Saving Bobs

23/09/15 21kms East of Yalata to Nundroo 73km

We had made a plan to get up early, like super early, as the sun comes up, to get going before the wind started. Good plan, but the wind hadn't actually taken a break from yesterday, and was still blowing steadily from the south east. Doh! Never mind, we're up now, so we might as well take off and push out as many miles as we can before it really arcs up.

What's left of camp Wiljen, almost sorted.

First stop, the bin at the roadside rest area, and a great chat to a father and son (Ryan Thompson, remember that name, he'll be famous one day) , who are travelling to Bunbury for the world motor cross championships. They had a great van set up, and had done 1800kms in one go so far. Good luck guys, but we've got a wind and some hills to tackle. Cheers.

Out on the road, straight up a 2.5km long hill, in fourth gear........ho hum, ho hum, hmmmm, are we there yet? So this is how we went for the morning, rolling down, pushing up, and really enjoying the woodlands of the Yalata Aboriginal Reserve. 

Long slow rolling hills, lovely woodlands, and don't forget the blood thirsty verge.

We came to the actual Yalata settlement, which used to have a roadhouse and a caravan park, but it is no longer operational. There are some water tanks, and we thought we might be able to top up our water, but they had been made redundant. A couple of caravans were parked up having a break, and one of the old codgers called to us " Gee, you guys are doin' it tough today into these headwinds, we've got a tail wind, ha ha ha ha!", as he stood with his lovely mug of coffee. We politely replied that yes we are, and waved good bye as we pedalled off up the next hill, mumbling between us, " Ya bloody reckon? Cycling into this 25km/hr wind tough? What about offering us some water, or a nice cold drink? Bloody hell, tough, huh!"

The old Yalata Roadhouse. Wish it was still going, a cold drink would be nice about now.

As we weren't going at hyper spreed, we kept seeing all these poor squished Bobtail lizards on the killer verge, and we started to feel sad. Then we spotted one scurrying across the road, and we called out to him to hurry and don't stop. He made it into the shrubs on the other side, and we felt happier. Not long after that, another one was attempting to cross the road, and it wasn't off the pit of despair (verge) as we got to him. There was a truck coming behind us, and we knew if Bob kept going, he'd get the bleeding from the mouth syndrome (squished) like the others, so Will stopped with his front wheel blocking Bobs path, and guided him back to the bushes. Bob was very angry and tried to bite Yellow Dawg, but gave up and turned around, and sadly slumped back to his bush. We'd saved his life! I was really happy.

Yay, Bob, you've survived another close call. You lucky bugger!

The hills started to become flatter, and the trees more scarce, and then the appearance of farm land. This meant no wind break, and the wind had got stronger too. Bum, this was getting hard. If we didn't know Nundroo was less than 20 kays away, we'd have stopped and camped. But we pushed on struggling to maintain 10 kays an hour, until we finally got to the run down old roadhouse, caravan park, motel. 

Flatter roads, but more wind, ugh, and just look at that pile of death gravel....

Fields and windmills. Now they are working over time right now, just like us.

We were both super happy to get there, and although we didn't push out the hundred we had wanted to, we had done well. We booked a room, had an awesome shower, and went to get some dinner. As we came around the front , we spotted a familiar bike parked up. "Ray! Will, Ray has caught up to us!" And there he was when we went in the shop. Wow, he'd done in three days, what had taken us four. He is a machine. So we ate dinner and chatted, and found out more about his life and his adventure. He is a really nice guy, and has seen so much already. He booked a room too, and we'll all head off tomorrow to see how far we can get.

The poor old run down roadie. Nice dinner and great shower. Water was not drinkable.

It's not a tall Mr T, it's Ray Pokai who we met in Eucla. Legend.