Day 11, Sunday 24th Feb. Port Augusta to Iron Knob

Day 11

Sunday 24^th Feb

Port Augusta to Iron Knob

73.7km

 

Neither of us felt all that good getting up in the morning. Lack of sleep was still showing. We had a shower, packed everything up, and then hit the Woolworth’s in town to buy some supplies for the day to come.

The day was quite warm, and the head wind was strong so we really struggled. I was stopping roughly every 10kms because my knee was really sore and it was evident I was going to struggle to keep going.

The wind turned a little and we made some ok kms. But my leg got worse. It was starting to feel like it was burning every time it went though a pedal rotation. Most of my pedalling was done with my left le, and my right leg going through the rotations, but it still hurt to much.

I had a chat with Harv about it and the only thing to do was have a good rest for a couple of nights and cut down the kilometres. Otherwise I would just be making my injury worse, and there would eventually be an end to the bike tour all together.

We decided to get to the town of Iron Knob, and find a place to crash for the night. We bought some 2 way radios in Adelaide in case something went wrong in the desert, and at least we could try and radio someone for some help. So we got the radios going, and Harv rode up ahead to try and sort out something in Iron Knob.

Iron Knob looked like a ghost town. Harv spoke to one of the locals who was on the street corner, and he said to go talk to the people who ran the pub. The pub looked deserted, and was definitely closed, but the local guy said to go and knock on the door.

We parked the bikes and slowly inspected the property. There was a couple of sheds and houses, a massive looking pub, an old school bus that looked to be done up as a camper, an old ute and a few extra cars lying around, and not much sign of life, apart from a light that was on in the shed. We called out for some attention, and made some laps around the pub, but nothing. Soon a small black staffy dog came running up to us. A friendly looking dog. Quite happy, and more interested in running for a stick than anything else in life. We heard a whistle for the dog from the other side of the pub so headed over to suss it out.

Through a back wire door we made a knock and met the people who run the pub. First we bought a couple of drinks to once again celebrate an injury, and also asked the lady for some ice, to ice up my knee. She asked where we were camping and we told her at the camp ground down the road. Her husband came out and showed us to an area we could camp, just outside a small self contained kitchen and bathroom that they were more than happy for us to use.

We cooked some rice and discussed our options for the trip. It was arranged to be in Esperance by the 7^th of March for a gig, but the state my knee was in there was no way. So we came to the decision to add an extra week into the trip, have a day off the next day, and get another good nights sleep. This way we could cut the daily km average to around 100kms a day, and turn up in Esperance on the 14^th of March.

It was a bit of a downer to have another injury, but once again it was nice to stop riding, and actually chill out for a bit, and know that we would get some good rest for a couple of days.