At Last! A Road Train Free Day ...

... and the best day of the trip so far!

It was cold when we left at eight o'clock this morning: only about six degrees Centigrade, which is why Di is all rugged up despite the mercury expected to get up around 22 ...

Cycling on the Flinders Highway in sunshine!

We were pretty excited about the forecast for today after having cool, damp conditions for most of our journey so far.  We were expecting following winds and no rain, with gently undulating terrain. The road south was so quiet, the day so gorgeous and the cycling so lovely I couldn't help sit up and shoot this little video about 10 kilometres into the day ...

(I made a little error with the commentary: it should have been Smoky Bay where we were scheduled to have morning tea.) After morning tea at 42 kilometres, we had an early lunch at about 75 kilometres, leaving about 45 more K's to cover for the afternoon. The wind was steadily building and with our direction of travel curving around towards the end we were able to make the most of the north to northeasterly winds by sailing into Streaky Bay ...

Ceduna to Streaky Bay

Most of the way we were cycling through farming country, which had been under the plough for a long time, judging by a few old buildings scattered along the route, including this ruin ...

Ruined settler's cottage

Di took this lovely photo as we got closer to Streaky Bay ...

Watercolours and coastal scrub

We sped towards the finish, thanks to that helpful wind I mentioned earlier. Despite Di and I just rolling the 3 kilometres from our motel to the caravan park where the others were staying, we averaged over 26 kilometres per hour for the day without really trying. Of course, there were spots where we got a bit of a spin up, including dropping off a small rise with the wind behind us, where I managed over 52 kilometres per hour for about half a kilometre along the flat. Great fun!

After passing through town on our way to the caravan park we rode past Carol J, in repose along the waterfront ...

Carol at rest

We were all delighted to find we were going to be camping right along the beachfront. Here is a photo of our tents pitched on the sand just back from the water with Jim enjoying the mid afternoon sunshine ...

Camping out: Jim catches some rays

Dianne and I got the tent up then went and had an ice cream and a coffee before heading for the showers. Here's a photo of Sports Granny back at the tent after getting clean ...

Di post shower

She scrubs up pretty well for a 65 year-old, doesn't she! (Don't tell me: I know I'm lucky to have her!)

We were keen to get into town and have a look around. I thought Carols butt looked pretty good as we made our way past her from the rear, so I stopped for another photo ...

Carol's butt

The walk along the foreshore from the caravan park into town was lovely ...

Streaky Bay foreshore

.. and the water settled down as we got closer to the jetty ...

Streaky Bay jetty

We were rewarded brilliantly by our perambulation into town when we dropped into the bottleshop and met Ian Beck. Here he is, posing for me beside an antique cash register which his grandfather, who established the first store in Streaky Bay in 1900, imported from England seven years later ...

As Ian described it: two relics

What a beautiful machine, eh! It shows the transaction in pounds, shillings and pence, and was in use right up until the conversion to decimal currency was made ...

Pounds, shillings and pence

Ian said that Streaky Bay was a place that was lost in time in that there was an extremely low crime rate, people were all really friendly and trusting and there were lots of reminders around the place about times past. When we were finished talking talking with him and emerged from the bottleshop we saw a perfect example in the form of this old 1959 Chrysler parked at kerbside, backdropped by the the old Mechanics Institute  on the left and the historic pub on the right ...

1959 Chrysler

I am now sitting in that pub along with my fellow tourers, having finished a great meal. We've got the footy to watch (West Coast vs Hawthorn and Geelong vs Sydney) as well as the Sydney rugby test between Australia and New Zealand to watch before bed. 

Here's a graphic of our progress from Perth so far ...

Perth to Streaky Bay

And, as for the title ... as much as we've appreciated the way the road train drivers gave us so much latitude crossing the Nullarbor, it was just brilliant not to have them passing us today, especially as the Flinders Highway is much narrower than the Eyre Highway with no paved shoulder at all.

Another thing that made today so good was that there was virtually no rubbish alongside the road. In fact I saw only one piece of rubbish the whole way. Unbelievable. Just as remarkable was the lack of roadkill: I only saw one dead kangaroo in 112 kilometres. Add to those two factors a silky road surface laid on for the whole ride made for wonderful riding.

Today has been a fantastic day in the saddle: the best of the tour so far. Tomorrow we push further south into the Eyre Peninsula as far as Elliston. Looking forward to it.