I mixed my Radix up last night before I went to sleep. This meant that wen I woke up I could eat in in bed and not have to deal with the freezing cold morning for just a few minutes longer. It was such a great idea. We packed up faster than usual and set off down the soft sandy track towards mount Charles. I had forgotten overnight about my trailer/sleigh situation. I hadn’t actually forgotten it wasn’t a trailer anymore but I had forgotten it was Iike trying to ride a bike for the first time all over again. I fell off in the first 30 seconds. Speed is definitely my friend when it comes to balancing, but not too much or I get the speed wobbles.
Dylan and I had been riding for about an hour when up ahead I spotted two Dingos! I signaled to Dylan to slow down and stop so he could see them without scaring them away. They heard us coming and looked up. I expected them to take off running but Instead they came closer and closer, both Dylan and I got down in the long grass. I watched the curious dingos follow our scent, they came so close I could smell them. They did circles around us before disappearing back into the bush.
What an experience, I was thrilled to have had such a close and personal encounter with two beautiful wild dingos. Definitely something I’m going to remember for a very long time to come.
The track was pretty tough to ride, it was very rocky and washed out in a few sections. As we were passing mount Charles I stopped to smell the desert flowers and check the map. We had been moving for one hour and twenty five minutes, during that time we had covered fifteen kilometres. The track came out of the bush and opened up into vast dry grassy dunes, this is where we turned south off the gun barrel and started riding straight towards warburton. The new track was soft under tire. The sand was gone and now we were struggling through desert pea gravel mixed with red bull dust, it very quickly became my least favorite combo. If I’m pushing the gravel gets under my sandals and hurts my feet and well, bull dust would be like trying to ride through a big pile of cornflower, it’s just so soft and the bike just sinks into it. As I was riding I spotted lots of little reptiles. I’m not sure exactly what kind of lizards they are but they move so fast across the ground that my eyes can barely keep up!
The track went through some thick tall trees, it was pretty much the only shade I had seen since the morning so decided it was the best place for lunch! I have ran out of peanut butter and dates witch is what I would normally eat, so when we stopped today I pulled out the gas cooker and boiled some water for one of my Radix meals, it took five minutes to boil the water and ten minutes to rehydrate the meal. I felt like falling asleep in the sun after eating big meal at lunchtime, I don’t think Dylan would have liked that very much! It was the hottest part of the day when we left the shelter of the trees, it was possibly the hottest day of the whole trip. I was drinking my water much faster than usual. I was actually trying to consume more than required because I have 20L that I don’t want to carry and as long as nothing goes wrong Dylan and I should be in warburton by lunchtime tomorrow! It feels so unnecessary carrying that much water but I want to know I have enough if something goes wrong.
There reached a point in the day where I got so sick of pushing and decided to try just riding through the long grass. Let’s just say it worked but my poor feet are now full of thousands of tiny bits of spinafex (spiky grass). As the day started coming to an end so did the landscape of grassy fields. It was turning into red dust dunes! We made the call at the top of the first dune that we had covered enough distance for the day. Our camp spot looks out towards the lights of Warburton. As we sat around the campfire and listened to the bats fly overhead I started dreaming of all the fresh fruit I am going to eat when Dylan and I arrive in Warburton tomorrow.