Latest map position. Heading around the Great Australian Bight to Adelaide. 

Thanks to Google maps. 

Leaving Norseman on Eyre Highway 1 we have a 700km cycle to reach Eucla, the next small settlement on our route.  

Our accommodation will be either Roadhouses (basically a petrol station with accommodation) or bush camping. As some Roadhouses are nearly 200km apart, bush camping is inevitable.  We are now properly in the Australian Outback. 

The highway is well maintained with a reasonable hard  shoulder and the traffic is infrequent. Everyone passing gives us a wave, flashes lights or sounds horn and no that’s not because we are in the way! 😃. Mind you, I think they’re more amused than impressed 😃. 

Last night we stayed at the Fraser Range Station after 105km from Norseman. Fraser Range is an old sheep shearing station and steeped in Australian history. Our accommodation was basic to say the least. Opting for the queen room in the stone cottage we found it was about 8 square feet with rough stone walls and floor. Essentially it was a cave with a window!  All that didn’t matter, however, once we were refreshed with a hot shower followed by a home cooked meal in the communal dining room. For a reasonable price we helped ourselves to a mountain of shepherds pie and vegetables. Desert was apple crumble and custard. Simple food but must rank as one of my top meals of the year – it’s all about the timing! 

Tonight we are in Balladonia Roadhouse, which has the benefit of a local Skylab museum. Remember Skylab that fell from the sky in 1979?  Well parts of it came crashing down around Balladonia and there is a small but interesting display. 

Tomorrow we head away from the hills (thank goodness) and enter Nullarbor. The Nullarbor desert is a ancient dried up sea bed and is the world’s largest pice of limestone and about 1200km wide. A long cycle but hey it’s flat for the next week or so. 

953km to date. 

Leaving Coolgardie we headed 77km south to Widgiemooltha and had an overnight stop at the Widgie Tavern roadhouse where the staff made us very welcome. A nice easy day with an early finish. The following day was the first day of Spring although you wouldn’t know it by the weather.  It was so bad it was just like August in Scotland!   We endured sun, drizzle, an awfully strong headwind and very undulating terrain over 91km. We were pretty weary (understatement) when we arrived at the Railway Motel although that was all sorted with a huge jacuzzi bath with Epsom salts followed by beer and pizza at the local pub. An outstanding end to a tough day.

After a particularly long hill Susan asked to stop and got off the bike. She started slapping her thighs. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.  ‘Getting rid of the lactic acid’ ‘How do you get rid of lactic acid?’ she replied whilst slapping away like a Morris Dancer. ‘Just stretch your legs and walk around’ I advised.  She did this for a minute then looked up ‘how do I know if I’ve got lactic acid and what is it a anyway?’ By this time I really was puzzled. ‘If you don’t actually know what it is, where did the idea come from? ‘ ‘Jason Kenny had it at the Olympics and they had to get rid of it before the next race’ she explained! ‘Don’t you wish you had it?’  So the simple reasoning was that Susan and an Olympic cyclist get lactic acid and I don’t!   What does this say about me?  She’s absolutely right of course!  Tomorrow I’m going to stop cycling like a precocious princess and get some of that lactic acid – then I will be like an Olympic cyclist too!

Actually, as a footnote to that story, I do think I have parallels to that other great Olympian, Sir Chris Hoy. You see once I have been cycling for a couple of weeks I build up great leg muscles. Now it’s nothing like Sir Chris, of course, but I’m fairly impressed with myself. I can tell Susan is impressed too – she calls me chicken legs!

Norseman is an old gold mining town established after a Scotsman and his horse called ‘Hardy Norseman’ found a gold nugget – it got stuck in its hoof!  It’s now a rundown town in the middle of nowhere with friendly people. One of the reasons we cycle tour is to visit places such as this that you would never visit otherwise. We love these experiences.

On the cycle into Norseman the raised highway crossed Lake Cowan salt flats.

From Norseman we start on the Eyre Highway across 1,000km of desert known as the Nullarbor Plain. A sign down the road makes things clear:

Doesn’t that sign just make you feel thirsty!

But that’s tomorrow.  Tonight I’ve got to do some proper carbohydrate loading so I’m off to that great local pub for some excellent beer.  I bet you that’s what Jason Kenny does too!