John woke us all up at 5:30am! It took about two hours to get on the road, mostly just people getting organised into road mode after a week off I think. Lunch is at 70km, and Bindi is on the front of the trike.
First flat of the trip, the rear tyre. We panic to a stop (I panic, Bindi stops) and discover that it's not easy to get at the back wheel of the loaded trike. Also decide to remove the Comp Pool and use a higher pressure tyre. I also discover that with the panniers on the lower rails the trike handles better but the back right pannier interferes with the rear derailleur. More thought required. We're averaging about 22kph, which is a bit slower than I'd hoped. Will have to think about that too. The goal for today is Bidyadanga, about 100km to the turnoff then 13km of gravel. Will be interesting to see how the trike handles gravel.
Lunch at about 11am, sat round until 3pm-ish waiting for the worst of the heat to go away. We find the turnoff at exactly the distance Annette said, which I think is coincidence. The first 5km of gravel is really easy, it's pretty smooth and the trike is fine. After that we hit corrugations which are not at all fine. The trike bounces round at the back and feels as though it's slamming into the ground hard enough to break something. We stop riding, unload and drag the trike off the road a bit to wait for a lift.
Bidyadanga is a reasonably large community, about 500 people. We're staying with the teachers from the school. Our group seems very small after Broome, there's only 13 of us. But we still overwhelm the tiny school community. Seems like everyone here is helping provide us with a meal and stuff. tonight is also the lunar eclipse, and I have a happy time trying to explain to non-scientists why some of the observable things happen. Like, why it happens at full moon (no, we're not just lucky that it happens that way) and why it gets dim before it goes completely dark (I can't remember the names for the two shadows, umbra and penumbra or something?)
We take over Annette and Shawn's house for the evening, introducing copious amounts of sand and grit to what looks like a pristine house. We're sleeping in Shawn's classroom so at least we're out of their way eventually.