Day 411 | out on Quiss Road: it blows, drizzles and gets colder

56 km | Heading west total: 14,701 km

Decisions, decisions.

Anyone noticed how many photos there are of forks in the road in this blog?

(I’m not really a fan of Robert Frost’s The Road not Taken. We often don’t have as many choices as we might like to think due to life’s circumstances. The freedom of life out here on the road is a rarity and even my efforts will be curtailed by financial considerations. I’ve never been one for regrets either. Whatever goofy decisions have been made have ended up by just readjusting life to suit.)

Two forks in two days and decisions were needed to be made.

The first was getting out of Fitzgerald River National Park. An unsealed road, Old Ongerup Road, runs parallel to the main South Coast highway for about 30km. Running out of water which road to take? Continue on to the highway 8km away, or take the parallel road?

Old Ongerup looks good, the surface better than what I’ve been coming over, and has national park on one side and marginal farmland on the other. Out here there’s absolutely no chance of any cars or trucks, the road is there only for the wheat harvest. But there’s a windmill in the distance, there has to be water along here, somewhere.

Of course I turn away from the highway and head down Old Ongerup, great riding and water miraculously appeared from a rainwater tank at a deserted farm cottage just off the track.

Next morning a similar dilemma only this time it’s not a farm access road it’s a 4WD twin track ie small shrubs growing in the middle strip.

Hmmm. My philosophy has been to give this sort of challenge a go, avoid the highway for another 12kms. I’m relaxed about these tracks now, if it turns to soft sand I can always turn back.

But the track stays firm and I have a great morning ride startling kangaroos and emus, at least until all options converge on the highway.