I woke up at about 7:30 and started to do the jobs I hadn’t had the opportunity to do yet. I had to download new music into my phone and a few new podcasts. The first 20 days on the road I made the mistake of not downloading any new music. I had 11 songs, all of the classical variety. I will never listen to any of them ever again. Just incase you’re not aware classical music is not ideal when your trying to push through a hard day.
I woke Dylan up and we left the room to pack our bike bags, It took a bit of time to get everything sorted as it’s the first time Dylan had packed his bike. We were all set and ready to have breakfast at 9:30, I thought since we were in a town we might as well go get breakfast at the food truck on the corner before we started our riding for the day. I had two breakfast bacon and egg wraps and Dylan had an avocado and sweet chili wrap. Whole we were eating our friend Aaron the biker (who I met the day I arrived in Meekatharra) randomly came riding down towards us. He had come to say goodbye and ride with us out of town. Just as we were about to leave a another man who was called John walked past and asked where we were headed. I told him the story and he asked if he could ride out of town with us too! He rushed off to his bus to get his bike then the four of us saddled up and rode out of town.
On the way out we passed the Meekatharra Pivotel satellite station so I stopped to get a photo because They are the satellite dishes that have been tracking me on the in reach device from my sponsor Track Me NZ.
We passed the town cemetery before popping out onto the goldfields highway, it’s the dirt road and we will follow this all the way to Wiluna. Our friends rode with us for a few Kilometres before heading back. They said goodbye and John reminded us that it’s the journey that matters and not the destination.
Then it was just us and the dusty road,
It was already quite late in the day so I knew we weren’t going to get to much distance, we just chilled, chatted and rode at a steady pace.
At about 3:20 a car came into view and started slowing down to speak with us! I’m not going to forget his words for a long time, “just ahead around that corner there’s a kangaroo that someone has hit in their car and it’s in a bad way, can you stop its suffering?” I said yes and took of as quick as I could to see what I could do. As I came around the corner my heart sank, their was a small kangaroo in the middle of the road with its back legs shattered into little pieces, it must have been in so much pain! It tried to move by dragging itself with its front legs, It was a grisly sight to see. I calmly started talking to it, telling it that everything was going to be alright as I slowly approached it with my knife and a large rag I had been using to keep the dust out of my trailer. I covered it’s head and kept talking to it to try and help it relax before skillfully severing it’s major neck arteries and spine with my knife and ending its suffering. I felt so sad for the beautiful creature and didn’t want its death to be for nothing so I butchered it and took meat for my dinner. The whole experience was pretty intense and it left me feeling quite emotional, it wasn’t because I had to kill the kangaroo but because someone else didn’t make sure it was dead after they hit it, that ment it suffered and nothing deserves to suffer.
We kept going for about 40 more minutes before pulling off the road and seting up camp for the night. It was so much easier to put up the thee person tent with Dylan’s help. I got a big fire going and chucked the kangaroo tail and back straps in the coals. It didn’t take long to cook and when it was done I salted it. It was pretty good but I definitely need to work on my kangaroo cooking technique. I washed it all down with a cup a of hot chocolate as I watched the stars before getting myself into bed.
It was a pretty big day emotionally but it’s good to be back on the bike again and even better to have Dylan along for the ride!