Port Headland
Big ship, hard to fill
A decent sleep and a quick departure from Sandfire before dawn again and I was off towards Pardoo. It was only 130km away and it was a pretty uneventful day all told. Hot, sweaty with very little traffic to occupy my attention. If I didn’t have to keep balanced I could probably fall asleep on this road. That’s unfair, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it boring but there is very little to grab your attention, which makes it cool in its own way. It is wonderfully different from anything back in Europe but when you see a solitary tree on the horizon and then more than an hour later can still see the same tree, well you get the idea, I just wanted to get through it. Bring on the ‘Brown Town’ – Port Headland.
At Pardoo I had a club sandwhich. It was sublime, the best sandwhich I can ever remember eating. It had bacon, ham, chicken, cheese, all the salads and three thats right three kinds of bread all toasted to perfection. Who would have thought such gastronomic marvels could be found at a roadhouse in the ass end of nowhere. Flattery gets you places and after my wonderful compliment I got a few bucks knocked off the price 
Sometime the next day I got to the turnoff to Port Headland. The wind was really picking up and I was struggling. There was a caravan park beside the service station there so I asked about a site for the night. The girl working there wanted $20 for me and my tent for one night. I know thats an extortionate fee but my reaction was odd. I burst out laughing into her face, it was like an explosion out of me – maybe something to do with the extreme heat or dehydration – which she was not impressed with. Naturally enough I was not paying that so I took off to the town and checked into a Hostel. Air-conditioning is a luxury I’m only happy to pay for. I’m used to it being cool when I sleep and don’t do very well in the humid places without it.
Earlier in the day, just outside Headland (about 60km) I came across a beat up yellow Mazda with the bonnet up. There was a girl driving it and it was having overheating issues. Being the gentleman than I am I donated 2 litres of my water to get her to Headland. This has to be a first, a cyclist riding through the Great Sandy desert helping out a car in trouble with some water. Proof, as if it were needed at this stage, that the bicycle is indeed the way to go!
I decided to take a day off to tool around Headland see some huge machines filling some huge ships. It’s like a huge sandbox but instead of sand it’s Iron-ore worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I think ‘Brown Town’ isn’t the right name, it should be ‘Tonka Town’. Anyhow in the afternoon of the next day I was just about to head out shopping when I got a text. The Pepsi-Max family (aka Fran, Leigh and kids) were just around the corner at the park having lunch so I called over to say hello. They were on their to Karratha so this was just a pitstop. They are really good people, even invited me to visit them down in their home south of Perth when I get there. I wonder how many more times we will meet along the road?