Saturday 9th April, 2022

98.94km    +587m
Moving 4:59 Elapsed 6:48:08
Avg 19.9km/h max 48.6km/h

Another day. A pre-dawn start – about 5.30am – aiming to get to Kimba before it got too hot. I would be more enthusiastic about these early starts  (nice sunrises, less traffic, can see anything coming behind in the mirror for miles.. ) if I didn’t feel nauseous every single time until the sun comes up and I feel able to eat something.  😒.

A ‘Goyder’s Line monument about 30k from Wudinna:
(Stole the SA map from the internet)

TwoUp post: Great view at one point and a great downhill, but the up that followed was like a dead road.
(And now that I look at the elevation for the rest of the way to Kimba, no wonder it felt blah!)

Some rest stops are civilised… some you just make do with whatever shade you can find.

…and sometimes you finally stop to take a quick photo of something you’ve been seeing the whole trip – these ‘melons’, just growing by the roadside. (We don’t imagine they would be edible!)

We were pretty happy to arrive at Kimba about 12.15. We’d booked accommodation at the motel attached to the roadhouse. A roadhouse lunch, and then we managed to get the key to get into our room a bit early. At about 3pm, despite the heat, we ventured out on the bike again. Kimba’s claim to fame is The Big Galah, and silo art, so it would be remiss not to tick the box. As one of Australia’s kitschy ‘Big Things’, the galah was kind of alright. (It had had a makeover in the past year, so it was looking pretty and fresh, lol.

And silo art is pretty cool.

We grabbed some afternoon tea at the Big Galah, and got some sandwiches made up for tomorrow’s ride. (Being a Saturday, the IGA supermarket had closed at 12.00.)

The roadhouse at Kimba, was also, apparently, known for its Indian meals. I was sick of the usual roadhouse fare and decided to give it a go, but I’m too much of a fuss bum – a bit too spicy for me. Marc enjoyed it.

Kimba also has big photo-op signage claiming to be ‘halfway across Australia’, so I guess you can imagine us as having reached a significant ‘halfway – west to east – across the continent’ milestone. But it still wasn’t yet halfway for us on this wretched Indipac route. No choice but to get up tomorrow and keep chipping away at it.

Another hot day was forecast, so it was going to be another pre-dawn start.