I am as surprised as anyone at the distance I covered yesterday; I saw the challenge and met it. In fact, a few challenges were achieved. Making the distance, not letting the hills get to me totally, and coping with the dark. Overall, I think it was a satisfactory day's work, even if I have to take today off to recover!

I spent most of yesterday afternoon riding in my track pants and windcheater. The head and side winds were strong, and slowed my progress, but the major discomfort came from being cold. I put on the extra clothing before the rain near Jerramgerup, and kept it on. The track pants helped to keep my legs from packing up, and I may look at getting a pair of tights. I probably should have brought one pair of bike shorts and one pair of long bike pants instead of two pairs of shorts. I really had not expected the air to be so cold in Western Australia. I am interested to see what it is like from Norseman eastward, at latitudes similar to the one for Perth.

I spent this afternoon doing "housework". I slept on for about three hours this morning, and got up at 1.00pm so I could walk up the hill to the supermarket and bakery. Thank goodness the hill was on the way down to the caravan park last night. It's as steep as the one in Narrogin and would have been a killer if I had had to pedal up it.

The "housework" involved washing socks, top and shorts. So I am okay as far as clean clothes are concerned. I have taken advantage of the fine weather this afternoon to dry the dew out of everything. I might at least be able to get the towel dry. Having two showers a day doesn't give it much chance to dry off, and stop it smelling. The clothes drier is connected to a timer that takes $1 coins, but invariably I seem to end up with every other sort of change except dollar coins. The same power point also runs the washing machine, but I don't mind doing my washing by hand using a bar of Sard Wonder Soap.

The weather looked threatening a while ago, but the cloud has held off, and the sun is strong and warm. There is a gentle breeze, and if I had been on the way to Munglinup today, it would have been a tailwind, so I'm hoping that it will keep up tomorrow.

I am thinking of building a fire tonight near the tent, just a small one so I can sit outside by torchlight. But if the dew is as bad as last night, it might become uncomfortable fairly quickly. I have already collected a small amount of wood, so I will wait to see how things go.

I have started to move more freely as my leg muscles lose their soreness. I have done a several stretching exercises and will do a few more in the shower tonight. The walk up to town has helped a little. The distance reading for today is zero, and the bike has stayed under the tree where I left it last night as I pitched camp.

The mosquitoes continue to be a nuisance while outside. The caravan park has a small dam about 30 metres from my tent site, and it's obviously a breeding area. The Rid remains an important part of my toiletries bag. Fortunately, the screen on the tent has remained impervious to the mossies. But while the tent seals up well at night to keep rain and mosquitoes at bay, the air circulation is not brilliant inside and that may be why I wake up in the mornings with a stuffy head. I cannot do much about it other than leave the entrance flap open and the screen closed, but I think then it would become too cold inside.

The scent of the wattle is in full bloom, and after yesterday the sweetness has left a lasting impression on me. The wattle, wildflowers and canola may account for me still having a runny nose and ticklish throat, although my throat is not sore. I will consider taking a pseudoephedrine tablet from my first-aid kit tomorrow if the irritation persists. Judging from the hills heading out of Ravensthorpe, I might need the added stimulus. It's as well there is no drug testing on this trip!

The trip to Munglinp tomorrow is about 85km, then there is another 100km to Esperance, and that breaks the trip into two manageable days. I picked up a pamphlet in Ravensthorpe for Singing Winds, a farm with bed-and-breakfast accommodation "for long-distance cyclists". I may call tomorrow morning about the tariff.

My body still seems to be replenishing fluids today, even though I had no problem with my fluid supply yesterday, considering the length of the journey. But the temperature was not high enough to cause me to sweat excessively. I now have the capacity of about 4.5 litres, which should get me through most days on the Eyre Highway.

This is the end of my first week on the road, and I can now look back as a review for future reference.

Firstly, I would make sure I was not so rushed in changing from one lifestyle (moving my possessions into storage and clearing out the flat) to getting on the road. I also would try to ensure that my bio-clock was changed so I was up and about by 6.30am each day, instead of 8.00am to 9.00am; as it is at the moment, I don't get on the road early enough to take full advantage of daylight. The ideal would be to stay at a friend's place for about a week before starting the trip,

I will not admit to being under-prepared, though. In a way, I was over-prepared because I sent to my parents almost 5kg of gear I considered very quickly as unnecessary. There is probably some other gear that I don't need, but I feel comfortable with it on the bike, and I don't want for anything, including food and drink.

I was pressed for time in departing Perth, primarily to ensure I still had cash reserves to see me through to the end. The start also was marked by my bout of the flu. I did not ride for a week before leaving, and the illness might have accounted for my difficulties getting up past Roleystone in the hills, and my first-night restlessness. In those terms, I have done a lot of recovering on the fly.

Perth also is very deceptive for a cyclist preparing for a long tour. It has few hills in the metropolitan area, and those that do exist are not particularly steep, long or arduous. Getting into the second half of the week of this tour, I confronted climbs that were the equivalent to four or five of the steepest Perth hills repeated 10 and 20 times a day.

When I told my father I had done about 115km in one day, he was astonished and said I must be fit. I always seemed to have had an inherent base level of fitness which I have neglected to the point of having heart attack. The bike riding and limited amount of gymnasium work in the months before the journey improved my fitness level significantly, and in this first week it has gone up another level.

My main concern centres on the muscles in my thighs just above my knees, and to a lesser degree my back muscles that are susceptible to spasms. Sleeping on hard surfaces may be good for my back, but I do run the risk of being temporarily paralysed while my back gets used to it.

My left arm and hand continue to be of concern. My "flip-flop" accident just before leaving Perth caused my gym work to be aborted because I could not lift my left arm through the horizontal plane without discomfort. The constant resting on the heel of the hand's palm has aggravated the numbness in both fingers that I gashed in the refrigerator attack. The gashes still have not heeled up completely, probably because of the Aspirin I take each day.

My backside, I think, is starting to get used to the prolonged time in the saddle. It does feels all right at the moment, and considering how it felt getting into Ongerup, I have to consider myself pretty lucky to be this good after yesterday's ride. I am still not sure about the saddle position. An unusual side-effect of the change was an irritation to my left testicle, and it forced me to stop twice. The bike shorts do not have any support in them, but I am still reluctant to put on any underwear. I am now thinking of moving the seat up yet another centimetre. That would take the total adjustment upwards since buying the bike to around 8cm. It would allow better leg extension and it's worth experimenting with.

I have used my years in scout camping and other forms of sleeping out at night to become quite efficient at pitching and breaking camp. The tent is probably one size too big, but I can spread out inside with all my gear secure. I could even fit in another person! The weight penalty for going one size up has been worthwhile in my view. Ventilation is a problem, but I have virtually solved the hip-hole difficulties. I have just moved the tent forward about 15cm to put the hip-hole in a better position. About the only other irritation with the tent is the sand and leaves that are tracked in and litter the floor.

The inevitable question is: "What do you think about when you are riding?" Before leaving Perth, I stayed one night in Perth with my friends Chris and Charles Knight. Chris said I should have a micro-recorder to tape my thoughts as I travelled along. I jokingly said it would probably contain all sorts of expletives and abuse hurled at roadtrain and other drivers, and it would not be much use for anything else. I still don't think it would be particularly useful because I am making the time to write this diary every day.

The traffic has been quite sparse, and only one or two roadtrains and trucks (but not buses) have caused me to utter the most expletives so far. Generally, though, the expletives have been reserved more for the next climb after cresting what I thought was the last hill. My bike computer has been my best companion, enabling me to keep my mind working out how far to go to the next town or overnight stop, and the average speed since starting the day.

I think a lot about what my life has been and where I might be heading. I some ways, I have not stuck at things as well as I might have. I have tended to give up rather than fight back or ride out the hard bits, or having won a battle and achieved a challenge, have moved on because another perhaps more interesting challenge has presented itself. My marriage and relationships since have been like that, and certainly my professional life has been. I felt quite comfortable at The West Australian, but I still am learning to be more discreet in what I say about others. Still, the opportunities might be better in the east. I hope so, because it's one of the reasons I started this trip.

The journey would probably be easier with another person of the same fitness level. It would help to take turns at slipstreaming and the loads on each bike would be less than for a lone cyclist. A tent and set of cooking equipment would be shared between two. The company also would be nice, but depending on how long each can stand the other's company under conditions that at times can be stressful. With unlimited time and resources such as money, it would be possible to go off the main road to see places like Hopetoun 50km south of Ravensthorpe, and to explore the national parks.

There also would be a higher level of discipline travelling with another person. I think I am doing okay by myself on this trip, except for the late starts each morning.

The other things about which I think while riding are quite mundane, such as when the next stop should be, when and what to eat or drink, judging the vehicular activity I can see in my rear vision mirror, wondering if the crest in front of me will turn into a downhill or not, how I would love to set up a bike tourism business in Tasmania, and various details to write in this journal at the end of the day.

Yesterday, I bought five energy bars for $8 to have every hour. Of course, I ran out half way through the day, so I mixed glucose powder with water and ate my reserve of sultanas.

It's funny how the least signficant things can provide the most pleasure or satisfaction on an adventure like this. My rear vision mirror, a Cateye that cost only $20, has been incredibly important in checking what vehicles are about to pass. When planning the trip, I looked for some light source that would give more than just a direct beam, and I was on a budget. I had been interested in diode bulb toches and others with a fluorescent tube, but I could not really locate something that was suitable. Then I came across an Eveready Scout torch at Kmart that had a clear perspex extension enabling it to be changed from a fixed-beam to a flood of light. It runs on AA batteries, and is quite compact and light. I have just bought some stand-by batteries, although I should really get a spare globe too. I have two other light sources that can serve at a pinch, the bike's headlight, and a candle. The headlight did magnificent duty last night. The music from a radio in a rented caravan reminds me that I need to invest in a radio in Esperance to help to take the edge off the solitude.

The love affair between retired or semi-retired Australians and their caravans continues to amaze me. One of my partners bought a second-hand 15-foot poptop caravan when she had a financial windfall, and her fingers were terribly burned when she lost almost half its value when it was resold after we travelled from Hobart to Far North Queensland. We would have have been better just travelling by car and staying in motels along the way. The cost would have been less. I found the "mystique" of that journey was overstated. After the caravan was sold, I told myself "never again". Cycling may be physically tougher and slower, but there is, I have found, something that verges on the antisocial about caravanning.

I have stayed in caravan parks for five of the past seven nights, and there seems to be almost no social interaction between residents. People who yearn for the wide open spaces while living in high-density suburbs in cities around Australia, spend their nights engaged in the minutae of domestic life on a stage for everyone else to observe. They park only metres apart from one another, hear almost every conversation, argument, slam of a door, and footstep, smell everyone else's cooking, and observe the routine of setting up and taking down. And they pack their caravans with everything to make them one-room homes away from home. The equipment list inevitably includes, of course, a TV .

Some have two or three mountain bikes that I just know are used maybe once or twice a year. On the roof is an air conditioning unit, and inside the odd microwave oven to complement the gas cooker. The vans are pulled by big vehicle ranging from common or garden variety sedans through to oversized four-wheel-drives. All slurp their way through huge volumes of fuel.

Admittedly, the design of caravans has improved markedly over the years. The poptop has improved aerodynamics, and lightweight materials should reduce the stress on vehicle transmissions, and improve fuel consumption. They should, but the lighter inherent weight is more than offset by the amount of excess equipment people try to stuff into their caravans. It is a tribute to the engineering standards of the modern caravan that it doesn't break under the loads!

Eye contact with caravan park residents is reluctant if at all, and the conversation may extend to a brief discourse on the weather. I have given up the campfire idea. No-one would likely be attracted to it because they are locked away in their tiny homes. I had more social interaction in the bar of the Club Hotel in Brookton compared with my other caravan park nights, with the possible exception of Ongerup.

I think campers fall into the lowest social caste. We pay half price or less for a site, we don't pay vehicle registration and fuel tax, and we give the impression of being poor. Well, maybe some of us are poor, but we are getting to see more of where we are going, and meet people in a more leisurely way. By the time the cost of the caravan, a good tow vehicle, equipment, extra fuel, and the tariff for each park is added together, let alone the emotional, physical and mechaniacal stress of towing something for thousands of kilometres in seemingly boring environments over occasionally rough road surfaces... caravanners would be better off staying in motels or cabins with self-contained facilities, and eat at roadhouses and restaurants.

One other thing about the caravan culture that reflects society's "out of sight, out of mind" mentality is sink water. It just seems to flow out on to the surface next to or under the caravan. If Australians thought a bit more about what they send down their plug holes at home and on the road, where it goes and the effect it has on the environment, we would all be better off. People who have lived with septic systems and rainwater tanks in country areas know only too well the attention they have to pay to waste disposal and water conservation.

I think caravanners should turn off their radios and televisions, leave their curtains open, get outside and be friendly with their neighbours. The subjects they can talk about are endless, and the information they can pass on about where they have been can be traded for information about what to expect along the road.

Finally, one of the things which really turns me off about caravanners is the smoker's cough that rasps its way through the morning and evening stillness. It's not unusual to see someone emerge from a caravan or campervan in the morning with an ashtray full of cigarette butts from the night before and dump it in a rubbish bin before setting off for the day.

Such is life... and possibly death.

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