39 degrees in the shade
Burke & Wills
Normanton to Cloncurry the next town on the road is a run of 380km with just the Burke and Wills Roadhouse about halfway along the route. The Burke and Wills was 192km away which is a long way to go for the next water stop. It was a hot one, at this stage I’m carrying about 11 litres of water which is plenty to last the day but not much more.
Along the way I caught up Dai again, we go about the same pace, I’m a little quicker but there’s not much in it. We got the the roadhouse around 4pm and were reliably informed that it was 39 degrees in the shade, which for me at least is pretty warm. And there I was in my winter cycling top trying to make myself even hotter so I’ll be able to cope when the temp hits 40+! I think I may actually be able to cope with the heat after all. The humidity is still non-existent so when I experience that I may be singing a different tune. Still so far so good. Dai is so tan from the sun he is nearly black. I call him Abodai cause he looks as dark as an aborigine. Even so I think he is suffereing in the heat more than I am.
At the Burke and Wills roadhouse there was a Japanese girl Reiko working there. Dai was very excited by this so we stopped there for the night so he could speak Japanese. She was very cute too so can’t say I blame him. Its was a strange place to go for work, a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. She was working 7 days a week for the next 2 months! Doesn’t sound like fun to me but then again as its the only house for 200 odd kilometers there isn’t really anything else to do. In the morning before we left she had little postcards for us with good luck messages – very sweet.