Sandfire
It’s really flat
After leaving Broome the road south next comes to a town 620km away at Port Headland. Along the way are just two roadhouses, Sandfire 325km away and Pardoo another 130km from there. I’ve been reliably informed that this stretch of road is the most boring in all of Australia, but that wasn’t a concern, just getting to the next roadhouse and water was the only thing on my mind.
I left Broome at 2:30 in the morning to make as much ground as I could before intense heat became an issue. I had a clear sky and a full moon so riding at night was no problem. It was a little cooler although the temperature in Broome doesn’t drop much at night. The humididty however goes to almost 100% so even though it was cooler it was incredibly sweaty work. I didn’t have a kind wind, it was on my back the first 30km out of Broome but then I turned almost 180 degrees into it so from then on it was headwind all the way. I kept a reasonable pace going, didn’t want to get too hot and use up my precious water supplies, if anything I was probably going too slowly. I got a wicked surprise in the morning. After about 140km Andy one of the people I was working with in Broome arrived on the road. It was a Sunday morning, he knew I was going to be on the road so he go into his car and decided to drive out the road after me. If he didn’t catch me before 150km he would have turned back so hurrah for going slowly. I got a few bottles of ice cold water and a Powerade. Liquid never tasted so good.
Not much longer after that I got to Nita Downs rest are about 215km or so from Broome. I decided to call it a day, I could have probably managed to get to Sandfire by dark but the last thing I wanted was to be caught out by a storm. Turns out I would have been fine, there were some epic displays way off in the distance to the north around Broome. At that rest are was an older couple, they’ve been on the road for 22 years with their caravan. I dined with them in style, I scored a can of coke and some beef stew with some real meat!
Next morning I had planned on an early start but the wind was pretty fierce so I just sat it out until well after sunup. It meant the last 110km were hot but not too bad so I stopped at Sandfire for the rest of the day.