Day 120, Monday, 27 July 2009

Distance travelled – 94.2 km
Avg speed – 23.6 kph
Max speed – 34.5 kph

Daly Waters Pub to Larrimah

Nothing really stands out about today other than we found it a reasonably relaxing ride. Partly we suspect because we kept bumping into Peter and Barbara along the way and stopping. This meant a 60 minute morning tea break, we usually take 20 minutes and then a 90 minute lunch break, we usually take 60.

In the first instance we caught Peter and Barbara up as they sat on the side of the road making a coffee and then later they would come across us as we had lunch. In fact at lunch time it looked like they would both ride right past us, as they were so intent looking for a campsite on the left side of the road they nearly missed us on the right. Peter would later say they had noticed a fence on the right side of the road making it unsuitable for camping.

Our lunch spot was only 20km from Larrimah so Peter and Barbara decided to join us for the night in Larrimah rather than bush camping.  This would make today their longest day since their trip began. As we rode away from lunch Denise and I would wonder if we were a bad influence on them. Were we pushing them to do something they were not comfortable doing?

At the Larrimah Hotel we met a Japanese cyclist who we had heard about along the road. Dressed in all black he was known by the caravans as the Black Cyclist and had a reputation for asking for help along the way. When we arrived he had just finished swapping his tyres over and in very broken English asked if we had a spare tyre he could have. The tyre on the front of his bike was worn all the way around its circumference to the canvas. Our spare was the wrong size so we could not help. At the same time we also thought we should not need to help him believing he should not have ridden south of Katherine on such a tyre. We tried to suggest he should get a replacement before heading south but he disagreed. We saw him ride out of Larrimah the next morning and we would not be surprised to hear that someone has since rescued him somewhere between Larrimah and Tennant Creek.

We had a very enjoyable evening meal with Peter and Barbara, they with their meat pie and potato deb, us with our chunky stockpot soup and pasta.

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

Morning tea with Peter and Barbara

Peter

Barbara

Denise chatting at one of our stops

Unknown flower

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