May 13th, 2011
Port Augusta to Iron Knob
Distance: 72km
Total distance: 2951km
The morning saw me riding into the Eyre Highway when I left Port Augusta, and I shall be riding on this highway for the next 1700km until the end of Leg 4, finishing at Norseman. Moments before entering the highway, I saw the word Perth on the road sign for the first time! Stopped here briefly as I got distracted by mixed emotions. Felt excited cause I’m finally getting closer to Perth (although technically this happens on every riding day) but at the same time, feeling a bit underachieve cause after nearly two months of riding, I was barely halfway there. It was at this point my adventurous inner self tells me that it’s not about the destination but the journey!
Positivity aside, I faced headwind all day today! Wasn’t blowing all the time but whenever it stops, i got so beaten up I no longer have the strength to return to my normal riding speed. The section of the highway from Port Augusta to the turn off to Whyalla was no place for a cyclist, especially a triker! Heavy traffic with tons of road trains, narrow shoulders and rough surface makes this a war zone for cyclists.
Just before the turn off to Whyalla, I met one of the biggest police drug and alcohol testing I’ve ever seen. There were easily a dozen police vehicles there with 40 or more officers, mostly just standing there watching the traffic. In fact, one could easily mistake this as a filming setup. They didn’t stop me for testing, instead one of the officer thought it might be a good idea to take a photo of me with his camera phone. After the turnoff, the road suddenly becomes peaceful and calm, much lighter traffic and smooth surface. Motorists were friendlier too as I seem to be getting more friendly toots, thumbs up, waves, headlight flashes and even coming from road trains drivers. Suddenly realised there is actually a real flesh and bone human driving those scary road beast.
I put off the idea of bush camping since it was so windy and there weren’t many trees by the roadside. My 20kg trike although easy to hide, it’s not so easy to move through the scrubs. So I turned into Iron Knob to look for a campsite. When entering the town, I looked left and right and took an immediate notice that there was almost no one here, I see more and more abandoned houses and shops as I go deeper into the town. Buildings with no doors and broken windows, houses made of rusted zinc, overgrown garden, rusty and unused cars from the 80’s, and no sound of human activity at all. I had second thoughts about staying here.
Went to the community post office where I met the first human and made an enquiry at the about campsite. There was one and it’s a public campsite, the running of it is based on donation from campers. I liked the idea and the campsite doesn’t look half as bad, except that there was no lawn to pitch a tent, all there was on the ground was scrubs and gravels. The post office lady allowed me to set up my tent in the concrete slab in the bush kitchen (under a roof with walls on three sides but doesn’t really have a cooking facility apart from a firewood stove). The post office have a computer to use with Internet access so I spent an hour to check my emails and read a blog or two. Yeah I needed an hour long cause it’s an old school dial-up connection!
A caravan pulled up at the campsite later so I went out to say hi (more human interaction keeps the spooky feeling at bay). They were John and Cherry, a retired couple from Perth. They invited me for tea and biscuits at their caravan in which I gladly said yes. Chatted for a while before I head back to my tent and had my dinner of cold baked beans, cold because I was too lazy to set up my stove.
So here it is, the Iron Knob town, it seems so lifeless. Apparently, according to John, this place was complete opposite when he and Cherry visited here for their honeymoon 42 years ago. It was a popular town back in the glorious days when iron mining was active in this area. They were surprised too when they saw the town so run down.
As I’m sitting in the tent, I hear dogs barking every now and then, and I swear at times I hear the sound gradually gets louder which made me think they may be approaching my tent. I had a thought that maybe there are wild dogs around here that were left to fend for themselves when the owners moved or died. I’ve been on full alert mode ever since I pedalled into this town, closely monitoring every slightest sound around me, haha. Hopefully the night passes without much drama.