Burra 25km

Awoke to drizzle - again. A fairly slow start this morning. I'm tending to wake at dawn but had to wait a while for the hardware shop to open. My idea was to make a chain guide in the rear gear cluster to stop the chain shifting. But I needed materials.

After opening, I bought some small buckets from the hardware shop with lids about the right size for what I had planned. I cut these into rings with a slit so the ring could be stretched apart and slotted in between the chain rings either side of the gear I intended to use.

After getting this sorted out I took my new single speeder for a spin...a 25km loop, first North back up the trail I should have been on today, then onto back roads rejoining the trail a few kilometers south of Burra and back into town.

One ring forming a side of the chain guide was too small allowing the chain to skip over it occasionally. So on returning to Burra I made a slightly bigger guide ring. I took this arrangement up a badly corrugated road to the Burra Mine to give it a real shake up. It didn't slip once.

So it was all systems go to get back on the trail tomorrow towards Clare. I'll have to come back and finish off the Spalding to Burra section of the trail another time. In the meantime at least I can keep going.

Had a look around Burra for the remainder of the afternoon. Fantastic town with lots of history. Poked around a couple of antique shops to kill time and followed this up with scones and cream at a cafe. My shorts are getting a bit loose so hopefully the cream etc. will help correct this.

Spalding - Burra 29km (bike) 25km (Ute)

Pushed off into drizzle - a bit gloomy. The town was dead this morning, perhaps as a result of a few sore heads from the rodeo last night. Soon a gentle uphill on good gravel roads, but unfortunately this turned into sticky clay as I attempted to climb over the Brown Hill Range. Mud so sticky that my rear wheel was soon jammed with clay. I'd clear the mud only to have it jam up again within a few meters. I found that the only way of making forward progress was to push my bike through the long grass on the side of the road otherwise I'd be literally dragging my bike, wheels not turning, through the mud. Was a bloody hard slog!

Eventually topped the range and a clear downhill run appeared on the otherside. So I hopped on hoping to shake the mud off on the downhill - something I'd done on a couple of other occasions on this trip. Instead the rear derailleur jammed and collapsed into the rear spokes, twisting beyond repair and snapping off the derailleur hanger! As you can imagine after having literally dragged the bike for the last 5km or so through the mud, up a hill, in the drizzle, when this happened the language got a little bit colourful. It was a pretty low point to say the least. I could see all my plans for the trip evaporating. This was just about the only breakdown I couldn't repair myself.

I was a fair way from a main road and I had to get moving somehow. So I removed the derailleur and took out some chain links in a fairly unconvincing attempt to turn the bike into a single speed. I managed to find a chain length that gave a reasonable chain tension on a fairly low gear. But the without the derailleur for guiding and properly tensioning the chain it would shift to other chain rings unannounced, often with the increased chain slackness causing it to jam in the front derailleur.

I guessed the direction of the nearest main road (off the edge of the Mawson Trail map) and pushed off, stopping every couple of hundred meters to reset the chain again. Eventually got off the dirt and onto some bitumen and was trucking along reasonably well with the smoother road surface causing less side-to-side movement of the chain. But then the chain jammed again, and this time snapped a link. On cue it started to drizzle.

Fortunately as I was crouched down fixing the chain by the side of the road, a local farming couple pulled over and very kindly gave me a lift in their ute the 25km into Burra. Their generosity saved the day not to mention saving my sanity.

No bike shop in Burra, and even if there was the derailleur hanger is a fairly specialized part. So it was time to put my bush mechanic skills to the test. Booked myself into a hotel. I was muddy and in no mood to sit in the fairly dreary Burra caravan park in the drizzle waiting it out in my tent. The hardware shop was closed and I needed to wait for it to open in the morning to get some materials to fix my bike and get going again.

This was all part of the adventure. I was determined to get back to Adelaide under my own steam. I got myself into this situation, so I would get myself out of it, single speeding all the way back to Adelaide.

Laura - Spalding 85km

Pushed out of Laura after a shitty night sleep. My ear ache gave me hell until about 4AM when it stopped for some reason. I was cursing the local doc all night.

Was compensated with a strong tailwind early (the change passed through last night) helping me up some long hills. But once over the other side of the range the wind swung and turned into a side/head wind, and a bloody strong one at that.

Into Bundaleer forest over a locked gate (with a please close the gate sign!). Fantastic country but was really slow going into the headwind. Granny gear, and almost coming to a standstill when a bigger gust and steep bit could combine forces. Add to this numerous gates and my resolve was well tested today. Was hard to get into a rhythm, hopping on and off all the time. Some of the trail was really indistinct in the long grass.

Had a halfway stop near Curnows hut for a coffee brewed on my stove and to munch some calories huddled behind a whopping big gum tree to get out of the wind.

Pushed up over a ridge on a muddy farm track and back down onto the valley below, smashing into the headwind (a severe weather warning was current for strong winds). The Bundaleer channels gave me a change in direction. Saw loads of rather pissed off lizards which made me wonder about their legless friends in the long grass I was riding through.

Detoured a few hundred meters to the freshwater weir "campsite" (marked on the map as such) to find very prominent "CAMPING PROHIBITED" signs on display and SA Water signs forbidding entry etc. So much for that camping option. Continued on to Spalding because apparently you can camp near the oval. However I didn't count on the Spalding Rodeo being on that weekend - at the oval!

Instead I fluked the last room in the pub and ate in their dining room.

This was a hard day...completely stuffed!

Melrose - Laura 65km

Fantastic ride heading south from Melrose. Diverse land use: sheep, wheat, vines etc. Undulating but nothing too steep, and practically no traffic.

After a while the trail headed into Wirrabara forest - a mix of pines and remnant native forest. Good tracks but still a bit soft from the last of the rain yesterday. Am glad I wasn't here 24 hours earlier. Stopped to brew up a coffee on the veranda of the empty Wirrabara YHA hut.

Dropped out of the forest on a rough muddy track, perfectly timed for lunch at the Stone Hut bakery (had to detour off the trail for a couple of kilometers for this - well worth it).  As I arrived, all of the bakery staff were out the back persuading a brown snake to come out of the toilet. A few minutes later a lady came out with the now headless snake draped over the end of a rake. Snake pie anyone?

Had a good chat with a couple who were staying in Clare, and had driven up for lunch. He raced pushies in the veterans club each Sunday at Outer Harbour so was pretty interested in what I was doing. But I had to drag myself away from them because I could feel a change in the weather coming - as forecast - that was about to turn my strong tailwind into a stronger headwind. So I pushed off out of Stone Hut for a quick blast to Laura and booked into a very good cabin in the caravan park.

I had been having a bit of trouble with an ear ache after something crawled into my ear a few nights ago in my tent. As I rolled into Laura I spotted a local hospital...come back at 6:15 to see the doc they said. So in the meantime I had a wander about the place. Nice town with some good old buildings and a well cared for feel in the place. The verdict at 6:15: not infected, irritation should go away by itself. A relief because the last thing I wanted was to bail out on the trip due to illness.

Melrose 0km

Felt like a breather today. A couple of reasons: my legs felt a bit heavy this morning, lots of rain overnight so sticky trails. Plus I'd never climbed Mt Remarkable before. So that's what I did...my "rest" day was a 12km walk up a 960m hill.

It was well worth it. Fantastic views across the Willochra plain, across scree slopes (apparently resulting from the breakdown of rock started from a crack). Passed a plane wreckage from 1980 that slammed into the side of the hill in low cloud (no survivors) and having to bolt over some really aggressive ant colonies. These ant colonies have a biomass equivalent to the size of 1/2 a sheep. I wonder why the brochure writers decided that half a sheep was a good measure for comparison?

Was back down the hill by about 3ish in the afternoon. Had a bit of a snooze (was a rest day after all) before heading to the North Star Hotel. Looks like a good menu, but most of the locals seem to be in the unrenovated pub a few hundred meters down the road.

The pub has been done up well. Good use of rough hewn timbers for beams and veranda posts, old weathered corrugated iron roofing contrasting with new steel roof beams and windows, all overlooking the base of Mt Remarkable. Part of the roof was lined with material from wool bales. Had a dining room with lots of space between tables and couches in the corners. A good place to drink beer and write. And the food was great.

Eating alone, I reckon I was getting as much conversation as the old couple next to me.

Had a bit of a wander around some of the back streets following a local history guide brochure. Loads of great old buildings and cottages.

Quorn - Melrose 71km

Started the day uphill with short rocky push up over Richman Pass, descending back down the Eastern side to soft clay roads. The soft track made it fairly slow going - felt like riding on flat tires. Beautiful, unulating country along Old Gunyah Road, East of the Mt Brown Conservation Park - wheat and a few sheep.

A local farmer stopped to chat - rain was delaying the reaping but otherwise a good year. "That's farming!"

Eventually the track flattened out with a few drops of rain starting to fall. Then finally, the first tail-wind of the trip, but that meant that the rain was on its way from the system that had been held in the North East corner of the state for the last couple of days.

A fast downhill, enjoying the tailwind into Wilmington for a vegi burger. Good fuel!

Just out of Wilmington I passed a church that whilst in good condition, didn't look like it had been used for a while. It seems that most effort was put into building churches and pubs. The church had lapsed, but the pub looked well utilized.

With a black line of cloud chasing me across the plain, I headed off with more fat rain drops and a sticky road in places - water right across the road in parts.

About 5km out of Melrose it started to rain pretty hard. Stopped next to a monument to Goyder (who mapped a line of reliable rainfall) in the rain. Is that irony...not sure?

Pushed through the rain into Melrose. Turned into the main drag to see it full of cars and people. My heart stopped: thought it might be a festival or something and that there would be "no room at the inn" so to speak. Unfortunately it turned out that a local girl had died under a quad bike and it was the day of her funeral. She came from one of the larger families in the area so there were a lot of people. Pretty soon, the town emptied again.

There was a cabin available at the caravan park, so I didn't have to huddle in my tiny tent after all. The rain was really thumping down by this stage. Went to the general store for a meal to heat up and the pub for a bottle of local booze and spent the evening looking at the low cloud on Mt Remarkable.

Kanyaka Creek - Quorn 65km

Overcast morning, and a flat start to the day across the Willochra Plain. Featureless apart from being rimmed by spectacular ranges, hazy in the distance. Plenty of time for me to contemplate how small I was in the middle of it all.

At the edge of the plain, the trail took a turn past Drakes Knob to Simmonston: "the town that never was". Apparently it was surveyed at a place where one of six possible routes for a planned train line was to pass. Blocks were advertised for sale with recommendations that purchasers had better act fast or miss out etc. Unfortunately for the future of Simmonston a different route for the train was chosen. So apart from the ruins of the few buildings that were erected, nothing much remains.

Soon after Simmonston, the trail crossed the Willochra Creek which was deep enough for the bottom of my panniers to drag through the water. Fortunately they were waterproof as advertised - a good test of the manufacturers promises. At least the bike got a bit of a wash.

The trail then passed near the Buckaringa North Campsite. Considered the detour for some water, but thought I had enough to get to the next water at the Warren Gorge camp site. Also the risk of the Warren Gorge tank being empty was low given the amount of rain lately.

Stopped at Proby's grave. Hugh Proby was the third son of a Scottish Earl who had served as an Admiral with Nelson at the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. I suppose as the third son, he was well down the pecking order in terms of inheritance which I suspect might have been part of his motivation to head to South Australia to attempt to make his own way. He ended up taking on the Kanyaka Run but tragically drowned in the Willochra Creek trying to save a mob of cattle in a thunderstorm. His family shipped a one-and-a-half ton granite slab from Scotland to Port Augusta, from where it was carted by a bullock team and used to cover his lonely grave. Quite a journey!

The trail moved into some fantastic country. Had never driven through this bit but had wondered as I passed along the main road by car what was "over there".

Was a bastard of a headwind, and I was relieved to detour into the Warren Gorge camp site just as I was draining the last of my water bottles. Cut it a bit fine!

Stopped for a top up and to brew a coffee. Was a good campsite, but was scarred with lots of old fireplaces. I always wonder why people insist on building mini versions of the great wall of china around their fire places, usually only a few meters away from another example from a previous camper.

Pushed off again into the wind, up and over a ridge with brilliant views of the plains below, land use changing from grazing to wheat. A long push into the strengthening wind followed finally slogging my way into Quorn. Felt like a bigger distance than 65 kilometers, was completely stuffed. More rain forecast tonight so I grabbed a cabin at the caravan park.

The PDA containing all my ebooks got a cracked screen today...too much shaking. The second hand books on sale in the caravan park weren't worth carrying the weight. Fortunately there's good phone coverage here so downloaded some free gutenberg ebooks onto my phone to keep me going.

The bike is trucking along well. As comfortable as can be expected. I'm loving the way this mode of transport slows you down. The speed, the physical limits of my fitness determine my next move. It forces me to pause and have a look. And to wait a while...recovering. I've been buzzed a few times in the last couple of days by 4wd buses full of people peering at me from on high. My aching legs tell me to envy them, but the rest of my senses (vision, smell, hearing) suggest it is they who should be envious.

Quorn is an interesting place. Strolled up and down some of the streets this afternoon. Lots of closed shops, but a few art galleries open. Sitting in the front bar of the Austral Hotel, the dining room is full, the bar is busy. They seem to be doing ok. Summer must be hard though. Not many people passing through - just locals and people on business I would imagine.

Wilpena - Kanyaka Creek 109km

Started early from Wilpena and quickly joined the Mawson Trail, just as quickly packing my tires in mud. Slogged through that following the trail back onto the main road before heading up into the foothills of Rawnsley Bluff and through the station.

Was really slow progress with soft trails and sticky mud. The only way through without constantly getting clogged up was to rock hop, which not having any suspension was usually the bits I avoid. After passing through Rawnsley, contemplating the day ahead over a coffee brewed in a creek bed, I decided that the official trail to Hawker would be too slow. I basically abandoned this section (Blinman to Hawker) in favour of doing it another time in better circumstances when I could really enjoy it.

So I headed down the bitumen to Hawker where I stopped for some fuel (ice cream) and rejoined the trail. From here the trail followed quiet back roads and farm tracks/stock routes through some marginal looking grazing country. Passed some empty looking stations.

Still quite slow going, plodding along through occasional sections of mud which really sapped my energy. But there were enough dry sections to keep the average speed up, and ended up chucking it in for the day on the side of Kanyaka Creek.

Pitched the tent and wolfed down a 2 person dehy. meal with it barely touching the sides.

Settled in to watch the sunset and to wait for the galahs and cockatoos to go to sleep and give me some peace.

Blinman - Wilpena 65km

Decided to push on today. Still raining this morning with no break in sight. Last night it bucketed down. A Mountainbike tour company passed through and stopped at the pub last night and we had a chat about bikes, trails, mud etc. They were testing some trails for running tours in the area. They saw lots of mud and were covering only 50km or so per day...and they were unladen.

I pushed off regardless into rain and a nasty headwind, and given the feedback from the tour company plus seeing signs closing all the dirt roads I decided to head down the newly sealed road to Wilpena instead of following the official trail.

As it turned out, the ride to Wilpena was magic. Fortunately the creeks had dropped a bit since last night so the road was passable. I'd driven this road a few times before and missed so much. Brilliant landscape, changing vegetation, exposed geology and bugger all traffic. There were plenty of ups and downs to test my new touring legs, but the climbs were a small price to pay for the resulting views from the top.

By Wilpena I'd had enough and wimped out and checked into the resort because of more rain on the way. Went for a walk up Wilpena Creek in the afternoon and read the story of attempts to farm grain in Wilpena pound before it was declared a national park.

Apparently they had to build a road through the creek to get the grain out of the pound, but unfortunately there was a turn in the gorge that was too tight for the bullock teams. So two teams would meet in the middle, and the grain transferred from one to the other for the trip to Hawker. A few good years of rain would have made this country look like a good prospect. The following years of drought would have been heartbreaking. A good rain flooded the creek and washed away the road, bringing an end to their farming efforts.

Blinman - 0km

What an anticlimax! I was expecting to arrive in Blinman and peddle off into the heat and dust. Instead I watched Mike's tail lights disappear down the road as I prepared to wait for the torrential rain to clear. I booked into the Blinman pub for the night, not wanting to spend my first day on the trail head-down battling through the rain and mud, missing the opportunity to enjoy what would probably be a highlight of the trip in terms of scenery. It would be a shame to miss it because of the rain, just wanting to get the section of trail "done".

Had mixed feelings as Mike headed off. Part excitement for having got here and for what I was about to do...part loneliness with two weeks of solo travel ahead. The isolation was magnified as I sat here to wait it out, being so used to picking up the mobile and ringing Lucy for a chat, phone coverage is nil. Was tricky even getting a weather forecast. Just as tonight's TV news was on in the front bar of the pub, a thunderstorm passed overhead killing the signal from the satellite. I suppose it was nature's way of saying, you don't need a forecast, just look out the window...here I am.

But I had to be patient, stifling the frustration of seeing and hearing every renewed burst of rain. I wanted to really experience this country...well this was it, warts and all.

In breaks in the rain I went for a few walks around the town and up the hill overlooking the township, and had a good lunch at the Gallery/Cafe. On top of the hill was a soldiers memorial. It seems like every town was affected by the "great" war, no matter how small and remote.

Spent the evening with some locals sitting on the veranda of the pub watching the creek rise, with logs and a dead roo floating downstream, lightning in the distance, thunder rumbling, fog one minute torrential rain the next. According the the local rain gauges aroud 45mm had fallen since 9AM with more to come - many times the average monthly rainfall. The roof of the pub was getting tested with buckets and towels strategically arranged to catch each new leak that was found. This explained why when booking in I was told "I'll put you in number 7...it's pretty dry".

On the menu at the pub: roast lamb. As a reformed carnivore I had roast lamb without the lamb (i.e. a big plate of roast veggies), and a quondong pie with ice cream. Munching away at the front bar it seemed that the electricity was on borrowed time because the town generator was running on fumes. The fuel truck hadn't turned up. Apparently it's cheaper to run a diesel 24x7x365 than to bring a power line in. Mind you, the locals pay a 10% premium on their power bills for the privilege.

I was a reminder of what we take for granted living in the city where everything is available and instant.

The only other guest at the pub was a chap who had walked 15km in the rain from his bogged car. Someone had already been dispatched to pull them out, but they missed him on the road. His companions who stayed with the car spent the night out there. They were on the wrong side of a rising creek.