11/10/15 We all took our time crawling out of our tents, feeling lazy and relaxed. During the night, I'd woken several times, and heard the pounding and thumping of kangaroos bouncing around our tent. Closer to daylight, I could hear the drumming of emus. When I finally got up, nothing in sight.
Our quiet little camp spot, miles from the amenities.
Will and I cooked brekkie, and relaxed in the camp kitchen watching the beginning of the Bathurst 1000, car race, and vampired power for all our devices. Rob soon joined us after his luxury brekkie out. We left him doing real work, and decided to do The Oyster Walk, which took us along the foreshore and into the National Park slightly. It was very pretty and enjoyable.
Saw some Emus just wandering along after brekkie.
In town, the main jetty, heading west on the Oyster walk.
A whole bunch of little boats ready for racing. Only a slight breeze, but enough for them.
Some beautiful gardens along the bay, and interesting wetlands.
Looking back towards town.
Interesting quangdong info. It is illegal to harvest them. What if I just pick a couple?
After about five kays, we headed to the pub, to continue watching the big race. Rob came and joined us, and we stayed until there was a winner, listening to a local crew playing live music. It was very relaxing. Then we all headed over to the Yacht Club, and had a couple more drinks, and some dinner. It was a great spot, right on the foreshore, with great views of town and the bay. There were plenty of birds to watch too, flitting around the shrubs outside. At one stage, one of the little blighters got inside, and was trying to get out through the glass. Will jumped up, grabbing some random jumper nearby, and covered it, then gently lifted it and took it outside to let it go. A young girl was very excited about the wattle bird, telling her mum it was Larry, and it was her friend. Will had saved Larry! Well done Will.
Cheers to Craig Lowndes, winner for the sixth time.
Back to our tents, and another great day complete.
12/10/15 Up early, and packing for our ride to the biggest town we've seen since we left home. There was no rush, as it is only 45kms, and most of that is uphill. So we ate our cereal, and once we were all ready to go, we headed over to Beachcombers for a nice coffee before heading up the hill out of town.
The ride out of Coffin Bay was very nice, with the Conservation area and lots of Emus. We were lucky enough to see three little babies with their dad wandering through the bush close by. It didn't take us long to reach the Flinders highway, after 13kms. We were all very happy to see there was a good shoulder, and a good verge. But it was just pushing uphill, on a gentle gradient for the next 20 odd kilometres.
Dad was keeping a very close eye on us, and the little chicks didn't stray.
The babies have such fantastic camouflage.
Right, that was pretty quick, and now for the rest. Straight to more uphill.
With the temperature in the low twenties, and a southerly breeze blowing, it was a cool ride, and the scenery was very nice. Still plenty of farming, but also some nice bush and woodlands. About 11:30, we came to a junction, where we had to make a choice. Left was slightly shorter, on the Flinders hwy, straight took us around a long way, and had a lot more traffic. For the first time in ages, we consulted Davo GPS. WHY? Why, why?
You guessed it, we took the left turn option, believing it would be slightly more hilly, but much more quiet. Uhhmmmm, No! It was very busy with local traffic, as it turned out, being a shorter, more direct route into the town centre. It was also straight up the massive 10% gradient (Robs' GPS tells us) mountain at the back of town. So we rode in third gear, then second and of course down to granny gear, for about four kilometres. Will and Rob were a few hundred meters in front of me, which was good, because if they were closer, they may have got covered in my spit, as I was doing the whole vacuum in the oxygen, and heavily force out a breath, which took with it anything in or around my mouth. This was tough. I even unclipped my left foot, as I had visions of me and Betty stopping involuntarily, due to our progress of 6kms per hour. But luckily, the road flattened out a bit and I pumped up to second and then third, oohh, 10 kays an hour. Up ahead, the guys were just plodding along, and then they pulled off to the left. Oh thank god, a quick rest. They'd actually stopped to get some pics of the amazing views of Port Lincoln and the bay. Wow, super.
Down there is Port Lincoln. 15,500 people.
From here, we had "The Glory Run". We'd ridden up 110 meters in 4kms, but now we had the downhill back to 3mtrs, over another 3 kays. It was awesome, and to top it off, there was a dedicated bike lane for most of the way. We all got speeds in the mid fifties, with Rob only just beating me with 56.3, against my 56.1. Will was being a bit more cautious around all the traffic, with 53. We zoomed into town, straight to the foreshore to find a BBQ for lunch. We had food we needed to cook and eat, so that is what we did. After a massive cook up, we all separated to sort our accommodation. Rob has booked into the YHA, he's a member, and we checked into the Grand Tasman Hotel for a few days of luxury.
Starting the run down, I don't think we'll get to 80, but it might feel like it.
Made it down in one piece. Rob had one close call with a 4wd pulling in front of him.
Taking over the BBQ, cooking up our feast.
And what a feast it was. Well done to us all, great riding.
We're going to rest and do maintenance and taste the local seafood, as Port Lincoln is supposed to be the Seafood Capital of Australia. It looks like a nice town so far.
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