Made it to Warburton! Halfway!

Just more road but mostly in good condition. Not much traffic but again, those that did pass generally made sure that I was OK for water/health etc.

The last car to stop was a senior aboriginal couple with suits hanging in the back seat, apparently heading to a community meeting somewhere. They told me to keep smiling, there was 20 km of bitumen ahead. Yippeee!. Got to the turnoff of the Heather Highway and sure enough, 20 km of bitumen that then stopped 10 km outside Warburton. According to the local community administrator this was because the money for the bitumen appeared from heaven (the government) but the only bit of road that was in the condition to be sealed was that bit out of town. Go figure.

Warburton is a closed town; nominally no non-community members without permission although the roadhouse is outside the township and is open.

‘Open’ is a relative term though, the petrol pumps were locked in cages, signs said ‘no photos’, and the campground behind the roadhouse was surrounded by a 2 m chainlink fence with barb wire on top (but from my tent pitch I could count 6 holes cut in the fence to enable illicit access). Inside the campground was a safehouse inside a weldmesh cage for the roadhouse employees in case relationships with the locals went bad. And during the first night I heard someone fiddling with my bike that I had chained to a tree; I looked out the tent to see three local kids trying to move the bike. I yelled at them to ‘f*&k off’ and they laughingly told me to ‘f&^k off’ and ran off but only after going to the campers next door to see if they could do something with his wheelchair.

Warburton is a town with issues.

I settled in for a rest day tomorrow.