great read, greater pics. something awesome about reading hand written journals.
Panorama is boss. Love my wide format pin-hole Holga.
These double exposures worked out real well, even if happy accident.
Will read journal soon as I have a bit of time.
Yeah Dalai, I think it’d be fine. We had some pretty lazy days. There was one anomalous 95km day, but otherwise it was about 50-60kms a day, and not often a full day’s riding. Do you have the maps? I was going to advertise mine for sale. You can buy them if you want.
The school holidays had just finished when we go there, so the easily accessible water tanks were empty. The Middlesight Water Hut had water though. Wilpena to Hawker was the longest stretch without reliable water, but there was probably water at this hut that we weren’t aware of until after we’d passed through (we saw it, we just didn’t realise it was for travellers). Otherwise, I reckon you’d be fine. We carried way too much food, especially because we were prepared to eat out a fair bit. Blinman doesn’t have a lot of packable food. Hawker has some. Quorn has heaps. Wilmington/Melrose have some. Laura has plenty. Spalding is pretty good. Riverton has plenty, the rest is fine.
I think you’ll be fine doing it over 12 days. You might have a big day here and there, but you can do them pretty easily. Hawker to Quorn could be a good big day to do, but you might want to camp in Warren Gorge if you want to see the Yellow Footed Rock Wallabies. Quorn straight through to Melrose saves you a day, or bust out to Laura. Or just don’t aim for towns and ride until you stop. Will you be loaded up to camp and cook?
Cool story, Pete.
Nah, really enjoyed reading your journal, and some of those photos are magic. Well played.
Thanks for the details and first dibs on buying the maps but I already bought them unfortunately…
Plan is to camp out on the trail most of the trip including cooking much of the time. Just using towns to top up food and water and grab a meal on passing.
Will be bikepacking it, so being able to carry enough water is my biggest concern. Hopefully it won’t be anywhere near as hot as you experienced!
Thanks for the positive feedback eh. It’s a touch exposing putting this stuff out, but I really enjoy the writing, especially by hand where I can’t change any structure or anything as I go. And once a journal is finished and you can follow it through on the archaic Web 1.0 CGOAB website, I get a great feeling of satisfaction. Certainly enough to get absorbed in it and appreciate the layout’s basicness. There are plenty of really inspiring stories to read through there (they’ve just ticked over 10000 journals all up).
Dalai, we had capacity for 22L plus five bidons. The only time we carried that much - between Wilpena and Hawker - we still had about 8L left after two days out in 43C heat. We could have taken less, but I’d rather have 8L spare if we ended up stuck out there for a bit.
I’d recommend the Sea To Summit reinforced goon bag style water bladders for storage; they were excellent. Way better than the old MSR Dromedary (which always tasted like rank) and much lighter/smaller. Cheap too.
I’m reasonably sure JC was on track to do the whole thing in ~3days when they ‘raced’ it a couple of years back if you really wanted to ‘tour with a sense of urgency’ like he does.
iirc he bailed after some crazy rain came in and one long section turned into shoe removing clay-infused mud and he got over walking his bike (plus nobody was within a couple of hundred kms of him). i believe it was the beginning of a longstanding joke about hitting the SOS button on your spot for spurious reasons (which several others on the ride might have done).
Ahh yes, I remember reading Arrans blog about that one.
I have contemplated riding it quicker and turning around at Blinman and riding back to Port Augusta for regular transport options or even the start. As it would allow me to enjoy riding both ways through the Flinders Ranges, plus avoid having to catch the once a week Friday bus from the Northern end.
900km one way averaging 80km days doesn’t seem much in my novice touring mind so thinking I should be able to ride further each day. But then the question is whether it is about making the destination or enjoying being in a remote area by myself and enjoying the surroundings as I cruise along?
I plan on riding a number of shorter tours including the Goldfields track over two days before to dial in the gear and see if I am willing to push bigger distances each day.
I’ve never been touring…but when you guys are doing an 80km day. What’s the usual plan of attack? Wake up early and head straight off and get to your next destination in a few hours. Or do you space it out and take a heap of breaks and just ride the whole day?
WCP, love reading the journal entries. Just makes me want to get on my bike and explore as I’m reading it
The double exposures turned out great. Theres a few good enough to hand on the wall for sure!
Don’t worry about that stuff. Just do whatever you feel like. That’s the point. Sometimes you might need to bust out for a day or so, but that becomes apparent as you go.
Thanks!
Either, just do what you want.
Depends on schedule, sometimes you find somewhere cool to camp at lunch time and just stay.
Just finished reading, there’s some really wonderful photos in there Pete. Well done!
Saw this blog today Pete, thought of your efforts with writing your up and consider this to be the next evolution.
LurvleyBicycle gets a comic strip
Awesome read and photos WCP! Very inspiring indeed.
That’s great!
Bloody amazing Pete - I have a real soft spot for that website. It is everything I could ask for, very informative and designed so well. Glad you are a part of it now 