Cycling Adventurer: Bicycle Touring - Perth-Adelaide 1997: Day 6

The Cycling Adventurer
Perth-Adelaide 1997	Day 6

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The road goes down but I miss seeing it

Sunday 21 September 1997
Ongerup to Ravensthorpe
Day distance: 158.36km
Journey distance: 619.07km

Ouch! This day hurt towards the end, despite a record distance as close as damn it to an imperial century. I did bring the pain on myself by leaving at 9.15am from Ongerup.

Original: © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 1997

I made the 40km to the Jerramgerup turn-off in reasonable time, but like Ongerup, the town was off the main highway, so I kept going.

After a great run downhill, I was confronted by the toughest climb I have encountered so far on the trip. I don't know how long the climb was, but it went straight up from a bridge across the Gairdner River, and just seemed to keep going forever. When I arrived at the top, rain was falling in the next valley, so I stopped and put on wet-weather gear.

The rain, however, did not find me; just some drizzle that would have hardly bothered me without wet-weather gear. There was some brightness on the horizon, and I started a straight stretch that just kept on going and going, In the end, it was 27km until a left turn in the road. It was flat, too, and that gave me heart that the drag to Ravensthorpe was not going to be too bad.

In this part of the country, roads are laid out in straight lines, following the property boundaries. Terrain does play a role... the roads go straight up and over hills without a deviation. The climbs today didn't have long runs down the other side, either. The nature of the country also changed rapidly today, with a return to what appears to be Mallee country. In fact, Ian Bartlett, at the Ongerup Caravan Park, talked about building a mallee mound as one of the attractions of the park.

The hills are long and lonely, and the highway rarely passes through towns or settlements. There are a few farms off the road, and I thought about the special sort of people who live out in this wilderness year after year and survive with a sense of humour and good grace.

I did have some company along the way today. Magpies. They were very active along the sides of the road, almost as though there was a finely tuned network that let the birds ahead know that I was on my way through. Other wildlife also became prevalent. The first pair of several lots of kangaroos crossed the road in front of me, then bounded up the fence line before turning into the paddock. Later, a murder of crows circled over what I presumed to be a carcase about 300 metres into the bush.

I was about 25km from Ravensthorpe when daylight disappeared. Of course, this ride has taken me southward, and the twilight has been longer than in Perth. My eyes therefore had plenty of time to adjust to the increasing darkness. I did not have to turn on my headlight until it was really dark. The rear red light, naturally, went on much earlier.

One advantage of travelling this highway in darkness was that with the long straights, I could see vehicle lights from behind very early, and pull over to the side of the road well in advance of the passing manouevre. However, I was badly dazzled by the high-beam lights of cars coming towards me; I suppose my relatively weak headlight was not strong enough to have alerted the drivers, and they kept their own lights on high beam. After the first car went past me in the opposite direction and blinded me, I decided to pull over for all other oncoming traffic. Fortunately, only about 20 cars went past from there to Ravensthorpe, so my journey was not unduly impeded.

The thing that disappointed me most was that after riding along for 450km in elevated country, I did not have the pleasure of seeing the downhill when it came. But I sure did enjoy the feel of the long run down to the Phillips River valley. It seemed to go on forever, and the speed... well, I can only guess at 50km/h. I squeezed the brake levers just a little to wash off the top-end speed. I ran out of enough light to pick up the broken white lines in the middle of the road. Luckily, the road went straight down all the way to the bridge without any bends.

My eyes were as wide as dinner plates as I sought out shapes on the road, and the cool night air rushed past my cheeks to help counter the adrenalin's effect. About half way down, two thoughts struck me. The first was the possibility that I could slam into a kangaroo or wombat in the middle of the road, or maybe a rogue pothole, even though the roads in this part of the country have very good surfaces. The other worry was that if a three or four kilometre descent was on this side of a river valley, what was on the other side? I started to feel exhausted at this stage, and I do not think I could have faced the prospect of another extended climb. Yes, there was a climb after the crossing, but it was only about 800 metres. There were still a few more ascents to come, as well.

My light was neither strong enough nor wide enough to pick up the roadside markers showing the distances to Ravensthorpe every 5km. I must have missed one on the descent, and I started to become concerned 15km out of Ravensthorpe that I might have missed a turn-off. At one stage, I passed a sign that I vaguely picked up in my headlight beam, stopped and went back to see what it said. I thought when I passed it, the letters said "RA 10", but when I looked closely by taking the headlight off the bike and iluminating the sign, it simply said "P"... for parking bay. The mind can play funny tricks.

I looked around for any visible indication that the town was at least close by, but there was nothing. At one stage, I thought I could pick out the lume of the town, but the twists and turns in the road meant I lost it again. I arrived in town at 8.30pm, exhausted but elated at having come so far in one day.

The service station on the outskirts of the town was closing, so I bought two very ripe bananas and called my father. He was one of the reasons I pressed on, so he did not worry if I did not make the pre-arranged call on time. Without that arrangement, I might have stopped much earlier and camped out for the night. We now have an understanding that I have 24 hours grace on making pre-arranged calls in case any unforeseen but innocent circumstances arise.

I was so tired that I told the operator what I thought was my parents' number, but substituted a 2 instead of a 1 at the end. The number did not answer, which had me pondering why because I knew my parents were at home. The only way I could remember it properly was to dial it on the keypad of the phone while the handpiece was still on the hook! At least the no-answer on the first number saved me some embarrassment and money.

The sky was clear when I arrived in Ravensthorpe, but without a moon, it was very dark. At the town's caravan park, two dogs started barking next to the owner's house. The owner came out and I asked seriously if this was the reception. He replied: "You've just got it". It went straight over because my tiredness had dulled my sense of humour. He explained about the reception from the dogs. The red one barked at anything, and the black only barked at humans; when both barked, he knew someone was outside.

The tent was no problem to pitch except for finding the hip-hole. My backside is very saddle sore, so it will appreciate the rest. The tops of my knees again are the sorest parts of my legs. I'm finding that late in the day, I stop, have some water and/or food, then walk the bike for up to five minutes. Walking seems to use different muscles, and I am revitalised when I get back on the bike.

I will walk up the hill into Ravensthorpe tomorrow to a bakery, and to see if I can get a new spare canister for the Primus. I want to see if walking can ease the lower thigh soreness. I will also do some laundry, and because there is a free drier here, I will make sure all my clothing is dry before setting off on Tuesday. Condensation is a problem in the tent because it has been cold outside at night.

I've decided to take another two days off in Esperance. I figure that once I leave Esperance, I will probably ride across the Eyre Highway from Norseman to Port Augusta without a break, and Esperance will be the last place where I can take it easy for a while.

I have passed huge paddocks of yellow carpet since before Narrogin, and I stopped for some photographs along the way. I took a while to identify what the crop was. At first I thought it was mustard, but I have found out since that it is canola, and it supplies the margarine manufacturers in Australia. One unusual sight yesterday was an expansive swatch of yellow right in the middle of the mallee scrub, although I must be near the edge of this sort of cropping land because the canola is not so frequent.

Canola crops
Vast yellow fields of canola have been a feature of riding through the southern region, although the
extent of the fields was beginning to dwindle.

I also see that on Tuesday I might have problems with roadtrains for the first time. The air wash they create as they go past is considerable, and today almost brought me to a standstill several times. It's marvellous... with the technology that abounds in the vehicle industry, many truck manufacturers still build inefficient shapes. It is evident that the trucks and prime-movers waste substantial fuel just pushing aside the wind. There is a roadtrain staging point adjacent to the roadhouse at the entrance of the caravan park, and that has been a clue as to what to expect on the way to Esperance.

The night ride was awesome, especially because much of it was downhill at an estimated average of 35 to 40km/h. I tried to keep the bike towards the centre of the road, and my eyes as far as possible ahead on the white lines. The continuous lines, of course, were fine, but I had to have my wits about me with the single broken lines because they seemed so far apart. The wind also dropped right away, and the cool night air on my cheeks seemed to have a different feel about it.

Another perspective to night riding with a weak headlight is not quite knowing what is 100 metres or so in front. I couldn't see where the road started to climb, and the only clue came through the increased pressure on the pedals. Kangaroos were about only my only major concern, but I had noted not many were around at dusk, and the roadkill was substantially lower than earlier in the trip.

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