Sunday 7th October - Last day on Highway A1

Sunday 7^th October

It's fine when I'm cycling but when I stop the flies descend!

Poor Mandy has them all the time when waiting for me.

Lunch at the seaside.

Family on the beach on a warm Sunday. Note the odd optical effect in the distance with something from over the horizon appearing above sea level.

And hear it is - the first time I turn off the Highway A1 since I joined it oh so long ago. 

Afternoon cloud-scape above a ripening crop.

The best and worst hotel in the small town of Spalding

The hour changed forward last night so we lost an hour. We also got to bed late so I decide not to get up to go birding and we leave really too late but at least it is warm enough to start off with one thin jersey. It is also calm and a tailwind predicted. The traffic is low as it is Sunday so I head south out of town down the Highway A1 for the last day.

The road is narrow and with a poor shoulder so have to keep looking back to get onto the shoulder when a big truck is looming. Make good headway and I feel the love of cycling again for the first time in a good few days. No head wind, no biting cold and very little saddle soreness.

We stop at Port Germein for lunch. It’s a nice little seaside resort with Australia’s longest wooden jetty at 1500 metres or so. It was an important port in sailing ship times but now their trade has gone to Port Pirie a little to the south. We have fish and chips at a little café with live musician playing in the sunshine so it’s a good atmosphere.

After this I head south again (resisting Port Pirie’s claim to have a museum with the only Iroquois helicopter in Australia) and finally turn left off the A1 for the first time since 22^nd September! It is onto B64 Goyder Highway which takes us through the small railway town of Crystal Rock. It is really affluent looking compared with everywhere else we’ve been. As we arrive, The Ghan upmarket tourist train is coming slowly through town. We decide to try to chase it back the way we’ve come before we realise it is speeding up and beating us at our maximum of 110 kph. The Ghan won! Back in Crystal Brook we get stuck at the same level crossing again, this time by a triple headed long freight train.

A pleasant run through rolling countryside is like a ride in England. There are bends and little climbs and descents and everything! See a flock of 200+ Black Tailed Native Hens which is most impressive unless they turn up at your garden pond!

After a small section that is like a ride over moorland in Wales, I arrive in the small town of Spalding (population 240 which is less than Dormston.) This place is back to run down past glory. Mandy has gone on ahead to book into the Spalding hotel and barbwire museum which is the only place that answered the phone yesterday. It is a rundown local pub that gives the impression that guests are more trouble than they are worth. I don’t think they were suited to the hospitality trade. I don’t think they would even have enough empathy to be a bailiff. They did suggest we try the Sunday night special “Gourmet Pizza,” which we did. They handed us a huge pizza in a box like in a takeaway so we took it outside to eat. What’s is on the telephone wires outside? Yep it’s three Adelaide Rossellas that we spent such time and effort looking for yesterday. Maybe they like pizza. It IS a pretty good pizza.

160.28 km today in 5 hours 56 minutes – an average of 26.9 kph. Total so far 2766.11 km. That’s 66.9% of the projected route.