Quorn to Hawker 112km
Ok ok freely admit we did not do 112km today... We took the detour and only did 93.97km....
Yes I can hear you all now... "What slack bums they are"
If you saw the mud (MUD) we had to ride through you would know why we took the short cut up the highway rather than more dirt (mud) this afternoon.
The morning started off with a little tour of Quorn in the van as it picked us and bags up from the hotel we got put in last night. Overnight there was a lot more rain, it woke me at one stage. When we got back to the camp site it was still drizzle rain. And this did not stop until after morning tea.
We had an extended stop at morning tea for mum to have a new brake cable fitted... (Kinda need these to be working for some of the down hills she thought!) So after our vegemite sangers (not fruit cake) we headed off in the drizzle again. Not too far down the road a little bit of sunshine poked through... Just a little, then it was gone.... But then not too far it popped out again and it started to clear. It's amazing what a little bit of sunshine did to brighten our moods again.
The road today was (well should have been) reasonable smooth.... Yep it was... Apart from the mud... The mud was all before morning tea, there was portions after morning tea but the bad stuff was early in the day, which made it a hard day.
Somewhere between morning tea and lunch there was a point we stopped for a few nuts and I heard opera... Thinking I must be dreaming, I waited for mum to catch up who was riding with her other new best friend Fiona. Fiona said it was the wind and she had heard it before... I'm like it sound like opera to me, mum agreed. As we rode closer it go louder and as we turn and head up a steady hill there is a van parked with two massive speakers blasting out opera. (Mums asleep and I can't check but she knows who it was) this was a nice little addition to the day.
The lunch stop seemed to be forever away, 64km from the start so poor mum and I are starving (as Ben would say... sstttaaaavvvvviiinnnnggggg) by the time we get there. Then we took the highway into Hawker.
After the drama of last night we are in a little cabin tonight, so we will be dry in the morning. No one really seems to know what the weather is doing - even tho we get a weather report every night with dinner and the dragging on that is all the dinner talk.
Last night at the ride briefing we got told by the guy who is paid by the SA government to surveyt the Mawson track, that he had not even been on part of the Mawson track that we should have rode today. (This was the bit we missed after lunch) And tonight that he did not know about the state of the road today as he did not know the council had been out and graded the road which meant the 15mm of rain made it boggy! You would kind of think that someone would go out and look at the road the day before so they knew the condition of it before sending 125+ riders down it. Even with the amount of rain, they would have had an idea.
Tonight we have been told the ride won't open before 7.30am tomorrow so they can go and have a look at the road... Mind you the road is never open before 7.30am just some riders are far too keen and head out early. (Each to their own)!
Anyway we carry on with just two more days of riding. Two 90+km days.
Stay tuned for more tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment