Warning to cyclists: The famous Limestone Bore 20 km east of Cosmo Newberry is no more! Dead, non-functional. No water.
Don’t panic though – there is a stock water bore (Murrays bore) right on the road about 11 km east of Cosmo Newberry
Or, if you have a 10 m length of string and a coke can with a small hole in the bottom, about 200 m east of the dead Limestone Bore is a road maintenance bore (200 mm diameter capped plastic pipe sticking up 300 mm next to a gravel pit, taps the same aquifer as the Limestone Bore).
The road maintenance bores are frequent along the GCR. Be careful though as most are VERY salty and not suitable for drinking. There are a reasonable number of stock bores for the first 200 km from Laverton but again, be careful, they can be hard to find, might be some distance off the road, might not be functional, but can be a life saver if you are stupid enough to run out of water.
No horizontal dismounts today!
I was having breakfast this morning when a local from Cosmo Newberry drove past on the road about 100 m from my camp, slowed, stopped, reversed, went forward and then drove in along the table drain towards me. Uhh ohhh. He pulled up and asked if I was OK as he had seen my camp from the road and thought someone might have crashed a car off the road during the night.
I had several instances of aborigines going out of their way like this to check that I was OK during the ride. Thanks guys and girls.
White and black societies are so different that simple things like this can quite easily be misinterpreted. I try to just take people on the evidence of their actions and try to keep my own expectations of what might happen to a minimum. That way I can get a better idea of what the other guys’ expectations of me might be.
The ride was just long and draining – corrugations in parts, loose sand in parts but no great problems.
Finished in a bush camp so standard that I cannot even remember where it was!
For reference, here is a photo of the dirt road that is great to ride on if it is firm but that heavy traffic quickly grinds to sandy dust (traps wheel, horizontal dismount) or corrugations.
