Day 111, Saturday, 18 July 2009

Distance travelled – 125.3 km
Avg speed – 22.5 kph
Max speed – 30.8 kph

Barkly Homestead Roadhouse to Bush Camp

As we packed this morning we discovered the tyre of Denise’s trailer was flat. We pulled the tyre off and replaced the tube. Later we would check the tube and could not find a puncture, we suspect it was a loose valve. We have been using two types of tubes on our bikes and trailers - both use presta valves. One of the tube types has removable valves the other does not. We have had a couple of flat or low-pressure tyres on the trip and all have been with tubes with the removable valves, as they seem to loosen up over time. We are not sure how to prevent this so we probably will replace all our tubes with the non-removable valve types. So “touch wood” to date we still have not had a puncture.

Yuki joined us for the ride from Barkly Homestead this morning and stayed with us to just after 12 when he wanted lunch, we on the other hand wanted to do another 20 km before we stopped. With his limited English and our non-existent Japanese we said our farewells but both knowing we were likely to pass each other again soon.

Our next civilised stop after Barkly Homestead was 190km away at Threeways Roadhouse on the Stuart Highway, or possibly Tennant Creek another 25km south, but we had not yet made up our minds. However, tonight we were looking for a bush campsite just over the half way point. 

So far on this trip we have been lucky and have not been bothered by the good old Ozzie fly that sticks to you like glue and does that slow crawl up your face before finding your eye or nose to do a nice little spin. Well as you guessed today they started to make their presence known not badly but enough to make us comment about their existence. On the other hand the birds of prey – kites and Wedged Tailed Eagles – disappeared altogether. The country seemed to be much the same as what we had been travelling through, with a plentiful supply of road kill, for the last couple of days but we saw none. I wonder why? 

We were making good time today and by the time we stopped for lunch at 12.45 we had completed 70km, so we decided to keep riding until at least 4.00pm before we would start looking for a campsite. This brought us to the 41 Mile Bore Rest Area which is a large dusty ‘carpark’ used by caravans to stop for the night. Not our idea of a good place to stay, so we rode on. We finally decided to make camp 65 km from Threeways but not before discussing the option of riding all the way to Threeways. The traffic on the road was very light and I felt we could probably make it with about an hour of night riding which we felt would be safe to undertake. Denise was getting hungry so not wanting to risk a crotchety hungry companion for the next 65km I decided it was prudent to make camp for the night. However, it was nice to feel capable of being able to ride the entire 190 km in a single day – we must be getting fitter!

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

 

Not sure what the logic is behind these 'pretend' grids - just lines painted on the road. We are seeing more of these as we head west. There is still a "Grid" warning sign as you approach but we are not sure how effective they are at keeping the stock in or out. Surely cattle are not that daft!

'Pretend' grid

Bark texture

Bush Camp 090718

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