Day 183, Monday, 28 September, 2009

Distance travelled – 97.5 km
Avg speed –  18.2 kph
Max speed – 32.3 kph

Billabong Roadhouse to Bush Camp

We packed our bikes and went for breakfast at the roadhouse. Rhys and Karyn came over to say goodbye and the roadhouse took our photos for their wall of fame. Inside the restaurant the wall is covered with photos of people from all over Australia and the world. We signed the photo of the two of us standing in front of our bikes and added our web address with “Canberra to Canberra anticlockwise”.

We left at 8.30 but unlike yesterday the wind had swung around and was now coming from our front right. But even with this wind we suspect our moral boosting pep talks yesterday helped us manage a surprising 97km before we found a nice camp spot well away from the road amongst the wildflowers.

The country south of Billabong was not as harsh as what we have been travelling through for the last number of weeks. Initially there were red sand hills and then yellow before reverting to the red sand again. The red sand seemed to have a greater diversity of plants than the yellow sand country. As we rode south the flowers began to increase with some sections of road being very perfumery. We felt we should stop and take photos but realised we would not get anywhere if we stopped too long.

At the 200 Mile Tank rest area we met up with the two German tourists we had first met at the Roebourne Caravan Park. They asked us all sorts of things Australian that night and of course about spiders and snakes. We had asked if they had seen the Sturt Desert Pea, which was growing along the roadside between whim Creek and Roebourne. They had not heard of it before so we showed them some photos so they could keep an eye out for it the next day. At the tank today they were pleased to report that they had found the Sturt Desert Pea and a Red Back Spider …. on a toilet seat. So it is not an urban myth about the red back on the toilet seat.

As we went to bed this evening to started to rain.

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

 

Today we saw trees again!

'Light reflecting in half buried bottle'

Crossing the 'State Barrier Fence'

I thought this looked good!

200 mile tank - front view

200 mile tank - side view

Bush Camp 090928 - before the tent went up

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