Day 3, Mundaring Weir to York, 75km.
Good day today. Left the hostel at 6am with the kangaroo family sat outside eagerly awaiting their wheetabix (no joke, they love wheetabix no milk though). I witnessed one of the larger roo's slap the joey, it looked hilarious with their weird little arms.
I set off into the darkness with my high-viz (thanks Jane and Jen, still
Smells of horse though) and all my lights flashing. I must of been a sight, I had more lights on than most Christmas trees. I knew I would have a 7km climb up to Mundaring and possibly a large climb later on so I wanted to step on it before it started heating up. Soon enough I pulled into Mundaring and had time to munch down some bananas, which i had handily stolen from the fruit bowl at the hostel.
Joining the Great Eastern HIghway I was warned that because of the sun rise drivers would be blinded, luckily I had a decent hard shoulder all to my self and the road wasn't that busy. The road surface is worse on the hard shoulder due to all the crap that ends up there and in Australia all the bottles of booze that get chucked into it, I was bloody surprised I didn't get a puncture with the amount of glass I ran over. The hard shoulder also contains lots of wires and hoses which I constantly thought could be snakes! Need to shake that bloody paranoia which is instilled into every foreigner when they come to Australia; watch out for snakes, watch out for the spiders! Well now I'm so hyper aware I s*** myself every time
I see a non-straight object on the ground.
Anyway, I reached my turning onto the Great Southern Highway not before letting out a visible and audible groan when I cycled over the nicest piece of Tarmac I have ever ridden. It was smoother than a baby's bum and was just such easy pedalling, it must have been fresh. Typically it started a km before my turnoff and did not continue down my road!
As I continued I was making such good time that I thought I should not stop for lunch or to rest and just make a clean break for York before it turned into a sauna. I plugged in my music and got in the zone. My mind was able to wonder whilst my legs spun, intermittently I would break into song but with my inability to remember lyrics it was really just humming. At one point I broke into God Save the Queen, I have no idea why, I'm hardly nationalistic or a big fan of the monarchy. The best bit of my day occurred when an amazing song by the Animals came on. It reminded me of when I worked labouring on my aunties house in Devon. I said to the landscaper Alistair, "I'm loving listening to the animals at the moment".
In a dead serious voice he replied,
"yeah sometimes I just go to the bottom of the garden and listen to the sheep".
At the bottom of the garden were indeed some sheep. After I stoped laughing I explained I meant the band and then I laughed some more. Anyway I relived this memory virtually crying as I cycled along. Don't worry I haven't gone mad and I wasn't de-hydrated it just one of the oddities that your mind explores when it wonders.
Soon enough I glided down some hills into York and quickly camped up and had a freezing cold shower. I covered 75km in 5 hours this was with some big easterly headwinds and a lot of climbs. Really happy even though I should be pushing more km's but with this heat it's impossible. As I'm sitting here in the shade writing this I am dripping with sweat as the temp has climbed to 38C.
It's 40C for the next few days, so think I'm going to bunny hop down to all the small towns which are 50km apart from each other. Need to be doing more mileage but if I skip a town that would leave me with a 100km which is to much when it's this hot. I'm happy making some progress rather than none. Oh, also I decided to go down the Great Southern highway which cuts through West Australia's wheat belt to Albany on the coast, it's a longer route but lots of tourist towns on the way down.
Till tomorrow