Day 14 Windorah

Distance today 129km Ave 22km/hr

It’s 754pm on Saturday the 15th May 2021. The night sky of full of stars and there’s a crescent moon sitting on the horizon looking so handsome

The moon is almost as handsome as Banjo who is also shining bright after his first degrease and lube

We’re in Windorah township tonight staying at the community campgrounds for free. Its a great chance to clean me and the boy up for our next stage. We have one more day of sealed roads then it’s unsealed soon after the junction onto Birdsville development road. That will be our next stop, 108km to Morney rest area where we turn onto the road heading to Birdsville Monday.

It’s been an awesome ride today with a pretty strong tail wind helping us along. I appreciated every km because it won’t be long and I’m sure we will hit the same winds head on. But for now it was thumbs up as we cruised through the heart of the channel country

We were stopped earlier on the road by a couple, Reg and Annie from the Gold Coast. They pulled up when they spotted us and were full of compliments and intrigue about our challenge. Apparently they spotted us first in Roma and were keen for a chat. They also donated $20 which we added on the fundraising page tonight along with Murray and Helena’s $5.00 donation from Charleville.

Woke this morning with the sunrise and enjoyed a cuppa with the pink galahs entertaining us. They were full of cheekiness playing king pin on a tiny twig in the creek, taking turns to see who could hold the prize position for the longest. The rest laughed on from a tree on the bank.

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It was 9am when we got underway

We made good time with a strong tail wind and managed 66km before our first break at Barcoo

Got a close up shot of one of the spikey bushes to look out for. They’re prolific when you get off the road and into the shrub and a real hazard for Banjo so I promised the boy we would try and give them a wide birth we we can

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The channel country we road through today was a huge expanse of plains just waiting to catch those precious rains for the artesian basin and eventually into lake eyre.

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It was super interesting to come across our first emergency air strip. There’s very little traffic on the road so as long as I keep a keen eye on the rear view mirror there’s opportunity to cruise down the centre of the road with a freedom that’s intoxicating. The airstrip was one of those occasions. Fun!!

But there’s still the occasional road train to keep us on our toes and show respect by giving them right of way

Much of this country is large cattle properties with sections that are unfenced and lots cattle grids to cross. Unfortunately that means cow road kill from time to time and we saw our fair share today. They don’t stand a chance against the road trains. A cheeky group of cows were hanging out on the road until we disturbed them

Cooper creek is one of the major rivers of the channel channel country and it was flowing full as we crossed over its bridge. I stopped on the other side and checked out the area full of campers appreciating the free rest areas on both sides of the river. There was one bar of phone reception so I called my partner and the boy to catch up there last days and share the experience. Nice chats my darlings you’re always on my mind.

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Closer to town we changed direction and experienced what it will be like with a head wind on these open roads. Instead of 20-25 km/hr it was a slog for the last 10km dropping down to 12-16km. So Windorah gave us nice windy welcome. Just outside of town there were a number of satellite dishes silhouetted by the afternoon sun. Great sight!

We arrived in Windorah at about 4pm and stopped off at the local petrol station that is also the local cafe, post office and general store. The shop assistant couldn’t help enough raiding the cafe for tea bags and tomato sauce because the shelves were a bit scarce. We managed to find something yum for dinner and set up camp to get into some choirs. There were a couple of lads working on rotation from Adelaide and I got chatting to them while polishing up banjo. They’ll also be in Birdsville when we arrive so we plan to meet up again if that works. They both donated $50 each. Thanks guys I’ll see you in Birdsville hopefully.

For now it’s time for dinner. Bit hungry!!! Shower in the morning I think. It’s way to chill bill to contemplate that tonight. Talk soon xxx