Pearls On Wheels

Good omens this morning. We plan to ride to north to Norseman and east on the Eyre Highway along the Nullabor Plains.  The cross winds as we ride north mean that we aren't doing much 'speedingup'.  That all changes when we head East to Balladona with accompanying tail winds.  I turn up the heat in my jacket  and we ride straight to Balladonna.  The Road House has an excellent local museum complete with a piece of Skylab and news reports from 1979 abut the breakup of Skylab on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.  On the road again. The road becomes an airstrip for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in an emergency.  Dick imagines he is the pilot coming in to land.  Straight on we go. Then we encounter Australia's longest stretch of straight road - 145.6km which takes us from balladonia to Caiguna.  Nullabor - no trees.  Not many trucks this afternoon.  Pressing straight on... ...

Weather influenced our journey today. Wild cross winds  as we rode east then north from Albany became a tail wind for the remainder of our trip. We stopped for lunch Ravensthorpe. Wind howling in the roof prompted a fellow to comment "Not a good day to be on a bike." We can remember ferocious winds on the Ruta 40 in Argentina and today's winds are a brisk zephyr in comparison. The roads were mostly long and straight. Bright fields of oil seed rape flowers brightened most of our journey. Plenty of Canola oil on its way.  Some of the paddocks were as large as a New Zealand farm.  Grain silos along the way. Wheat is also grown in this region  A rainbow welcomed us at Esperance. Look closely and you will see it is over Bow Park.  Then it rained...