10th February
I am exhausted. Under a tree I nearly stopped for the day. I lie down bathed in shadow. As the sun moves the shadow slithers off my hot body. No clouds just deep oven blue sky. No movement except for the parrots which are grey until they sprang from the branches of eucalyptus trees tree to reveal a turquoise and ruby undercarriage.
The wind was in my face, like an air fan from a slowly opening furnace - the heat wave from Perth had arrived. I lay in the shade and slept. I dreamt. I was faraway on another journey. I woke up to feel how my body had stiffened, my legs were in pain, my arms numb with holding the handlebars. My head almost hurting. Needed food so cooked my potato stew on my camping stove and once again set off.
Always though I can’t drink enough water. Traffic stops when I hold out my bottle. Can’t carry enough water; “this is how you die in Australia”, said one po-faced baldy, it was a lecture, a stern warning, and simple disbelief anyone was out on a pushbike in the bush in this heat. He shook his head but I got iced water. Drink instantly, poured down my throat, ah the pleasure of satisfying a thirst.
I ride some more, greedy for distance and I’ve already been on the bike for ten hours. Arms aching, hands in pain, my whole body heating to a point when whatever I do it won’t cool it down. I am cooking from the outside in like a basting chicken, drumsticks for legs.
Note: describe the trees, some taller way higher than the surrounding blue bushes, and I squat, on a hill where I can see for miles, but it’s the same view, a rough carpet of bush land in every direction to the horizon.
104 miles, the sun is low, I find a pull off into a clearing and set up camp. Tent erected, I chop my potato and onion and mix it with what’s left from an earlier opened can of Irish stew. It’s dark. So quiet. The flies have gone but replaced by the sound of crickets. The gnarled trees and bushes are beside me tight against my bike overhanging my tent the bush is closing in on me.
The Bush Road & Camping beside it
A Bit of Information
Wave Rock (Nyungar: Katter Kich) is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave.[The "wave" is about 15 m (50 ft) high and around 110 m (360 ft) long. It forms the north side of a solitary hill, which is known as "Hyden Rock". This hill, which is a granite inselberg, lies about 3 km (2 mi) east of the small town of Hyden and 296 km (184 mi) east-southeast of Perth, Western Australia. Wave Rock and Hyden Rock are part of a 160 ha (395-acre) nature reserve, Hyden Wildlife Park. More than 100,000 tourists visit every year.
It was smaller than I thought it would be but a 'tick-box' tourist point of interest and the symmetry of the curve was astonishingly similar to how an ocean wave crests just before it topples. I took a few photos and left.
The Wave
Map of the Day