Day 130 | Edging closer to the border: the weather closes in
39 km | zzOz total: 6,630 km
There was only 50 km or so on the agenda for today but when I turned the corner, 45°, to head due east the wind, which had been at my shoulder, propelling me at a goodly rate, suddenly became a more awkward proposition.
The road, everchanging, became lumpy, and uphill, and that crosswind bustled me off my safe 6 inches, a change of trajectory, once in the soft stuff, or over those bumps and I could be pointing in any direction. And cars appeared, at odd intervals, not understanding my situation, sailing past just too close for total cycling enjoyment, in circumstances when you didn’t actually need a car to produce a full on, if momentary, sandstorm.
In the end I cut the day short, there’s no particular hurry. At the top of a rise, can’t call it a hill, there was a parking area, all too close to the road, unsheltered. Not far down was a track leading off, my last night in WA had to be at a gravel pit. The tent went up in the breeze, pegs not an option, load the tent up to keep it in place, thunder not far off, occasional enormous raindrops as well.
When I set off from Melbourne I had no inkling that I would spend more than two years in this state, travel to many of the major tourist sights: from the early days finishing the Tanami; being stunned by Purnululu, still the outstanding, astonishing, natural feature set; Marella Hole; and then coming back a few months later, meeting that enormous character, Klaus the Camelman; Gibb River Road; a whole heap of Broome kindness; Karijini; the Super Pit; a summer in Esperance; Fitzgerald River National Park, etc. And then the Munda Biddi, times two, and the wiggly woggly path for this journal.
Despite the cast of hundreds I’ve met along the way, and CJ’s enthusiasms, it’s been somewhat vacant socially. You need to be fixed by location, not a fly-by-nighter like me, to start making lasting connections with people.
Well, I’ll be back to the real world, and real employment, soon enough I’m not curtailing this little adventure, there’s time to be spent in the Northern Territory still. Oh, and I’ll point out now that Queensland is the second largest state.
Plenty to contemplate from my palace as the rain finally sets in.