Day 148, Monday, 24 August 2009

Distance travelled –  131.8 km
Avg speed –  20.6 kph
Max speed –  34.8 kph

Fitzroy Crossing to Bush Camp

We left Fitzroy Crossing at 7am and rode through some very open country to begin with. Luckily the day was not as hot as we experienced yesterday.

We stopped at Ellendale rest area for lunch. As we ate, “generator man” arrived, trailing an orange power cord behind his motorhome. He started up his generator to run his air conditioner to keep himself and wife cool while they were stopped for lunch, and to boil their jug. His wife only got out of the cabin to inspect the damage to the power cord. If the cord had not been damaged and dragging behind we suspect she would have stayed inside. We wondered if they had unplugged the cord before they left their previous night’s stay or just driven off without getting out of the van forgetting they were plugged into a power pole. We wonder why people come out to places like this when they can’t get away from their addiction with electricity!

Later in the afternoon we found a camp spot near a boab tree which had a nest high up in its branches. A kite seemed to keep looking into the nest as if it may have had a chick in there but we saw no evidence of young. We each had a refreshing wash in 1 litre of water while viewing the sun set behind the boab tree.

As night fell and we cooked dinner, we were bombarded by flying insects requiring us to take refuge in the tent to eat. As long as we had a light on insects hitting the outside of the tent made it sound like it was raining. With the insects making it very unpleasant to stay outside we headed for bed.

Zoom into the map and use the 'Satellite' layer to see our new location.

All the rooms at Tarunda are up on “tall legs” – I daresay because of the susceptibility of the area to floods. This meant that we had to carry our bikes and all our gear up and then down the stairs

Stray animals next 215km

2 fully laden bicycles

Texture of a termite mound

Morning Tea

View from the Great Northern Highway

The Great Northern Highway

Sunset from our bathroom

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