Day: 052
Date: Saturday, 22 August 2020
Start: Mataranka Homestead
Finish: Katherine
Daily Kilometres: 115 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)
Total Kilometres: 5510
Weather: Hot and sunny
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Ham, cheese, tomato & pickle sandwiches
Lunch: Ham, cheese, tomato & pickle sandwiches
Dinner: Chilli con carne, vegetables & rice/Grilled chicken & bacon pasta bake, ice cream
Aches: Nothing significant
Highlight: Well, not quite a highlight, but it appeals to my Presbyterian upbringing. While shopping in Katherine this afternoon, I bought electric hair clippers and did some self-grooming later in the afternoon. The price of the clippers, $20, certainly beat the $57 I paid for a haircut and beard trim in Townsville! And I'm willing to carry the extra weight.
Lowlight: I was riding about 5 metres behind Julie, when unbeknownst to me, she just missed a dead snake lying on the road edge. In the second or two it took me to reach the same spot, it became apparent the snake was not dead, and a very annoyed writhing snake passed beneath my pedals before I had a chance to think or do anything about it.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Knowing another very hot day was forecast, we decided to get on the road early, even though we had a relatively short day in prospect, 115km to Katherine. We sneaked out of the sleeping resort in darkness at 5:45am and cycled the 9km to Mataranka, and a just-opened service station, where we bought a couple of flavoured milks to consume as part of breakfast later on. The first signs of dawn were showing in the eastern sky as we left town and headed for Katherine, the largest town on our route since Cairns on the east coast three or four weeks ago. We were on the Stuart Highway, which we expected to get busier on this Saturday morning, and the service station clerk had warned us of heavy truck traffic.
It was still forest on both sides of the road, with large sections recently burnt and looking starkly beautiful in the rising sun. Around 8am, with 69km to go, we took a break for breakfast in the shade of a roadside tree, knowing we were going to comfortably reach Katherine around noon, so feeling no pressure and enjoying the moment.
Traffic did increase, as expected, and twice we had to head for the hills when road trains arrived from opposite directions at the same time. In each case, the one coming from behind gave us some early warning toots, and we quickly steered off the road. It also got warmer, and after one more break, we were happy to reach the outskirts of Katherine, but not so much to encounter our first traffic light for a very long time.
We were too early to check-in to our motel, so stopped in shade on a lawn adjacent to the busy town visitor centre and ate the sandwiches Julie had prepared last night for lunch. The town shopping centre was nearby adding to the Saturday pedestrian and road traffic as we later walked the block to our motel. They kindly let us check in early, so we had plenty of time to shower, do laundry, do some shopping (see above), and take care of some other chores. We're going to places in the next week with few stores and where we will have to camp and cater for ourselves, so Katherine, with a large supermarket, is a good place to stock up on our camp food supplies.
Later, dinner was microwaved in the motel shared kitchen and was followed by the usual quiet night.
No comments:
Post a Comment