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 081 - Kings Canyon Resort

Day:  081

Date:  Sunday, 20 September 2020

Start:  Kings Canyon Resort

Finish:  Kings Canyon Resort

Daily Kilometres:  0

Total Kilometres:  8258

Weather:  Warm, sunny and windy

Accommodation:  Cabin

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg, bacon & cheese toasted muffins

  Lunch:  Ham, cheese & tomato toastie/Salad wrap

  Dinner:  Bangers and mash/Chicken schnitzel, salad & chips, ice-creams

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Having a day off to catch up on email, blog, social media, etc

Lowlight:  With no sheltered picnic tables in the campground, the dust-filled wind which howled from about 9am was quite unpleasant.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We were kept awake until nearly 11pm by two very noisy groups of adjacent campers.  One with two very young children chattering non-stop very loudly, and the other, three foreign backpackers who set up their tent just a few metres from ours after 9pm, even though their car had been parked there for hours, and talked, laughed and slammed doors as though they were miles from anybody else.  I successfully fought the urge to grumpily say something and regretted that we weren't planning an early start so we had a chance to repay the favour.

We made a slow start to the day, rising after 7am and getting some breakfast from the roadhouse an hour or so later that we ate a table in the campground.  It was already warm and just a little breezy, but as the morning wore on the northwesterly wind strengthened and made anywhere in the open a little unpleasant.  We were glad we were not riding into it.  Julie had a swim and sunbake at the campground pool in both the morning and afternoon while I caught up on my overdue blog updates and some email, as well as ordering a replacement tent to be express-posted to us at Port Augusta where we will be in two weeks time.

Our afternoon was pretty much the same as the morning, apart from taking down the tent and moving into our cabin where Julie made repairs to the torn tent and flysheet with duct tape donated by the roadhouse.  It seems unlikely the tape will stick for long and we'll just have to hope for few flies and mosquitoes in the next week and no strong winds (fat hope).

We had an early dinner so we could go to the resort's "sunset viewing area" a short distance away from our cabin.  Unfortunately, the wind was still blowing and a red dust haze marred the view of the mountains lit by the setting sun.  Maybe tomorrow night.  We returned to the cabin, watched a bit of TV (me) and went to bed hoping our neighbours are not too noisy.

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