Day: 070
Date: Wednesday, 09 September 2020
Start: Stuart Highway, 10km south of Elliott
Finish: Renner Springs
Daily Kilometres: 80 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)
Total Kilometres: 7174
Weather: Hot, sunny & windy
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Shortbread cream biscuits
Lunch: Toasted ham, cheese & tomato sandwich & chips/Hamburger & chips
Dinner: Rissoles, salad & chips, chocolate
Aches: Nothing significant
Highlight: In mid-morning, in the middle of nowhere in hot blustery conditions, a vehicle pulled over to the side of the road in front of us and the driver, a young Irish guy travelling on his own, handed us two ice cold bottles of Powerade. After we thanked him, he drove off and we quickly downed the beautifully cold, refreshing and very welcome drinks.
Lowlight: When I spotted a shady tree at the top of a hill for our breakfast break and stopped, Julie was so focused on pedalling up the hill into the wind that she rode right past me without noticing I was there (was it deliberate?).
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We only had 80km to go to from where we were camped to Renner Springs, where I had booked a motel room, so didn't feel like a super-early start was required. We got up at 6:15am and were riding by 7:15am in relatively cool conditions with a light cross/headwind. At times during the night the wind had been very strong, so we were happy it had abated.
The road gradually climbed up onto the Barkly Tableland, where vegetation was more scrubby, the ground more rocky, and there were fewer, and smaller, trees. The more open undulating country allowed us a clearer view across its vastness. In particular, we knew the Barkly Tablelands stretched hundreds of kilometres to the east, all looking much the same.
I know it's boring to keep talking about the wind, but it has been a constant in our cycling lives for the last three days, and today was no different with the velocity of the south-easterly increasing as the day wore on. We never seemed to get a break and the ever-present sound of the rushing wind in our ears added another dimension to the physical strain.
We had toyed with the idea of having just one break during our ride, but the conditions were tough and we were happy to stop for breakfast by the road after 30km (see above). On the next 30km leg, we were lucky enough to have a passing driver give us some cold drinks (see above) along the way, but it was still a grind and we were again happy to stop for our next break.
The last leg to Renner Springs was only 20km, and although one short downhill was actually steep enough to require no pedalling for a hundred metres, the rest of it was a battle against the very strong wind. We reached the roadhouse at Renner Springs, which has a sort of edge-of-the-world feel to it, around 12:30pm. The cheery clerk could not find our booking or work out which room we had been allocated, so we happily ordered and ate our lunch until there was a shift change and the incoming clerk sorted things out. Our budget room is very budget, though not budget-priced, but beggars can't be choosers and we are happy to be out of the wind and heat.
We used the afternoon to relax watching TV and do our laundry. Sadly, there is no internet available unless you are an Optus customer, and as luck would have it, Julie switched from Optus to Telstra in Katherine four days ago! We had dinner at the roadhouse at 6pm, entertained by the proprietor who was keen to sell us a car for the rest of our journey (I think he had had a good day …. when we arrived, the health inspectors were going through the place and apparently they got a clean bill of health), and had an early night, hoping the winds will drop tomorrow.
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