We left Merredin on Saturday 27th August and continued on our journey east. This was a special day though we didn’t actually realise it until two days later. I will explain later. 

Anyway, the headwinds that had been our unwelcome friend since Perth disappeared and we were able to make better progress. Unfortunately, the rolling hills continued and the rain arrived to soak us every half hour. Despite these constant hinderances to our progress we remained joyously downbeat 🙂  We have now started dreaming about sitting on the sofa at home watching a good movie, drinking a bottle of red.  This is a dream that will remain with us until we return home – you don’t know just how lucky you are!

From Merredin we cycled along Highway 94 through Southern Cross to Coolgardie – 300km and 5000ft ascent in 3 days. Whilst we are still sore and knackered we are, at last, getting bike fit. Look for the blue dot – that’s us in Coolgardie. It’s a 10% journey done start!

Southern Cross to Coolgardie was 186km with no accommodation or even a shop along the way. So it was another bushcamp and if we have to endure a bushcamp then at least you can endure another bushcamp photo. 

This camp was surrounded by thousands of one and two centimetre holes with no sign of life.  We had no idea what kind of animal or insect made these holes so we camped and hoped for the best. When it was pitch dark I took the headtorch and went out to investigate wondering whether I was going to see thousands of spiders or snakes. Thankfully, it was just ants!

Now ants are not too much of a problem but when the sun comes out the flies appear. We had the choice of buying environmentally friendly all natural insect repellent or ‘Bushman’ with 80% DEET and smells like paraffin. Guess what we carry!  Susan is more environmentally conscious than myself but I won her over by telling her that applying Bushman was like the high end beauty parlour treatment ‘chemical skin peeling’ and that it would take years off her.

So far, however, the flies tend to favour me. I think it’s because I have been wearing a green merino wool top that is constantly damp with the rain. I’m just like a big green sheep on a bike. Flies aren’t intelligent and don’t know that sheep can’t ride bikes so it’s a logical assumption to make especially when I smell like one!

I’ve already discovered the flies can catch us even when we are cycling at 20mph and they regularly like to land on your face!  Now even through Canada with millions of flies, they didn’t land on your face!  What’s this all about! Now this is Australia, after all, and as we know every insect is dangerous.  So that can only lead me to assume these are face eating flies! Well I can tell you that my Bushman is going to be my favourite travelling companion.

As we cycle, the weather is very changeable – the last few days have been cold and raining but when the sun comes out its hot and burning.  Rainbows are everywhere. We cycled through this rainbow and Susan turned into a unicorn. Who would have imagined that!

We are now having a day off in Coolgardie. It’s a holiday after all. Coolgardie was part of the Australian gold rush and in its day (1890’s) it was the third largest town in Western Australia (after Perth and Fremantle) with 25,000 residents.  Today there are just 1,200.

Its a very quiet town now but with lots of old historical buildings. The mines are still worked but most of the gold has gone. When we visit these places I always drag Susan to the local bar to chat to the locals. Yesterday we went to the old Denver Hotel bar that has been here since goldrush times. Susan got chatted up by an old retired goldminer who told us his stories. However, although he had a four bedroom house with a fine view that he had build from reclaimed timber from old mines, he had no gold. So unfortunately (for her!) Susan is still cycling with me 🙂

Finally, what was so special about the 27th that we came to realise two days later? Well it was our wedding anniversary! Memories are made of this 🙂

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