Day 68: Ceasefire Already!

May 22nd, 2011

40km east of Nundroo to Nundroo
Distance: 42km
Total distance: 3541km

I dreamt of riding with a strong tailwind last night. God it was such a beautiful dream! Still, a dream was just a dream. The extreme headwind continues today, only this time it’s blowing from 11 o’clock instead of 1 o’clock which made no difference in terms of riding resistance and my state of miserability.

I therefore only aimed to ride until the Nundroo roadhouse where I could spend a night in their backpackers lodge. The latter didn’t happen. Instead I camped in their caravan park as their backpackers lodge was closed, vandalised apparently. The ride today was just as bad as yesterday’s. The first 15km wasn’t that bad, as the moderately strong headwind was still bearable. Later in the morning, the wind just went ballistic, almost impossible to ride. Fought the wind with every bit of calories I have. About 5km to Nundroo, I was stopped by Collis and Cathy, and they gave me a packet of orange juice! The kindness of strangers never stop to amaze me. Collis owns a recumbent trike as well, and did some touring in the past on an upright bike. He recently brought 20 touring cyclist from Broome to Perth driving on his sag vehicle. He organises cycling tours, check out his website at http://www.cycleacrossoz.com.au/. I was quite curious of his Moulton bike, a full suspension (elastomer type) bike that looked like a folding bike. Anyway, it was good to have a bit of human interaction as I’ve been feeling very miserable for these two days. Constantly being bashed by the headwind does a lot of psychological damage.

As if my day wasn’t miserable enough, I just came back with three scratches on my foot from tripping over barbed fence as I was searching for large pieces of rock to anchor my tent. This brings back to the condition of the caravan park. This is one badly maintained park. Half of the driveway were flooded. No proper lawn area to pitch a tent. The small patch of lawn where I pitched my tent was full of snails, risking punctures on my tent floor with their broken shells. Other areas were all gravels or mud. The men’s toilet was not working so men will need to use the ladies, which wasn’t sign-posted to indicate unisex. The basin was half-sized, impossible to wash my face. Overall, it was a really bad day for me.

The prices of food and beverages started going up in Nundroo too. Brilliant. I decided to buy water instead of filing up from the toilet as they tasted like seawater, yuck! My dinner tonight was butter chicken (canned of course) with bread, doesn’t taste bad at all although I wish the chicken pieces were more than a spoonful. Flapping tent tonight, and an injured foot. Yay.