Day 425 | edging ever closer to Albany: the pedal collapses, I collapse, at the Kalgan River

26 km | Heading west total: 15,239 km

There’s no road from one end of Two Persons Bay to the other.

There’s the beach.

Back somewhere north of Broome I’d been extolled the merits of this neck of the woods. I’d made a double headed arrow mark in red on my map, just a bit out to sea. Someone had thought, 7 months ago, I could ride down the beach. No worries at all.

I’ve had some experience at this now, think Le Grande Beach. The tide was out, the sand flat and firm.

Here’s a useful tip from my travels: remember this laddies and ladettes. On flat beaches wet sand can be better than a road. If the beach is in any way sloping you are in heaps of trouble.

Towing a trailer through soft sand can be a slow task, mostly on foot, but the day is perfect, the water clear and big fish, well, 40cm long, can be seen schooling 4m off shore in calf deep water.

The good thing about this beach is that it is approximately 19km shorter than the 25km Le Grande Beach encountered just east of Esperance. I manage an average speed of about 6km/ hour, mainly because there’s 800m rideable each end. The rest? Real heavy labour, 20 or 30m at a time.

These little excursions have added to the experience of the trip and some days I am happy to be making my way on my own. Who else wants experience like this?

There was another excursion, this time abandoning the bike and walking 5 or 6km around to Little Beach. Some more spider webs on the face, they are a battle to force through, so after my efforts I was surprised to see that there were 25 school holiday makers on the beach, a few taking to the water.

Oh. The carpark was almost full and you could see why: that’s one of the most beautiful settings on the entire 14 month trip. Granite boulders and solid rock, clear water, blue sky, bright blue water. How come I’m the only one doing that wonderful walk in?

It was heartening to know that others were enjoying this pure environment, (direct those eyes out to sea, not at the carpark), instead of having it all to myself.

There’s enough beauty here to share around.

But I can see why they have termed it Two Peoples Bay.

Where’s a decent partner when you need her?