This was a complete slack day for us (Jonas and I) because the group was going to ride 50 or so kilometres to just short of Roeburn, but we started 15km in front of them making for a leisurely 35km ride. Whee!.
We got up slowly and by the time we were ready to think about riding Bindi had rocked up. She was a bit too enthusiastic for our slack day, but we coped. We managed a 15km ride to Sherlock River (another really nice river). There we stopped for breakfast, and ran into Russell the English tourist again. He'd gone the extra mile yesterday and had a very nice night. But he lent me his stove to cook my breakfast rice, which was very nice.
Also at this river were two people-type attractions. "little moisty" is a water truck used by the road crews. So every half hour this biggish truck rolls down, backs round and starts up a little petrol powered pump that takes 20 minutes to fill the tank. Just like a genset really.
And the highlight of the day was the poodle lady. There is a wonderful couple with a caravan parked right next to the river, where you'd normally be going backwards and forwards a lot. She's the domineering type, full of instructions. The little moistie man is getting a bit toey about her "help" every time he comes in, I think. And she repeats her story of someone in our group begging water off them once on the Gibb River to everyone who arrives. Doesn't bother to mention that her and hubby have been walking a few metres upstream and going to the toilet on the edge of the river. The toilet paper was a special touch, we thought.
Oh, and she hates dogs. She thought she'd found a friend, you see, when another caravan drove up (proper people, no bikes or trucks), so she made hubby direct them into the right spot (next to the picnic table, so that would be blocked as well as the river access). But voila, they park and out pop two little dogs. "Oh, ai don't like dogs, can't stand them". Gosh darn, said the team.
Eventually we did the last 15km to the evening camp. These 35k days really take it out of you :-)
Anyway, the current plan is to go from Karratha to Nanutarra (302km), turn inland to Paraburdoo (275km), to Tom Price (81km) then Newman(132km). That's the national park route but excludes the railway road. My diary also has a big list of things to do in Karratha. Mostly because I volunteered to do support, which means getting Alan to the mechanics by 7am, when the nice man will work on the steering. At the moment driving Alan is more a suggestive thing than a command function. You turn the wheel and Alan sort of thinks about going in the indicated direction. There's about one and a half turns of slop in the steering! I also need to buy sleeping mats in town, one for the trike and one to go under my Thermarest which is still deflating overnight. Beth is driving tomorrow, and we wake at 5:30am to get the van out by 6:30am. I think we need longer, in the past it's never been less than two hours from wake up to van leaving.
The rest of the group is doing an action in town at lunchtime (we will hopefully join them), and researching route options. We might take the railway road, it's dirt but apparently nice dirt and it's shorter and more scenic. The alternative via Nanutarra is longer and may not be as nice. But in travelling time they're probably the same, we do 100km/day on seal but only 60km/day on gravel, so the 500/300 kms options will take the same time. At Roebourne is also a big aboriginal community, so we will hopefully visit them, that needs to be sorted out.
We're due to ride out of town tomorrow and camp at a really great river 30km downwind, where we will have a meeting to decide the route and plan from here on.