Day 122 | Near the Heather Highway turnoff: I'm getting to like camping on bits of old road

54 km | zzOz total: 6,243 km

My definition of tiredness: I leave my sandals outside the tent at night.

I suffer from an almost irrational fear that dingos will abscond with them for a tasty chew, but maybe they are less palatable than I imagine, after all they’ve been on my feet, daytime anyway, since I left Perth more than four months ago.

Left right on the dot of, err, 9 which considering the sun pops up at 5 20 am was just what the body needed.

Same as yesterday really, an undulating sort of day, 9 km/hour heading up the slopes, more soft than steep, downhill, cutting through the split pea gravel, a stately 15.

Generally quite overcast, gloomy even, some forked lightning in the distance so I stopped looking, eventually pulled on my (useless) raincoat, scarcely worth it, a sporadic splattering but I was sweating more on the inside from the humidity. Surprisingly it all burned off late in the day, looks like those clouds that have covered me like a cloak since I left Leinster might have gone elsewhere for a while.

Needing some inspiration later in the day, no waterholes, or rivers, creeks even, or grand vistas out here, I plugged into my iPod and plodded away to the thrilling Martha Augerich playing Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat, opus 44, a lively interlude that’s just the ticket to give me a second wind.