Time: 8hours 02minutes
I was hoping to wake up early this morning, to try push out a long days riding. Ive been waking up naturally this whole trip, usually around the time the sun rises. My phone was running low so turne it off during the night, and I didn't want to use my battery charger as I thought I'd save it for the next few days. I got some biscuits in the town and charged my phone in the shop while I killed some time.
In the morning I put a bit of charcoal, from last nights fire, around my eyes to help stop the glare off the road through my glasses. This is a trick I learnt off some Aboriginal fellas in Broome and it really helps a lot. I can assure you I had many strange looks when I was at the shop this morning. I thought these type of situations, when you stand out from what the social norm is, provide a perfect example into social psychology. Every single person had their eyes glued on me. There was no chance of me wiping it off, and risk suffering heavy sun glare, just to stop people looking at me. I gave everyone a friendly smile as I waited for my phone to charge before I left.
Once my phone was half charged up I decided to get going. I looked at the weather and realised the next few days will be strong head winds and heavy rains. I have about 300km to go until Albany, so have planned on roughly 100km a day to take three days. After seeing the weather forecast I've now realised today's going to be the only descent day of riding.
I felt good when taking off and did about 112km without any breaks. I pulled into a small town having an IGA, caravan park and a roadhouse. I thought it would be easy to set up here for the night, especially if I were to go into a caravan park. I went in to the IGA, bought some food from the specials box, and sat down to recoup and plan out the rest of the day. I didn't want to spend money on a tent site, and now had extra energy from the food break, so thought I'd keep going.
I had a slight tail wind here and thought it would be crazy to not take advantage of this. If I had of waited around until tomorrow to have a straight headwind, at 30-35km an hour (as BOM predicts), then I will be extremely annoyed tomorrow for not taking advantage of today. It started raining slightly but I thought bugger it, I'll see how far I can get today.
As I took off, for the second time, the rain started drizzling very slightly. The whole sky was grey and didn't look like it was clearing up anywhere. I had a semi-tailwind pushing me just as much west as it was south to Albany. I managed to maintain a descent avg. and wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon. I realised that I had done about 140km and that 200km was in reach. I thought this would be a good target to get done for today, as then I'll only have 100km to complete tomorrow, and even in a strong headwind this is still achievable.
The rain picked up and I ended up getting saturated. I saw a park bay just next to a beautiful river and was very tempted to stay there. There was no shelter and I had only done about 178km, so I decided to keep going until 200km or until I found a sheltered area. I started having to climb a few hills and then the fatigue starting setting in. I kept pushing in the heavy rain, yet it was very manageable and gratifying purely by having such a beautiful landscape to observe. I saw many beautiful birds and lots of thick green vegetation. I was hoping to find an area that had some thick tree coverage to settle for the night. The rain was becoming extremely heavy and I wasn't looking forward to setting up in the rain.
I saw a roadhouse and also a football oval behind it. I thought with charcoal running down my face, it would be best to wipe it off before entering the roadhouse. Imagine a small country roadhouse seeing a bloke from Melbourne, on a bike, with what would appear to be mascara running down his face. I would have looked like a mad man cross dresser. I wiped my face, making sure I got all the charcoal off. I went into the roadhouse to ask about any area to set up my tent but the lady working there had no idea and provided very little help. I thought the footy oval would be best bet. To my delight an older fella walked into the roadhouse and I asked him the same question. He explained he had an area at the back of his house where I could set up. When getting to his place he then told me I could stay in a bungalow out the back. The bungalow was used by a temporary worker who has now left to go back home. There was a bed, still with sheets on it, yet I wasn't keen on sleeping in it. The bed had cigarette burn marks through it and plenty of small bugs crawling around it. I brushed it of and swept the room a bit. I used my sleeping bag sheet to sleep in, and just wore my jacket to keep warm.
The man is a good bloke, he's down here from Perth, repairing a bridge near by. There's an other construction worker staying here as well who's also a nice guy.
The rain hasn't stopped, and don't think it will by tomorrow, but I'm set on getting into Albany!!
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