This morning I was very irritated as I cut a cable to my speedometer on my bike. I realised it was half broken already from the extreme heat and it was probably time for a new one anyway. I was fortunate that in town they actually had a bike agile that sold speedometers. I spent a painstakingly hurtful $70 on a speedometer, but kept thinking that it would be very helpful for my ride over the Nullarbor.
I had one more smoothie then took off in the heavy heat for the next town. The people in town that I spoke with expressed deep concern as they explained it was going to be around 50degrees today. I realised at this point that my body has adapted quite well to this weather as it is now a lot more tolerable than what is has been in the last week or so.
As I was riding along a long and quiet country road a man in a car pulled up in front of me. The car was covered in stickers, ones resembling a bogan Australians car. A few thought went through my mind at this point. The man wound down the window and yelled out "Is your name Jamie?". I was thinking how on earth did this guy know my name.. He explained he'd just been in Iron Knob and was at the missionaries house where I stopped the other day. They told him to give there greetings to me if he passed me on the bike. I thought this was very nice, but was still a little freaked by this guy. He looked like a nasty bugger, covered in what looked like backyard tattoos and scars on his face. Perhaps he is a born again Christian.
After this I continued riding in the heat until I pulled up in a small county town called Penong. Their was a big sign in town saying "Last shop for 1000km". Here it sunk in that the next week or two is going to be very long and gruelling. Unfortunately the shop was closed, so I couldn't even get last supplies. Luckily I still have many goods from Ceduna still. I stayed here, despite a surprising rowdiness around the small town fin a country wedding going on.
All night at the local footy oval was an Aussie band playing cover songs. This was shocking, a real monotone guitarist not being able to hit any notes that made the songs which he played originally popular. I realised that the local country people still would have been wrapped to have a band out in the middle of nowhere.
Another 80km to do tomorrow!
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