April 29th, 2011
Kingston SE to 42 Mile Crossing
Distance: 74km
Total distance: 2207km
Left pretty late this morning at 10am! Probably because I knew I was only going to do a 70km+ journey today so I just took my time getting ready. By the time I woke up, the sun was already high in the sky but the wind is still very strong. My tent got quite warm in the morning. I recorded 24 degrees celcius on my thermometer, unusually warm for a morning in Autumn! Last night, I had the most dramatic night ever, my tent was nearly blown off in the middle of the night! I had to come out and redo the stakes a couple of times as it kept getting pulled out by the wind, until I decided to tie my tent fly onto my trike. But that didn’t stopped the sound of my tent flapping the whole night.
Before leaving Kingston SE, I stopped by at a local supermarket for an iced chocolate milk drink. Hmmm, I seem to have developed a habit of having iced flavoured milk drink in the morning before my ride. To sum up my ride today, the 70km ride to the turn off to 42 Mile Crossing was almost entirely flat and with shoulder just wide enough for my trike. Apart from the headwind, it was not a bad weather for cycling. I get alternating sunshine and overcast. It was quite warm throughout the ride. A word of warning to any cyclist unfamiliar with this stretch. There is absolutely no facilities (shop, food, water, toilet) between Kingston SE and Salt Creek (where I’ll be passing tomorrow, about 20km further north of 42 Mile Crossing), and this is about 90km stretch.
Once I turn off from the highway to 42 Mile Crossing, it was 3km of unsealed road into the campsite. Along this road, I took my trike to the Coorong lagoon to ride on the mostly dried up lagoon. The campsite was beautiful. It was clean and well-maintained. I particularly liked the rain water tanks that collected water from all the roofed structure there. Saw a couple of other vehicles camping there too. After pitching my tent, there was still about an hour of daylight. So I took the 1 hour return walk to the beach to have a look.
Upon returning to the campsite, Dennis, a next-door camper invited me for a cup of tea so we sat in front of a campfire he made and chatted for an hour or so. Dennis is a retired builder and has been travelling for 10 years within the country on his camper-4WD. We saw some kangaroos around the campsite and frigthened by big grasshoppers suddenly landed on our shirt. It started raining lightly later on, so with the help of Dennis, I moved my tent into the picnic area which was roofed. It’s concrete floor but wasn’t so bad since between me and the floor there’s my sleeping bag and foam mat.
A couple of times, the kangaroos scared the shit out of me. I was in the tent and all of a sudden there’s stomping sound outside my tent. At one point, I was eager to watch some nocturnals so I came out with my headlamp, scanning around the campsite, really hoping to see some wildlife. I saw something glittering, which made me think it was an animal’s eye. Upon closer examination, I was shocked to find it’s coming from a moderate sized spider! And the glitter came from its eyes.
