how many pictures of one particular bike does one need? in this case – a few more. the bike is ready to ship and as i type this is actually already in the crate and on a truck to perth. it will get there on friday and ready to be picked up.
next thursday we got our appointments for scrutineering, on friday we’ll be at the safari show and on saturday we’ll ride the prologue somewhere around geraldton.
sunday will be the first stage, 430 km from geraldton to murchison. murchison is actually quite famous, an international consortium of universities is running a widefield array there. that is also the reason why no devices emitting radio frequencies (mobile phones, wifi, cb radio) can be used from sunset to sunrise.
monday will go 500 km from murchison to gascoyne junction. i’m not sure what is there but probably not a lot. as long as the ground at the cricket pitch is flat enough for a good night’s sleep i’m fine.
we’ll then ride a 620 km loop around gascoyne junction, there are probably a few noteworthy mines around there.
next day we’ll going further up north, to exmouth.620 km again. exmouth is a great place, we have been up there before and really liked ningaloo reef. it is very unlikely i’ll be able to see the turtles, the whale sharks or the manta rays this time.
we’ll stay in exmouth for another night, after a 645 km loop. might see a bit of the kennedy ranges though, i hear they are beautiful.
day 6 will see us go back south to carnarvon, 525 km all up. there might be a bit of sand / beach riding in there.
finally we’ll have a short day of 175 km to kalbarri for the finish, celebration, resting our bums etc. have a look at a map of western australia to get a sense of the distances. we’ll ride 3530 km all together, out of which 2300 are special stage. that is almost the distance from vienna to madrid for the special stages and if you continue on to lisbon you would have covered almost the distance we are going to ride altogether!
good thing is we won’t have any traffic jams or roadworks. i hope we don’t get too many roos or emus, these buggers are pretty massive and meeting one of them would definitely spoil our fun.
a bit more than a week before i fly out to perth. time for some last minute preparations.
i think i will try to catch as much sleep as i possibly can.
and spend a little time with my favourite daughter!