DAY 77 - CLEVE SA

CLEVE SA

DAY 77

KIMBA - CLEVE

81.96 km

Total Time: 08.30 – 15.30 (7h)

Time on Bike: 5h 41m 02s

Max. Speed: 59.9 km/h

Av. Speed: 14.4 km/h


The best plans are meant to be altered.

There must be a reason, but it is hardly ever obvious.

From having the Nuttbush Retreat all but locked in for this evening, I have somehow ended up 80 kilometres south in the mountain village of Cleve.

Upon further enquiry, the Nuttbush set up was just not agreeable with my mode of travel.

I would have needed to carry up to 2 days supplies in with me and they would have also had to travel a full 120 kilometres along the Eyre Highway.

This left me with an 11th and ¾ hour conundrum.

All packed and set – logistically and psychologically – for a solid day along the Eyre to the next destination.

But by 9.30 am it really wasn’t on.

I was left with 3 options as I saw it:

A) Stay in Kimba another day and go for a 160 km Port Augusta long-haul on Saturday.

B) Push ahead and run the gauntlet to Nuttbush overloaded with Baked Beans and other tins of shit to somehow get me through.

C) Get out the map and find an alternative destination.

Option C won the day.

Cleve is a mere 70 kilometres from Kimba and a mighty mountain climb it is.

These are some serious and relentless pinches.

Today was the second slowest day of the trip – the slowest since the Day 2 Katoomba haul over the Blue Mountains.

Rolling skyward through the tumbledown wheat hills of the Eyre Peninsula was as scenically uninspiring as it was gruelling.

Yesterday was a grind of a day, relieved only by a hammering tailwind.

I couldn’t even pull this today – a nagging southerly headwind pinned me down in the quicksand, leaving a wretched slog across one endless mountaintop after another.

100 km yesterday was as good as 130.

80 today, as good as 120.

My unexpected location has now also disrupted existing onwards plans, so I’d best refrain from any more grand predictions.

I will taking off down the mountainside tomorrow morning as far as Cowell and then the rest is a big, scary mystery.