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Day Twenty : Kimba to Port Augusta 156km

The half day and night at Kimba was really nice the Hotel was an old country pub and the staff were really friendly. The half days make such a big difference, they help to re-charge you mentally and just give you a bit of a break from cycling all day. The back to back days of 180km to 200km are really grueling.

The first half of the day was a great ride with a good tail wind behind us and predominately downhill it was a blast to sit on 30 – 35km an hour without putting in much effort. We had plenty of time or so we thought so we just enjoyed a casual ride.

Everything was great until lunch. We arrived ahead of schedule and as it turned out it was just as well. Not long after lunch we turned around a long bend and rode straight into the wind that had been pushing us along all morning, we instantly dropped from 30km an hour down to 20km and it became a real battle mentally. We were all getting so sick of the continual head winds, it wasn’t meant to be like that.

We made it to the drink stop about 35km out of Port Augusta, it would have been easy to say we are sick of this and get into the support wagon but that is not part of our personality.

We headed off to Port Augusta turning another corner which meant the wind now was a cross wind which is a bit easier but played havoc when the trucks go past, the back draft was almost blowing us off our bikes. I would unclick my cleats and slow down to almost a standstill every time a truck when past just to stay on my bike.

We were now on the Eyre Highway between Whyalla and Port Augusta a terrible stretch of road. The cars and trucks fly past at 110 km an hour there isn’t any shoulder on the road and because there are cars coming from the other direction the cars and trucks don’t have a lot of room to go past. At one stage I had to get off the road and my bike quickly to allow a truck to go past. It was a really scary stretch of the road.

Our group split up and we rode apart from each other to allow a bit of space between us in case we needed to make a quick decision to get off the road. It was a horrible afternoon, we were so pleased to reach the Standpipe Hotel in one piece.

The Standpipe is a beautiful Hotel built on the edge of the Standpipe Golf Course. I am not sure how many rooms it has but it is huge. The rooms were fantastic they even had Fox Footy and I was able to watch the replay between Port and Fremantle at 5.00am in the morning when I woke up. The food was excellent including some great Indian food as the Hotel is run by an Indian family.