Thursday 9 October 2014

Australia 2014 - (14) Crossing the Nullarbor

I was up early and on the road for 8.30 am today. I continued up the Eyre Peninsula on the Flindler’s Highway to Ceduna. Two giant oversize loads were coming towards me and, as instructed by the pilots, I pulled off the road. Fishing about for my camera I suddenly realised the loads exceeded the width of the road and that if I didn’t move further onto the verge I would be taken out by them. I just managed to move over in time but the photos had to be sacrificed to act quickly enough.

At Ceduna I rejoined the Eyre Highway and this time, thankfully, there was only a bit of a headwind and not the gale I'd encountered a few days earlier. A series of road trains kept me bobbing up and down over my tank to avoid the tail winds but otherwise it was a good ride.

I was quite surprised to see that the farmlands of the Eyre Peninsula extended as far as Nundroo, a good 150 km into the desert. Thereafter, it went back to bush before becoming the Nullarbour Plan (from the Latin for “no trees”).

I had a stop at the Head of Bight to see if there were any whales in the seas below. Firstly I needed the loo – and if you’re of a nervous disposition, don’t read any further! It was a composting toilet and as I sat down to do my business a moth flew out of the toilet roll holder, through my legs and off to somewhere I did not see. As I walked over to the Visitor Centre I felt a strange fluttering from my nether regions but didn’t think too much about it. It was hot by now so I had an ice-cream to cool down. There was that flutter again. A lady started talking to me as I ate my ice-cream. Flutter, flutter. What was that?

I went back out to the bike and put my helmet on. Flutter. I adjusted my trousers and it stopped. Must have been imagining things. I swung my leg over and pulled off. There it was again – flutter. What the hell was that? I pulled over, wheaked down my riding trousers – nothing there. Flutter. Could it be in my knickers? I pulled them down too and ARRGGHH a moth flew out. “Jesus”, I screamed in horror and jumped about like a looney. I’d had a moth in my pants for about 15 minutes! I can’t tell you what a truly horrifying experience that was – mind you, it was probably worse for the moth.

It was cold going west so I had my windproof jacket on but by lunch time it was heating up and by the time I got to the Nullarbour Road House where I planned on camping for the night, it was baking hot. I could feel my heart racing as I attempted to put my tent up. I had to keep stopping to catch my breath it was such an effort.

As soon as my tent was up, I threw myself into the shower and in an attempt to cleanse myself of any traces of the moth, scrubbed myself and all my clothes raw.

Then it was dinner time. I went to the road house for a hamburger and just as I was finishing it an almightly dust storm blew up out of nowhere. When I got back to the tent, I realised I’d left one of the doors open and it was now completely full of dust. I’d had enough, I transferred to a “Backpackers Room” in a portacabin instead where I then had to de-dust all my gear.