Day 115, Wednesday, 22 July 2009

Distance travelled – 78.7 km
Avg speed – 18.7 kph
Max speed – 41.4 kph

Threeways Roadhouse to Banka Banka

We rode out of the caravan park turned north and rode directly into a headwind. After a few kilometres we decided that we would break today’s ride down into 3 x 25 km legs. We then broke each of these legs down into 5 km segments and took it in turn to lead allowing the other to ‘draft’ behind the leader and take a rest. When you are riding directly into the wind you get constant wind noise in both ears and it can become very irritating. It is rather amazing how much relief you can get by hiding in the wind shadow of the person in front.

Our second leg got us to the Attack Creek Rest Area. It was empty when we arrived and we settled down to a nice quiet relaxing lunch in the shade of one of the picnic shelters. We usually take about an hour for lunch and like to sit or lay down in the shade and have a good rest. Sometimes there is little talk with both of us just enjoying each other’s company and the scenery around us.

Just as we were tucking into our sandwiches 3 caravans and a car pulled into the rest area with 8 grey nomads. The couple in the car got their picnic hamper out of the back whilst the other 6 disappeared into their caravans. The couple from the car came over and sat down at the table beside us. – “Where you from?”, “How far do you ride a day?” “How many punctures have you had?” and they kept going through the standard questions we seem to get asked 1000 times each day. Then one by one each of the other six appeared from their vans and came over and without asking invited themselves to our table and started asking the same questions. As we finished answering one person’s questions another would appear and start the question cycle all over again. It was beginning to drive us mad and we were getting hungrier not being able to eat as we answered their questions. Then one asks – “What does riding a bike do for your sex life?” By now we had had enough and I replied “Sorry I do not know as Denise is my business partner” which seemed to shut them up. We left shortly afterwards perhaps having our shortest lunchbreak ever. Attack Creek – an aptly named rest stop.

Banka Banka is a very nice stop over point in the grounds of one of the properties owned by the Kidman Company of cattle stations. After our experience at lunchtime today we were pleased to be given a site in the shade of a big tree next to the homestead  - away from all the caravans. There was a lone motorcycle rider with his tent already set up in the same area. His name was Burke and he was riding from Victoria up the centre and then back down the east coast. After introductions we set to putting up our tent and managing our exploding bags that seem to always spread their contents over a large area, leading to comments from other campers that they are amazed at how we fit it all on our bikes.  I discovered a bag of scroggin – this is a mix of nuts, chocolate, jelly snakes and lollies and dried fruit that we mix up ourselves. We emptied it into a bowl and sat on our stools with the bowl between us and demolished it in less than 5 minutes. Burke made a comment as he passed that “It looked like we were in heaven”.

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

 

View from the Stuart Highway

View from the Stuart Highway

Our camp at Banka Banka Station

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