Day 73 – Sun, 10 Oct to Cocklebiddy

Today was special – not only did I start the long trek across the bottom of Australia, but the date being the 10/10/10 it was Robyn and my 40th Wedding Anniversary – we had celebrated it whilst we were together last week, but today we simply spoke on the telephone. Happy anniversary darling.

I left Kalgoorlie and headed E towards Perth for 38km to the town of Goolgardie, being the original gold town, once boasting 23 pubs, with a rich history of the gold rush. Being early Sunday morning the small town was ‘closed’, so after looking at a few of the old buildings I headed out.

This would see me retrace my track of a couple of days ago, back to Norseman where I had morning tea, refuelled and then turned E onto the Eyre Hwy which would take me home. The sky was grey and I found out later that Perth had had some showers, and this cloud bank was heading E.

So I headed E and I would eventually ride out of the cloud but it would follow me across the country. I could see the dark clouds to the S, N & W with clear sky and scattered puffs of cloud to the E. So I rolled the throttle to the speed limit and sat there for the rest of the day. Oh I had a lunch stop at Balladonia, but then I simply sat on the speed limit heading homeward.

The vegetation went from low tree plain to mallee scrub and bluebush. The road had a few kinks, no twists and just past Balladonia through to Caiguna I hit the longest straight section of road in Australia, some 147km in length, or what is referred to as the 90 Mile Straight.

I reached Cocklebiddy where I had had enough for the day – around 630km – and I simply didn’t feel like doing more km’s. The cloud has caught me and there have been a few spots of rain, but nothing worthwhile, so fingers are crossed for tomorrow. The ride was fabulous until about 100km from the end where the wind came up and blew in from the NE, making it a little uncomfortable, but hey I can’t complain with the excellent weather that I have had on this whole trip. Tomorrow will see a few more km’s pass below the fabulous OP’s tyres.