welfare Package, aka some official documents that have been chasing me for a few days, arrived at the post office in Hyden (3 km each way) on Friday.…