May 12th, 2011
Melrose to Port Augusta
Distance: 69km
Total distance: 2879km
Last night was pretty rough, if it’s not because I put all my bags in my tent, my tent would be blown away. As you can imagine, I had a hard time sleeping, the wind somehow manage to find its way into my tent cause I felt the breeze every now and then, or maybe it was just my mind playing tricks. Not sure, pretty sleep-deprived. It was one of the coldest night for sure. This morning I packed my tent in the wet since it was still raining. It wasn’t all that bad though, when I got on the road, riding out of Melrose was mostly downhill. Didn’t realise I actually climbed quite a bit when entering Melrose last night, that explains my decreasing speed in the last 5km of riding last night (in the dark).
Rode down to Wilmington to have a quick lunch of biscuits and choco milk before tackling Horrocks Pass across the Flinders Ranges. Somewhere along the Horrocks Pass on a high speed descend, I lost my flag for the third time! Argghhh! The descend was steeper than the climb, at one point my helmet was nearly blown away. It held on just because I was clamping the jaw strap with my teeth, haha! Well, the descend was too steep for my liking but I must admit the view was fantastic! Great to see the ocean again too.
Took a shortcut to Port Augusta via Wilmington Rd which was great riding, with almost non-existent traffic! It has a very gentle descend, reminiscent of a rail trail. Only issue I had was the rough surface, although it was more tolerable than unsealed tracks.
Looking back at the Flinders Ranges from this road was fantastic. I immediately took notice of the change in the bush landscape too, while the Clare valley were mostly grasslands and wineries, here it’s mostly saltbush and bluebush and very few trees. Somewhere along here, I encountered a group of emus! Not sure if they were wild since they’re behind a fence. But they were running alongside me for a good 400m before being stopped by a ditch. I took that as a friendly race!
At Port Augusta, I stopped at the first bike shop I saw to get my replacement flag. Booked myself in a caravan park that has bunkhouses, the unit I got was a double bed and I had it all for myself in my very own room. Sweet! Wanted to book two nights but they only have vacancy for tonight. Took it anyhow and decided not to have a rest day tomorrow. In the evening, I took a nice walk to the town centre via the great western foot bridge and the wharf to shop for food for the next few days. Did my laundry too since my rest day would be another 5 days away.
