Julie and I were supposed to be hiking the 5,000km Continental Divide Trail in the US in 2020, but COVID-19 derailed that plan. Instead, we will have an adventure in Australia, circumnavigating the country on our bikes, a distance of about 16,500km taking approximately five and a half months. We will use minor roads where possible and occasionally catch ferries across rivers and inlets to avoid busier inland routes. We will camp some of the time and stay in motels, hotels, etc, at others. There will be stretches of up to five days with no accommodation or resupply available, so we will need to be self-sufficient.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 065 - Pine Creek to Katherine

Day:  065

Date: Friday, 04 September 2020

Start:  Pine Creek

Finish:  Katherine

Daily Kilometres:  91 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  6646

Weather:  Hot, sunny & breezy

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & lettuce sandwich/Egg & cheese sandwich

  Lunch:  Chicken salad roll

  Dinner:  Tuna mornay/Beef pasta, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  A short day's ride, given the heat.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

With temperatures of 40°C and brisk (head) winds forecast, we were happy that our goal for the day, Katherine, was only 90km away.  We left Pine Creek at 6:30am and headed south on the Stuart Highway, pedalling in the opposite direction along the same road we had travelled two weeks ago.

Given that we cannot enter Western Australia, this is what we will be doing until we reach Daly Waters, 365km away.  All of that will be on the relatively busy Stuart Highway, and for much of today we were frequently checking our rearview mirrors for approaching road trains, taking evasive action when necessary.  There are not really any viable route alternatives, but that's OK.

We took a break in the shade of a roadside tree after 40km for breakfast, having enjoyed the cooler temperatures and lighter winds of our first two hours riding.  After breakfast, the heat rapidly increased, as did the strength of the headwind.  Although the elevation profile showed an undulating downward trend for the day, we could swear most of the time we were riding gradually uphill.  Nevertheless, we maintained a reasonable pace, probably due to the good surface and reasonable grades of the highway.  Both of us still felt tired in the legs from the exertions of a couple of days ago and are looking forward to a recovery day off tomorrow.

For our second, and last, break for the morning, we found some nice shade-giving trees just inside the gates of Charles Darwin University campus 17km north of Katherine.  Then, it was on to Katherine, where we arrived around noon, by which time it had become a very hot day.  We were too early to check in to our motel, so we bought some rolls for lunch from the small town mall and ate them in some shade in an adjacent park.

Around 1:30pm, we checked into our motel, giving plenty of time for the pool for Julie, and to get laundry done.  Later, we bought some food from the supermarket and microwaved dinner.

It has been a bit of a nothing day, after the action of the last two weeks, but you have to have those to get to the bigger attractions, and we still got to experience another bush dawn in the outback along with the tropical heat communities up here live with for much of the year.

By

2 comments:

  1. Pratt GeoffSeptember 6, 2020 at 9:39 AM

    Hey Dave and Julie
    Such a great effort. Bad luck u can’t enter WA.
    Very much enjoying the blog and progress - from a locked-down Melbourne.
    Geoff and Liz

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dave ByrnesSeptember 7, 2020 at 8:10 PM

      Glad we're giving you something to do, Geoff. We were still hoping to include Victoria, but you guys are making it tough!

      Delete

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