DAY 115 - MENINGIE SA

MENINGIE SA

DAY 115

WELLINGTON - MENINGIE

51.41 km

Total Time: 08.30 – 13.00 (4h 30m)

Time on Bike: 3h 44m 29s

Max. Speed: 42.9 km/h

Av. Speed: 13.7 km/h


Following the events of yesterday, I should be thankful to be anywhere, like alive for instance.

However, I am just a little disappointed to only as far as Meningie - disappointed mainly because the weather conditions determined the day’s outcome.

4 hours for just over 40 kilometres is a paltry return but I guess that’s what you get for riding into a stonker of a headwind.

Plan A in fact was originally to be where I am.

However after my brush with the afterlife yesterday, an innate determination to push beyond my fears probably expressed itself a little too ambitiously.

I worked up a Plan B overnight, which had me trundling halfway along the Coorong today – a 100 kilometre run which would have wrapped up a camp near Salt Creek for this evening.

It needs to be understood that the Coorong is a fairly long and lonely 190 kilometre haul between Wellington and Kingston S-E.

Beyond Meningie there isn’t much in the way of civilisation for 150 km.

A small camp and general store are located within 5 kilometres of the Salt Creek settlement, about halfway along and this is what I was going for.

Weather conditions – the wind in particular – made for hard, hard going this morning and it was always going to be a struggle to finish before nightfall.

And apart from this, there seemed no further point in battling the elements any further.

Meningie is quite a well stocked settlement so this was the obvious choice.

By all accounts then, it could be argued that I’m a day behind schedule but considering I have no schedule, this would hardly stand up in court.

So it is.

The Coorong will commence in the morning for real and I will make Salt Creek by tomorrow evening.