Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 074 - Ti-Tree to Alice Springs

Day:  074

Date: Sunday, 13 September 2020

Start:  Ti-Tree

Finish:  Alice Springs

Daily Kilometres:  194 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  7843

Weather:  Cool early, then windy, sunny and very warm

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Toasted egg & bacon sandwiches

  Lunch:  Ham, tomato & pickle sandwich/Beef, tomato & pickle sandwich

  Dinner:  Pizza, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Thanks to our long and arduous day (see below), we got to enjoy the last 20km into Alice Springs through the MacDonnell Ranges by the light of the setting sun which bathed the bush, boulders and spectacular bluffs in a soft orange light.

Lowlight:  I promise this will be the last complaint about the wind (for a while, at least).  Today, we had headwinds for pretty much the whole 194km, starting with a headbreeze for the first three hours, and building to an official 20-30kph headwind for the last 100km.  Gusts brought us almost to a standstill and the roaring in our ears never let up.  For the whole day, we were using three to four gears lower, and working harder, than for calm conditions.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Our goal today was Alice Springs, 195km away, and the forecast was for strengthening headwinds.  We were both a bit apprehensive, but decided against an even earlier start than usual and left Ti-Tree 4:45am (early enough!).  Our plan was to ride non-stop to the Aileron Roadhouse, 60km away, and get breakfast and supplies for the day there, since there were no other shops en route to Alice Springs.  It was quite cool when we set off and we were both wearing our jackets for the first time in many weeks.  Sadly, there was also a slight headwind, so we didn't get the fast start we were hoping for, but still made reasonable time.

The Aileron Roadhouse has an adjacent indigenous art gallery, and the roadhouse was dominated by two huge and impressive aboriginal figures, one atop the mountain behind.  We bought some toasted sandwiches for breakfast which we ate in the dining room of the very quiet roadhouse, as well as sandwiches for lunch later and some cold drinks.  By the time we left at 8:30am, it had warmed up to T-shirt temperature, and we were conscious that we still had 135km to go in the freshening wind.

A sign told us there was a highway rest area in 39km, so we decided to aim for that for our morning break.  It was hard work, on a road that had very long flat stretches and was becoming busy with Sunday traffic in addition to the usual caravans/campers and road trains.  The scenery was predominantly arid woodland cattle and camel grazing country (we saw a few of the latter), and side roads led to cattle stations and aboriginal communities.

After a welcome break at the rest area, the wind really began to dominate our day, and we just plugged away, each in our own little roaring wind worlds, trying to get the job done.  It wasn't much fun, but every adventure (or, for that matter, every venture) that is worthwhile entails some drudgery, and we knew we would gain satisfaction from enduring and overcoming the elements, along with other delights in the days ahead.

Our lunch stop was under a shady tree by the roadside, and then it was more hard work in some very open flat grazing country that offered zero protection from the wind.  We took our final break in another highway rest area, which also marked the Tropic of Capricorn, thus ending our time in the tropics.  From there, we had just 32km to go, but the wind was still fierce and our progress was slow.  One minor highlight was passing the highest point on the Stuart Highway between Darwin and Adelaide, meaning that we were going to be trending downhill from that point into Alice Springs.

There was a descent, through the picturesque MacDonnell Ranges in the late afternoon sun (see above), but the wind didn't allow us to do much freewheeling.  However, we did make a few photo stops to enjoy the scenery, and then we were in the northern part of the very pretty Alice Springs.  We reached our motel in the city centre at 5:30pm, ending a very long and tiring day, and checked in.  After showers, we did a little shopping at the nearby supermarket, then had dinner ($10 pizza night!) at the motel's tavern.

We now have two days off in Alice Springs during which we will relax, attend to a few chores, and prepare for the next leg of our journey.  Given we couldn't get into Western Australia, and thus have some extra time, we are going to do a loop into the desert west of here, following the Red Centre Way to Uluru (Ayers Rock).  This will require some logistics planning since there are few resupply options for the nine-day loop.