Day 139

Date:- 31 July 2010
Distance:- 58.89 Km
Distance to Date:- 7920.70 Km
Start:- Goldwire Rest Area
Finish:- Stanley Rest Area
Comment:- Made myself a cup of tea before bed then thought I would try the mobile phone out again. It worked and I spoke to Evon for about 10 minutes.

Into bed about 9.30pm and had a good nights sleep. Up by 6am, had breakfast, packed and ready for the road. Wheeling my bike out to the road I met Phil. I asked if he would mind filling my water bottles. No worries. Josie gave me a cup of tea and a nice piece of toast. Time to go so said our farewells and I was on the road by 8am.

A westerly wind of 5 to 10 knts gusting to 15 kt met me. The road I was on generally ran south west so I had a head wind at times and a side wind depending which way the road ran. A very overcast day and not too hot.

Stopped for my break about 30km out at10am. Very light traffic flow to date. It is Saturday and Broome has its annual race carnival I have heard.

The scrub has thinned out giving me less protection from the wind and it turned out to be quite a hard days ride. Arrived at the Stanley Rest Area about 1am and parked my bike in one of the shelters like I usually do and I felt like a cup of tea. Some people were sitting in the other shelter so I ventured across and asked for some hot water.

Meg, a lady from Taree in New South Wales offered me a cuppa. She filled my water bottle and then offered me lunch and a soft drink which was gratefully received.

After lunch I excused myself and went to set up my tent etc. We have had a few spots of rain but nothing serious yet. As the day progressed the wind seemed to strenghen. I am going to be in for a rough night. Organised my tea about 5.30pm, just before dark, washed up and Margo came over to enquire about what I was doing, so I explained that and then found out what they were up to.

Margo and her partner, Harm are from the Netherlands. They had planned to ride their bikes through Russia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore then Australia. They had run into a multitude of bad luck and arrived in Darwin a few days ago. They have hired a Campervan and are driving down the west coast of Australia, across to Adelaide from where they will ride their bikes to Sydney.