Day 2

My first long day

A 7.00am start out of Albany meant it was still dark as I reached the outskirts of town so I kept the speed down just in case the roos hadn't gone to bed. The traffic was light and the road good so I was making excellent time until jolted back to reality by 3 of our national emblems deciding to share the same piece of road as Winston and I.

Two went in front and one behind, no time to brake or swerve, just hang on and hope they keep hopping (I actually think Winston might have scared them away from the bike!). I reached Esperance around 12.00pm to be greeted by 2 lovely young female reporters who proceded to fight over who was going to interview me first. We sorted that out, I had a quick chat with a fellow Ulyssian who wandered over to see what was going on, then a sandwich and on the road again.

I had to make Balladonia before dark and I wanted to call in on Max in Norseman (mentioned in earlier blogs) to say hello and see how he was holding up. As you would expect, Max was doing it tough but I felt he was putting on a brave face for his children, three of whom I met briefly and they are obviously great kids trying hard to support their Dad. Whilst out the front of Max's a car pulled up next to us, a lady jumped out and said "you must be Steve". She was a local Lion who quickly raced off to fetch another Lion (almost a pride developing) who then presented me with a cheque towards my fundraing for Suicide Call Back Service.

By this time it was 4.00pm, the sun was disappearing rapidly in the West and I still had 200kms to go to reach Balladonia. Everything was fine even though it was getting dark very quickly, until some huge imported wildlife decided the road verge was a good place to be. Three huge camels, I could feel Winston trembling behind me, he had managed to scare the kangaroos off earlier in the day but I think he met his match with these guys. Anyway, we flew past them before they stepped on to the road so all was well. Finally after 899kms for the day we rolled in to Balladonia in almost total darkness. I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised by how good the roast beef was so if you are looking for somewhere completely different for dinner I can recommend the Balladonia Roadhouse.