A collection of long distance ride reports by Melvyn Yap
Day 72: A Giant Skate Bowl
May 26th, 2011
Eucla to Madura
Distance: 190km
Total distance: 4092km
At the start of this tour, I was doubtful of making a 100km ride in a single day. I remembered how excited I was when I hit the three-digit for the first time. Things have changed now. For one, my legs are getting stronger. Second, the lack of hilly terrain in this part of the country made 100km a day relatively easy to achieve.
That brings to my target for today’s ride. I was aiming for a big 200km ride today. I almost made it, until I ran out of daylight. I can only ride at a certain speed so the only way of stretching the distance is by riding longer. With the approaching winter, the daylight gets shorter each day. Nonetheless, I’ll try this again when opportunity comes.
The riding condition today was perfect, a slight tailbreeze every now and then, almost completely flat road, and the sun was behind a strong overcast. At one time, while I was happily riding, and as usual, I waved and smiled to an oncoming campervan, the lady driver stopped, reversed her vehicle, and asked me this “Are you having fun?” with a puzzled look. She added that she thought she’s seeing an eagle on the road, lol! I can understand her comment, as there was a long stretch of mirage on that section, and I see hovering road trains all the time. Magical!
Besides that, nothing much happened throughout the day. I stopped for a break only once, which was lunch at Mundrabilla Roadhouse. Can’t afford anymore breaks as I was racing against the daylight. The best riding of the day was the first 2km, where I rode down at Eucla pass at a speed of 55km/h. The worse part was the final 1km, when I had to climb Madura pass. In between these two was all flat road. Think of a really really long skate bowl.
Nope, I didn't go there. It's the height, not the distance factor. I would have to ride all the way down about 100m along a dirt track and then ride back the same wayI'm about to drop 100m in 2km distance! XDDDDDDLet the fun begin! The only descend that stretches to more than 1km travelling west across the NullarborNo more wombats now 🙁At a glance, I thought I was seeing a five-coach road train!Somewhere along the bottom of the 'skate bowl', these 'themed' trees started appearing. This one's obviously a shoe treeA red plastic bags tree?Okay, this one really creeps me out. A tree full of naked baby dolls O_OA rubbish tree?Poor guy cleaning all the rubbish from the treesDefinitely a looooong day for the cleaning guyThe 5km green markers becomes 10km after entering WA, not a good thing for me as I rely these markers as my small targets throughout the day 🙁 Wedge-tailed eagle killed. Hope it was a quick and painless oneSolar panels in the middle of no where? What are these for? I've seen quite a few of these in WA alreadyThis doesn't make any sense. Why having a fence when there's no farmlands in the radius of 500km?A zebra crossing? That would have been epic! Sadly it's just an RFDS emergency landing stripYou can tell how serious WA is in keeping the environment clean with their big ass do not litter signMundrabilla roadhouse where I had my lunch. Not the prettiest roadhouseThis was new to me, WA actually have two time zones! Too confusing, am sticking to SA time until I get to the Perth time zoneMy mediocre burger lunch. But filled up my stomach good nonethelessGood to see I'm nearly halfway across the Nullarbor. All set to wheel down another 113km into Madura!See the wonders of hovering road trains!Another daunting signMoments of glory! Only 10km to go! But wait a minute...I must first overcome the other end of the skate bowl to get to my destination Madura! T_TLosing daylight here, but can't ride any faster eitherI made it! 190km, my longest day ride to date. Instant noodles to replenish the massive amount of energy loss todayAnd a canned potato and beef curryWashed it all down with 1.25 litres of coke. Yeah, that should take care of it, for now
