Saturday 8 November 2014

Australia 2014 - (27) Katherine to Darwin

It was only yesterday, but already it seems like days ago, that I left Katherine to do the last 327 km to Darwin. There’s a 1.5 hour time difference between Western Australia and the Northern Territory which meant it was still pitch black when my alarm went off at 4.30 am. I had a cup of tea and a croissant to kill time and was on the road for 6 am. I was a bit disappointed to be shooting through Katherine and heading directly for Darwin as there seemed to be lots of interesting places to visit along the way but I’d been travelling so long I just wanted to get there.

I was back on the Stuart Highway – the one that runs up the middle that I’d taken to Alice Springs – and as I got closer to Darwin I suddenly started seeing bikes again, all going south, of course. Apart from one which had pulled into a rest area I stopped at and was on his way back to the city after a wee ride out for the morning.

I stopped at Pine Creek, an old gold mining town, and peered into a deep pit now filled with water which was once a large gold mine.

It was a nice ride. For once, there was a slight chill on the air, at least for a while. The road gained height and did a bit of weaving and twisting until about 40 km out from Darwin when it opened into a two, then three lane highway. I was going to be staying with another Postie Biker, Phil, and his wife Jenny and unfortunately missed the turn to their place so had to do a series of U-turns to get back on track, but finally got there at 11.15 am. Phil came home from work to let me in then left me to it.

Three loads of washing later and I reckoned I had killed off the last of the ants in my bags, then Jenny arrived home and took me on a tour of the city. For dinner they took me down to the water’s edge for pizza.

And that’s it, the journey is over. I’ve done 11,656 km on Ruby and another 3,540 on Rosie, my Postie Bike, giving a total of 15,196 km for the whole 10 weeks of the trip so far. I’ll have a week or so in Darwin, then, if I can change my flights, I’ll be home the week after and then it will all be over. What can I say? I’m so tired I feel a bit numb, not as elated as I expected. Maybe when I’ve had a chance to rest up I’ll feel better, but just now I want to sleep.

I’ll write again before I go.