Day 11 Giralia to Coral Bay 110 kms (Into the wind)

The riders were asked to wait until the sun came up before they hit the road today. As soon as the sun peeked it’s head up they were on the road - as pointed out by one of the late starters, they actually started 2 minutes earlier than the day before. Like I said no sleep in on this trip!!!

Packing up in the morning!!

The ride was lovely to commence with apparently but as soon as they hit some T intersection they had a full-on headwind. This made the short day into a medium long day & some unhappy riders. Even Jacqui (the most positive rider) was whinging today but soon got over it.

The front runners.

 Not even any shade today!!

They were all so excited to see this sign until the wind turned on them.

The late runners.

Everyone was so happy to arrive at the beautiful seaside spot of Coral Bay by about 3pm. We are staying at a very expensive backpackers but this doesn’t affect the riders unless they wanted to upgrade. We have 2 x 10 bed dorms & a 4 bed dorm. Collis & I decided to take a 2 bed room for a little alone time. The bedrooms are very basic but there is a swimming pool, pool tables and a bar (with happy hour that goes on for 4 hours).

Some of us went snorkelling straight away & am looking forward to tomorrows full day of water activities. 5 of the riders have booked into a “Swimming with the whale sharks”, 2 have booked into a Kayak to the turtles tour, 2 into a glass bottom boat ride and the rest are just snorkelling and catching up on some well earned rest. Coral Bay shops are over the top expensive but the meal prices aren’t too bad at some café’s.
Jacqui, Tina, Melanie, Gayle & I went to the Pizza place for dinner and had a great time relaxing and getting to know some of the riders just that little bit more over a very nice dinner. I had seafood gnocchi followed by an Apple Gelati- very nice!!!. Gayle had some crocodile with a mustard sauce which she thoroughly enjoyed as well. I felt terrible when half way through the meal the girls remembered that Peter was going to join us but he disappeared just before we left & they thought he would follow us. He appeared a bit upset when we got back but he had eaten at one of the other cafes and said that he wasn’t planning on eating at the pizza place anyway.