Day 20 - Port Pirie to Glendambo - 4151km Completed

Ulls: We got off to an early start for a change today. You know, we just thought we'd break routine, leave before lunch, maybe cover a good distance for once.



Filling up, we left the quiet street of Port Pirie almost under the cover of darkness. At the towns edge we stopped to take a couple of 'been there, done that' photos. The town did infact look a lot nicer in the day and from a long distance. The sky cleared of clouds and what looked like a power station blowing a column of seemingly harmless smoke into the blue, what a picturesque sight it was.

Back on the bikes and just around the corner we had to stop again. We'd been confronted by our first sighting of the Flinder's Ranges. It's amazing how the landscape can change so quickly. A couple of happy snaps and away we went again.

Torsten's bike had been kicking and bucking, driving him to drink, but occasionally he was able to maintain a decent speed. He was a little shitty when we stopped shy of Pimba, near Woomera, to take in the incredible view of Island Lagoon. There was no island as such, however, from this vantage point the opposite side appeared to have one rising from the salty water. All the banks of the lagoon gave off an intense white glow due to the salt build up around the edges. We wanted to make Glendambo so got going again as soon as we'd taken our pictures and film.

Even with all the problems Torsten had with his bike, we made Glendambo before the sun set. Prior to setting up camp, we managed to take a photo of the bikes in front of a semi with four fuel tankers in tow, a sight.

We fuelled the bikes up and picked up a few needed things such as milk at the fuel station. Everything is a little bit slower round these parts and the characters we've met have all had little quirks, such as the guy that served us. Torsten dubbed him 'Serial Killer Eyes Guy'.

To truly understand and picture our outback camping experience so far, you'll need to have the scene set for you. Imagine this:

Dusty gravel dotted with islands of sunburnt grass. 20 odd campervans on all sides and the sweet scent of the sceptic floating through the winter night air. The rhythmic growl of the generator in the background as we boil up the billy for coffee. Then, out of nowhere, a fox takes a sticky beak at our camp as Torsten transfers photos from his digital camera to his laptop under the moonlight and the milkyway.

A different kind of roughing it in the outback ...

410km