Day 63 79 days to go. Distance today 150km total 4939km. It’s 6pm Saturday 8/9/12 Port Headland. I can’t believe it, Ive been warned prior that Port Headland is pretty much impossible to get accommodation and if you can it’s craaaaazy expensive. It’s nowadays a mining town catering for the zillion miners working the local sites. The road train traffic is nuts and my truckee wave worked overtime today. The sites started about 100km out of town and so the wave from that point on got a good workout. I love it!!! I regard everyone a big brother and am particularly thankful for their wide berth and keeping all fingers and toes after each tonker passes. Anyway back to the story…… about 5km out of the centre of town I passed a BP that had a caravan sign out front but No Vacancies as expected. What the hell may as well ask and so glad we did. We hit the jackpot first up. The campground is only for miners with a whole bunch of demountables and permanent van sites crammed in. The Asian lady behind the counter pointed me to the security office. I wondered round lost and was about to give up when a groundsman asked if I was ok and called up security on the two way. I met Michael who’s an ex NSW police officer and couldn’t have been more accommodating. He found us a spot to pitch the grasshopper and gave me a voucher to have dinner and breakfast at the dining area. Considering what the folk or company pay to stay here it’s so generous and we’re feeling pretty so fortunate. Rube’s already snoring having worked pretty hard today with windy conditions and rough roads. We woke to an overcast day so turned off the alarm and went back to sleep getting up with the sun and sunrise again. I’m liking this allot more by the way. It feels like a luxury after packing up in the dark for the last few weeks to beat the heat. Neil came over to wave us off and take some pickies of Rube for his friends. The girl was blushing so cute!!! Neil’s friends are trying to convince him to do a ride across the Nullabor with them. He was happy to take some pickies as his bit of research towards the trip.
The scenery was much like yesterdays and long stretches of it. But the wild flowers are a real feature and I played spot the new variety with Rube to entertain the brain. She spotted our first desert pea and I got some great micro shots. It was the only patch we saw for the day so well done to my eagle eyed girl!! The landscape changed with the start of the mining. Those odd shaped rocky crops started popping up to break the otherwise flat floodplains.
I got a visit just before from Mitch one of the miners in the grounds and he was asking a bunch of questions about what we’re up to. He said that he clears about $2500 per week but that rent in town can be little change from $1200 nuts stuff. The mining companies subsidize much of the expense but otherwise many lads share rentals to share the expense. Mitch donated $50 before wishing us well and getting back to his beer.
We’ll peddle into town in the morning and do a top up shop before heading onto the station where we were given heads up to stay about 100km south of town awesome shorter day!!! I can smell the dining hall and its stirring the starvs so Ill end it there for this evening. We have service so I can upload the posts from the last days yay! Cash donations $1564.35. Talk soon x
shecyclesolo 