Day 79 – Esperance to Norseman

The first half of the day passed as normal – nothing happened. My legs took a couple of hours to wake up and I was a bit frustrated that the wind that would have been behind me had died off. Other than that, it was fine. Oh, I did also see the longest train in history. Puts South West Trains to shame a bit really.

With 90 kilometres to go I heard a very ominous sounding twang but couldn’t figure out what it was. It was about 5km later that I realised a spoke had snapped. After getting a bit cross, I set about replacing it (something I’ve never even attempted before) and to my surprise I managed. It remains to be seen how long it will last, but it survived the rest of the day. It took me almost an hour to get back on the road (half of that time was spent waving off flies) so I felt a bit pressured to get to the finish.

I flew through the last 85km thankfully. I think I obviously needed that change in mindset because it didn’t even feel as if I pushed that hard, although to be fair, the legs are a bit more tired than normal.

I’m now in Norseman, the last town before the Nullarbor Plain and I must say, it is a very weird place. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. 190 kilometres between here and the next services, so that works out as quite a good place to stop.

One last thing – I hit 8000 miles today, so in 10 days (hopefully) I’ll be half way, although there is a bit of desert in the way first.

Distance: 124.9 miles / 200.9 km
Riding Time: 8:23:46
Av. Speed: 14.9 mph / 23.9 kph