Day 101 | a bushcamp on Mereenie Loop Rd: with 2 new biking companions
26 km | Heading west total: 4,066 km
Funny how word travels up and down the road via the Grey Nomads.
I’d heard that there were 2 Japanese cyclists about 4 days behind me when I got to William Creek on Day 77. At various places I heard of their progress and also that they weren’t Japanese. By the time I left Oodnadatta I knew they were both Aussies from Brisbane.
Then, well, I didn’t meet too many people at all on my 8 days out of circulation with my travels to Finke and Kulgera.
When I met Goh, the Japanese cyclist, on the way to Kings Canyon he said that he had met them and that they had cycled together for a day or so but they had gone to Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Then they were headed to Kings Canyon and so I had overtaken them once again. It seems they passed me when I went in to walk the track around Kings Canyon yesterday afternoon.
I got into the (hideously overpriced) ‘Resort’ to find that they had already set up camp so I joined them. They, of course, had heard rumours of me as well so it was a surprise for us to finally get to meet.
They were heading on the same ‘gravel’ road I was intending, called the Mereenie Loop Road, so it was pretty obvious we should ride together. Ahn, of Vietnamese ancestry, and Chee, from Kuala Lumpur, had left Melbourne at the end of March and had followed a similar route to mine but missing some of my more idiosyncratic tangents.
It’s the first time I’ll be riding with others for the trip.