Tripadvisor said don't judge the Railway Hotel, Norseman by the exterior!
Th interior is quite Art Deco but our room, in an annex is more like the outside!
We never did see a camel but we did see Emu and many Kangaroos both alive and sadly as road kill
Mandy found this young Irish man leaving Norseman. He's doing about 100km a day and carries all his own gear and liquids. Seemed keen to chat as he'd been alone a while! On the 2nd October I was asked about him when I went into a petrol station the other side of the Nullabor. His relatives were trying to contact him and the police were helping. At least we could work out about where he should be so I hope things worked out.
The roads are a series of ups and downs and there are a few big trucks and road trains as seen here. They pass wide and cause no real concern when I'm on my bike but look a little alarming to Mandy
Orange Gatorade goes down a treat even though it is not as hot as I'd feared.
Me on one of the downhill sections. An ordinary car passes me but most vehicles are camper vans, SUVs with Caravans or Roadtrains
Sunset behind Gum Trees. A typical Aussie scene
Monday 24th
September
Let ourselves into the main hotel where, as promised, we
were able to make ourselves breakfast. It’s the first breakfast at a hotel
since we arrived. Left Norseman at 7.30 am in cool sunshine and still air.
Mandy stays behind to shop and fill up with fuel.
At the north end of town, I turn right on the Highway 1 –
the famous Eyre Highway that I will follow for the next 11 days. Traffic is fairly
light with the fact it is a WA public holiday reducing the flow of road trains
from the West. There are noticeably more coming the other way. This may change
as the Perth Aussie Rules Football team (The Eagles) are playing a final in
Melbourne next weekend and so many people are on the way east on the Eyre
Highway according to the TV news tonight. Lucky we have our hotels booked.
The hills I’d expected outside town did not seem to exist
and the whole route is flattish and runs through open Mallee woodland that is
fairly scrub like by our standards. I see a single Emu close to the road but
he/she was soon running away when I took an interest.
Mandy caught me up after 68 km having done her chores and
having met an Irish solo cyclist who set off from Norseman after me. He has a
heavy bike loaded with camping gear and food for the next 10 days! He only aims
to do 100km a day so will not get as far as us today. I just don’t know how he
can stand going so slow and drinking warm water and not much of it for his
trip. Apparently he seemed keen to talk and was finding the isolation and the
camping a bit of a problem.
The temperature rose to 33 C and stayed there so I met up
with Mandy every hour to get a cold drink – much better than my water bottles
which tasted as though they’d been filled from the hot tap!
The wind increases but it is a sidewind from the north and
so I do the ride in a quicker time than yesterday’s shorter ride. It was the
longest planned day of the trip – 120 miles but it was not as hard as
yesterday. We reach the lonely roadhouse at Balladonia where we are to spend
the night. This place is famous (well not very famous) for being the location
of crash site for major parts of the Skylab a few years back.
The motel is not very marvelous for the money (it is the
most expensive night’s sleep on the trip) but it is the only one here.
191.32km today in 6 hours 51 minutes – an average of 27.9
kph. Total so far 1111.55 km which is over a quarter of the expected trip total
of 4134km.
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