Day: 110km
Ride time: 5 hours
After waking up from a disrupted sleep, I packed all my gear up and had my oats for brekky. I decided to head to the small IGA in town to charge my phone while I relaxed a little before I took off. I felt incredibly tired this morning, a combination of tiredness off the bike and from waking up all night to the people around my tent.
The Chinese girl in the IGA had difficulty comprehending my need to charge my phone. After umming and aahing for a few minutes she went and asked the store supervisor. As she approached the supervisor, in a somewhat alarmed state, the supervisor instantly thought I was up to trouble. I was baffled that this girl was so shocked and jaded by a simple question of mine if I could plug my phone in the power point behind her counter. The manager looked at me, presumably thinking I'm a bum, and said it wasn't allowed. I walked back out and luckily found a power point on the footpath outside. I wasn't keen on using my pre-charged battery here as I want to save it for when I'm camping in the bush and need it more.
Taking off I had to back track 7km to the main road. The ride was hilly at times but all in all pretty good. I saw some beautiful country. It was amazing at points, as there were massive sand dunes in the middle of pure shrub land.
I could not believe my luck as around 85km in I received a call from my French friends, who I met in Norseman, saying they just drive past me. Norseman is the last town along the Nullabor, being over 1500km away from here. It was fortunate I was listening to my music as the phone rang through my speakers. Normally I probably would have the phone off or wouldn't be able to hear it if it did ring.
They told me they were planning on camping about 80km from where I was. I was actually planning on stopping at Cervantes as I was still pretty tired, this would have only been 85km for the day though. I said to them that I could ride to Jurien Bay, which is 25 km past Cervantes. They said they'd stop there and I would meet them.
I soon realised that they would probably be in a caravan park. As I rode I contemplated what I would do. A caravan site definitely wasn't in my plans, and also that of my budget. To my luck I receive a message off the Frenchies saying that I didn't have to book a site and that I could just set my tent up next to them. This was great.
I was very relieved to pull in and see them again. This was hard when I said by to them in Esperance as we had such a great time together. Tonight was made even more beautiful by a perfect sunset! Tomorrow I hope to do around 130km.
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