Beautiful Cable Beach

Sharky’s OZ 7 in 7
Broome to Kalyaydayan

Distanced covered: 136.5 km

Ride time: 5 hours and 14 minutes
Metres climbed: 86 m
Average speed: 26.0 km/h
Maximum Speed: 36.3 km/h
Wind direction: South East in our face
Min temperature: 30 deg
Max temperature: 47.1 deg, and over 44 deg for the last 60 km
Time it took for temperature to get to 30 degrees: 7am

Road Kill:
3 Roo’s
1 Cockatoo (thanks Kevvy)
1 Varmit

The Famous Roey

Today we were back on the bikes after a wonderful rest day in Broome. It turned out to be the best idea we’ve had, to push through to Broome ahead of schedule. The people at the Roey (the Roebuck Hotel in Broome) and Julie in particular treated us like kings (and gave me a new nickname I’ll keep to myself thanks).

While trying to get an early start we loaded up the Ute, and the car driven by Marty, our ever so kind and helpful WA Bottlemart man. We had to make a quick trip out to Cable Beach again for proper cycling photos – at least that sounds like a good excuse to get out there again! After that we headed back out the 40 odd km’s to the roadhouse on the road between Broome and Port Headland, our next major town. We had already ridden that road from the roadhouse to Broome and didn’t feel the need to beat into that headwind for no good reason.

We had met a fellow cyclist Colin Abbott on the road the other day who Ronny knew from his bike shop back in Mackay – Colin had dropped in earlier in his trip around Australia. Colin was taking some days off in Broome but came out for our send-off along with Marty. We presented both Marty and Colin with our special wristbands as a sign of appreciation for their efforts. I can’t thank Marty enough, and I hope he wants to be involved with the ride next year right through the heart of his country. We gave Marty the cow bell to ring to send us on our way.

Open country

Today was a landmark day for a couple of reasons. Firstly Shanno was leaving us today to head back to other commitments. It’s a busy time of the year for Shanno, and it’s the second time out of three that he’s had to miss the end of this “extended” ride, which I’m sure he hates doing. As we prepared to leave this morning Sharky had a few words to say to Shanno which brought welling of emotion to Sharky that I know Shanno understands. The other landmark is that we are now in the third stage of this journey, which means that we are turning more southerly (which means headwinds) and into the harsh country at the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, and we know what that means…

Pirate Falcon

For the first 20km we saw open treeless plains with heavy winds but our luck would improve. There was a tree line coming up that would give us some cover from the wind, but better yet we happened to find a plastic pirates cutlass on the side of the road which meant that we switched to Pirate, and had to talk like a pirate for the rest of the day. This combined with the hot dry wind meant that our throats were shot by morning tea…

This was our first morning tea without Shanno so it was going to be interesting to see how Kevvy handled the pressure. Of course he had no trouble, had prepared a banquet of foods and drinks from around the world on a table with native wildflowers. We were allowed as much Coke as we could desire, and could leave the esky open as long as we liked. Just kidding Shanno!!! Our Jedi Master Shanno has taught us well and Kevvy and the riders are handling things.

Just a wee sleep

Back on the bikes and the hot day wore on and eventually we decided we needed a “middy” break, for a pee, which became a little sit down, which became a little lay down on the side of the road on the gravel and spear grass. We hadn’t even taken off our shoes or helmets. Within a few seconds all three of us were asleep, for how long I have no idea, but I think it was the next road train passing beside us that woke us up. Startled we jumped back on the bikes, to find Kevvy only 1km down the completely straight road waiting for us at what was to become our overnight camp.

Young Cam from Ronny’s bike shop has been following us with our Spot tracker and saw that we had pulled up for the day, and checked the satellite image to see where we were – he was able to correctly identify that our home for the night was indeed a bus shelter in the middle of pretty much nowhere! Actually it was pretty good, the only downfall being the half hourly road train passing by all night and rattling the road grid just up the road.

As good a place as any to sleep

Before I sign off I’d like to thank John and the guys from Ada Street Supplements, who are again helping us with supplements for this trip. This year we let John come up with a plan of what we need and so far it’s working out marvellously. So if you need any supplements seriously do yourself a favour and talk to John – he’ll sort you out and save you money, what else could you want – and tell him you read it here!

Thanks for following us, and once we have regular internet (long story, Port Hedland hopefully) we’ll catch up with some great photos on Facebook. See ya then.

Falcon