Now That's What I Call Music

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Say a Little Prayer

About a week ago Neil chatted up a little old lady outside a shop.....nothing new there!  Having heard about our adventure, Maureen took our names and promised to pray for us.  We were starting to think her prayers had fallen on deaf ears but today The Man in charge of the weather dished up a stonking tailwind. 

We did our 115 miles at an average of 18.5mph!!!  This would be a pretty impressive result on a Sunday club ride, but with 40 plus lbs of crap strapped to the back it is astonishing.  I wish I could claim some of the credit but that big old wind just pushed and pushed.  It was also flatter than the flattest flat thing you ever saw - we climbed fewer than 900 feet.

I Never Talk to Stangers

Today we met a lone guy heading east.  He is doing shorter days than us so we sneered, but didn't mention the war because he was English.  He was riding a mountain bike and wild camping and looked like he could do with a good wash.  A common feature of lone touring cyclists is their desperation for conversation- we gave him 15 minutes but he clearly would have chatted for longer had we let him.

The Bare Necessities

Today we passed the Teddy Bear Tree.........no idea I'm afraid.  It was nice seeing the bears and the conversation was a step up from what Neil offers.

In a couple of days we are promised a shoe tree.

Food Glorious Food

Now that we are reliant on roadhouses for everything we have to be a little shrewd with our shopping.  We are getting very good at scanning the sparse shelves and dividing each item's weight by it's price.  We then buy whatever item yields the biggest number.  For breakfast we had dog meat.  Oh, OK we really had weetabix.  The packet held 24 so that was 12 each.......not exactly tasty but good and filling.

Today, for on-the-road snacks, I had fruit cake, chocolate chip cookies and jelly beans.  I think that covered all the major food groups.

We learnt a bit more about the economics of roadhouse operation and start to understand why prices are so high.  All power is generated by diesel and all water comes from a desalination plant fed by a bore hole.  The diesal must be delivered from up to 1000km away!   Indeed everything has to be delivered from up to 1000km away.  Small wonder a tin of beans is £3!

Time

So far we have just been in the Southern Australian time zone.  We are now in the Border Village roadhouse, just across the state line from Western Australia.  The time difference between the two is currently 2.5 hours (since one or the other doesn't have daylight saving time) so they have adopted their own time zone which is 1 hour 40 behind S.A.

To be honest I'm still not 100% sure what the time is. The bar seems to be open so I really couldn't care less.

Pump It Up

Neil had a puncture.

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