My aborted attempt at socialising last night which saw the pub cleared, closed and me back in my room in the motel well before ten led me to turn on the TV. I watched a few minutes of a Matthew McConnaughey chick flick based on Dickens Scrooge before The Batchelor, a worse Chris ODonnell effort, came on. I elected to sleep instead and slept right through until 8am this morning. I was already a little bit concerned about covering the 190km to Balladonia. Already I knew it was going to be dark before I got there. Ive heard some pretty bad things about the road trains on the highway east and wanted to be comfortable with them before making an educated decision on whether I felt it was safe to be on the road with them after sundown. My day got off to a flyer when I checked my phone, Id asked on Facebook the previous evening for interest in helping me with a social media campaign to try and secure a €5,000 grant for Pedal The Planet. It would pretty much cover the current shortfall in my budget to get me to the World Cycle Race finish line. I had hoped to get a group of 25 or 30 who might help me drum up the support required to consider getting involved. When I checked my phone I had over a hundred people offering their assistance and support. More significantly approximately three quarters of the people were people Id never met personally in my life. The number of people who I have met more than a handful of times wouldnt have outnumbered my fingers. It really goes to show that when you ask for help, that help is always there even when you dont realise it. And it will come from the strangest or most surprising places. This has been the case across my entire journey to turn my life around from the start of my Challenge Ten project right through to Pedal The Planet. With my mind firmly back here I had hoped to give the Nullarbor Golf Course a spin, the longest course in the world with a single hole at each stop along the highway stretching to almost two thousand kilometres from the first tee to the final pin and with gaps of two hundred kilometres between some of the holes. I got to the information bureau and was informed there was a $70 (€50) green fee. And that I would be charged $5 at each hole to hire clubs and a ball. I really couldnt justify the expense, the green fees alone being more than the amount I spent in a single week while in India, so I decided to pass on the opportunity. I grabbed a quick breakfast and set off from Norseman on the Eyre Highway. I had planned on riding along the opposite side of the road in order to be able to face the traffic. This would mean having a visual on the road trains a lot earlier than the current reliance on their sound from behind gives. At the moment Im lucky to have more than a couple of seconds notice. Not wanting to break the rules of the road I toyed with the idea before my safety side won the mental argument. I crossed the road and continued in the margin into the oncoming traffic. For the next forty clicks I fell into a nice rhythm of spotting an oncoming truck about a kilometre ahead and if there was nothing coming from behind me crossing to the proper side of the carriageway to allow the large vehicle to pass with maximum clearance before returning to the far margin again. On both occasions where traffic was coming from both sides I just moved a little further into the verge and slowed down giving the largest gap to the fast moving trucks as possible. That strategy worked perfectly giving me what felt like my most comfortable day in the saddle since Perth. It was a huge relief not to constantly on edge about a road train coming right through the back of me. I stopped after forty kms for a quick piece of fruit and about half a litre of water. This pattern was repeated after 80km where I also opened the packet of jelly sweets Id brought from Norseman. There was just over two hours of daylight remaining and more than one hundred kilometres to Balladonia when I spotted a sign for Frazers Range. I knew there was accommodation available at the station, a massive farm which used to have sheep but now relies on the accommodation and station tours to pay the bills, so made the decision to spend a night on the farm instead of pushing on in the dark for the roadhouse at Balladonia. That delight can wait for tomorrow. When I reached the farm house I was directed by signage to the little shop and the manageress offered me a single room for $65 dollars while telling me in the same breath she was married to an Irish guy. I chanced my arm by asking Can we do better than that?, she tutted and replied that nearly everyone had been asking that today for some reason. She eventually offered $50 and I gladly took her up on it before booking myself in for the lamb shanks and mashed potato dinner later that night. It turned out the fifth hole of the golf course was here and she offered me the clubs to go out and play the hole but it was beginning to get dark and the tee was nearly a kilometre away on a pretty poor path. I really didnt fancy the walk but more importantly the walk back after dusk. If I have time I will give it a blast in the morning. Dinner was fantastic, possibly one of the best meals Ive had since leaving home. I met two geologists who are detailing a local plot for mining. Theyre looking for precious metals such as nickel or gold and trying to establish whether a mine would be profitable or sustainable in that location. The man of the house, Bernie Brophy, a real dub introduced himself and I chatted to himself and his wife Marianne, their daughter and her partner for a while before retiring well before eight. Looks like Im going to have to get used to early nights. Lowlight of the day was attempting to go to the bathroom at my earlier stop. I opened the door to the toilet block to see a single steel toilet inside. When I approached it became clear it was a long drop effort where the smell and view basically acted swifter and more thoroughly than any diarrhoea pills I took while suffering in India. I managed to hold it for the next hour or so until I was checked in at the station. Tomorrow I will make the 90 km or so to Balladonia with a 200km spin the following day to Caiguna.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 15:13:07 +0000
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