A more peaceful day really, I started late (9am) and rode with people much of the day. Left with Erin and rode along talking with her until we caught up to Beth, Anna, Leo and Naima. Erin is interesting to hear. Hmm. Eventually we also found Tali and Chris. This is more sociable than I've been while riding for quite a while. Once again we're into rolling hills, but the trike seems to be going ok now. Higher pressure in the tyres and no mudguards seems to have done the trick. Plus I'm fitter now.
Fortescue river looks pretty nice, Bindi runs up the hill to get a break from cycling. It's cool looking up at her running round on the ridge line. We are camped next to the "no camping" sign, but it doesn't seem to make the roadhouse people any less happy. Perhaps they don't want a bunch of ferals in their accommodation anyway.
Fortescue River was the party roadhouse for us. A few of us (it's tricky - a few from a group of 15 or so is a lot when there are normally about 5 people in the roadhouse). Anyway, we drank, played darts and boogied down until some horrible hour of the night. Must have been after 10pm. Then staggered home to crash for the night. It was actually quite bizarre to be inside with electric lights and everything after so long on the road. Almost civilised.
More roadhouse notes: one of the noticeable things is that there's no grid electricity out here. In fact the power lines that follow the railway were remarkable because of their rarity. At roadhouses especially there's a really obvious link between the light switch and the source of power - the thumping diesel generator in the background. Every place we've been to has had one. And after a while you get used to the noise, but for me the irritation of burning fossil fuel to get power is still there. And when it's powering an air conditioner to deal with the huge insolation? Arrgh! I keep thinking about power towers (basically a large chimney with a fan in it that drives a generator - see http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/bobsier/sola6.html or search under "solar power chimney" using google).
The water is also important. Out here water can become something of an obsession, because it's hot and dry so we drink lots, but there's no potable water in most places. We drink the local mineralised water anyway, but a lot of the roadhouse employees live on bottled water. The mineralisation is so bad in most places the water doesn't meet WHO standards for drinking water. But for a short period it's not too bad, and I think a lot of us are having the odd litre or two of bottled water in some form :-)
The other cool thing is that there are marker posts every 10kms telling you how far to the next significant locality. And out here, it doesn't take much to be significant - roadhouses count. Roadhouses seem to be the local "centres", if something that typically has five inhabitants can be called a centre. Mind you, to a motorist that is the only important thing - how far to the next place they can buy petrol and cold drinks.