Saturday 28th June Best Ride day for almost any bike trip I have ever done! We left early 7.30am and by mid-morning had ridden 40kms, by luch 65kms and by camp 85kms. We have done about 20kms on dirt. Its good dirt, we are all slow on hte diret, me a little slower on account of the skinny front tyre. I need to change the wheel rm from 16 1 3/8 to the larger 16" so I can fit a fat tyre.
The road (sealed and dirt) was flat or downhill rolling with Boabs, Wattle busting full of yellow flower, hanging from green dusty limbs,blossum shaded by broad pale green leves and glimpes of a red Grivilla called Wickpin (I think). Its the light of the Kimberley that makes this place so special. Its there in the early morning and returns in the arvo a hue of dust hangs in the air that is so sharp you think the air is clear and long shadows fall against the red rock, sand and spear grass. At times, hidden in the spear grass you come upon a Braham (Bull) standing in the shade of gum, with their distintive, floppy ears and lump behind their head.. Sometimes our bikes scare the 'mob' and they race in front of the bikes, across our path churing up dust and stone.
On this day we camped early at 3pm, napped, rested and drank tea. That night, from the limited light of the new moon, I was able to show Uwe & Briget 'old man emu' in the sky. We also have discovered we misculated how much food we needed by one day... Its going to be thin pickings as we roll in to Fitzroy!
29th June Sunday 70kms all on dirt. The last 20kms the worse I've ever done, was into Windjana Gorge. We had a few surprises today. The first was the sign saying there was a shop at the turn-off to Windjana. We stopped for cold drink or two and a Aussie pie & sause. The second surprise was the cold showers at Windjana! Wonderful, almost better than the the Gorge (just kidding). As we set up camp we ran into Billy again - who again supplied Uwe with two bottles of soda water! The ranger told us the road is worse heading south - sand and corrorgations! Wonderful!
30th June Monday
We left at 7.30am and was sent on our way to Tunnel Creek by a few campers taking photos. And yes the road was hard... or more to the point sand and corrogations. The sand was tricky for all of us, but mostly me again due to the skinny front wheel. We had wonderful support from many of the car drivers, including a car stopping to give us 3 bottles of 600mls of ice cold water. It was only 36kms to Tunnel Creek and it took most of the morning. We arrived before the tour busses :) and we had a wonderful cool and wet (by choice) walk through the creek. The best part was arriving athte end and everyone, about 6 people just sitting, not talking watching the butterfly's, light and feeling the cool air on our skin for about 30 minutes. very nice. We walked back and had our picnic lunch by the shade of a bus... limited trees. We ran into Stu again, who told us the road gets better south and also a good place for water and to camp.
We hit the dusty road again at 2.30pm after re-filling with cold water from a tour bus (told tell APT but we 'stole' it with the help of one of their passengers). This day we managed to ride a total of 55kms and I think had one of the best camp spots. In fading afternoon light the hills & rocks come alive with red & brown colour, with the white bark gums rising above the spinerfix and spear grass plane and the sky is a mix of pink, blue and red. New moon stunning against the dark blue night sky. No camp fire tonight, no need, watching the stars was just to special.
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