Day 10 Nanutarra to Giralia Station 157 kms

I was on the bike again this morning after offering to stay & assist the crew with the packing of the car & trailer but Gayle rose late & jokingly called Collis ”Darling” so I said “Love & Darling” could do it by themselves & off I took. The first 10 kms were “uphill” or so I thought, so I was a bit tired after just 10 but I kept peddling for another 10 kms before Anna arrived and provided encouragement. Then 5 kms later Norm came along & said I had to do 37 kms to improve my mileage- I became a little deflated as that meant I still had a little over 12 kms to do. Anyway I got back on the bike, sore tail & all, and started riding again until I came across a “real” hill which I managed to ride half the way up then sheepishly climbed off to walk the rest of the way. Guess who, of all people, came along just at that moment- Mark, who offered to ride the bike up for me but I declined stating my legs needed the exercise. I ended up doing 32 kms before Collis arrived to save the day.

Toilet stop??

Fun on the sand dunes that stayed with us most of the day.

When the 2 so-called crew arrived to pick me up I was informed of their gross water wasting episode back at Nanutarra. Because of the water shortage the roadhouse kept removing the top of the tap near the camping area & if you wanted water you had to ask for the top at the roadhouse- which they had done to fill the water containers.Gayle tried to remove the top but couldn't, so she asked Collis to remove the "tap".  . He took her literally because he removed the top, no troubles. He removed the tap and they ended up with a water geyser that was shooting across the camping area. Collis couldn't stop laughing & Gayle was scared they were going to get caught.

Water on the road- not sure where this has come from but it was cooling.

The real riders were enjoying the ride until a little headwind when they turned into the road towards Coral Bay. A guy met the riders at the lunch break and provided the organiser (Collis) a t-shirt advertising his volunteer work travelling around Australia raising money for some sort of boulders to be collected for, I think, to be placed outside Parliament House.

Grasshoppers are EVERYWHERE. We think they are very big locusts but Rob, the country boy, states they are grasshoppers. The crew are sitting happily in the car wondering how the riders may be affected as they will fly into the car if the windows are open. They don’t seem to annoy them at all which is good. The grasshoppers are apparently having fun trying to jump through their spokes as they ride past- not into their mouth!

The scenery keeps changing (subtlety) each day, for a while we had an impressive range of “mountains” following us (these were my hills), then we had huge sandhills of the an amazing ochre colour (more hills), then flat, flat land with nothing in sight except scrub. The termite mounds are providing the crew with some entertainment with trying to see different shapes from most of them-we have buddas, old men, mother & child and some rude looking ones. We were all hoping to see some water today but it didn’t quite happen- still a little too far away-maybe tomorrow.

The riders had to ride on a dirt driveway into the property & Jerry came off his bike & broke his mirror- he is no longer legal for riding with Cycle Across Oz without his mirror- I’m sure he will improvise. The Giralia Station was very accommodating with cold beers & soft drinks for sale on the verandah of the homestead. A number of the riders upgraded into the dongers with air conditioning until 10 pm then the night breeze. 

Collis learning new skills

 Woody loves a donger!

Rob always made sure we had enough water!

I cooked a Japanese vegetable curry, with Carmen & Gayle assisting with the peeling of the vegetables, which filled the whole huge dutch oven but once again there were no leftovers for those wanting seconds but hopefully everyone got just enough. We had plenty of rice so they had the chance to fill up on that if needed. Great camp kitchen so no camp fire tonight but some of the boys sat around the table chatting for quite awhile, which was nice to see. Grasshoppers were constantly trying to join the dinner until a clever dick thought to shut the kitchen doors.