5 Jan 2024
I woke up at 5am again to leave as the sun came up. My knee felt pretty good, so I rode around 80kms to Overland Corner today as I had hoped. I had previously marked out some detours from the main road but they all ended up being pure sand so I didn't take them. I took the main road all the way, and actually there was a proper sealed shoulder for the first half which was an amazing change from the last few days.
I didn't really stop to eat a proper meal yesterday during the ride, so I made sure to stop in Waikerie for a proper breakfast, a bacon and egg roll and a coffee (my order is a soy dirty chai!). 10km before getting to the hotel, I started feeling very hot and it had reached 30 degrees. So I took a bigger food break for some beef jerkey, crackers, lollies, and electrolytes, and soaked up the shade at an RV stop off the highway. After that I basically rode 10 minutes, then stopped in one of the rare bits of shade for a couple of minutes and repeated until I got to the hotel.
Camping here is free actually and you can use the toilets and water, and there's a pub right next to you for you to get some dinner and drinks so it's a really good spot. When the hotel is closed you need to use the public toilets though, which I only used in the morning to find that they are the grossest toilets I've ever seen, let alone used. So this spot is much better on the days they are open later for dinner. Otherwise I would prefer to pee in the bush, and I would honestly prefer to dig a hole if necessary than use that toilet ever again. But you probably can't do that in the reserve. The hotel is next to the Overland Corner reserve, which has some hiking trails that I did not explore since it was extremely hot. And you can get to the river through the reserve, where you can camp on the river bank too. But I camped next to the hotel. I also got some buffallo chicken wings, which were great.
Tomorrow the storm rolls in in the late morning, so I don't think I'll go very far, I'll have to just keep an eye on the state of the sky as I go to decide which town to stop at.
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