| Day: | 024 |
| Date: | Wednesday, 19 August 2009 |
| Start: | Halls Creek |
| Finish: | Fitzroy Crossing |
| Daily Kilometres: | 290 |
| Total Kilometres: | |
| Podcasts: | Here & here |
| Journal: | I was on the road by 1am heading south-west out of the sleeping Halls Creek. The weather was mild and I only needed my short-sleeved top. The weather forecast was for 37C for Fitzroy Crossing, so I knew it was going to get hot once the sun came up. I decided to break the day into sections – 60k, 60k, 50k, 40k, 40k, 40k – and looked for the kilometre posts marking the end of each section before finding a place to stop. Early progress was good and I again enjoyed a brilliant cloudless starlit night at my first break. As usual, I got very sleepy as dawn approached, but once the sun came up, felt awake again. Until dawn, the only vehicles I saw in 4.5 hours were the Greyhound Bus on its way from Broome to Darwin and one roadtrain. Once the sun was up it warmed rapidly and the traffic increased, although still quite light. For each break I was looking for a nice shady tree. In the open savannah, this was not always easy to find. With 70km to go, the road descended to the Fitzroy River flood plain and it seemed to get even hotter. A headwind for most of the last 50km meant that I arrived very tired and hot, but more or less on schedule at 3:30pm. I checked into my motel and then had to ride to a small supermarket and also to a roadhouse to get a pie and sausage roll for dinner. Not much choice, although you’ll be pleased to know I also bought some fruit salad. I’m not looking forward to the 360km haul to Roebuck Plains tomorrow, especially since the local temps are again forecast to be 38C. |
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