Day 19 (November 21)

A young kangaroo poses at the side of the road in the early morning light

After covering 106 kilometers of the 146 kilometer straight section of road yesterday, we came across a nice campsite pullout by the side of the road. This one had a large structure, about 40 feet x 60 feet, consisting of a flat, corrugated sheet metal roof, supported about 10 feet off the ground by steel pipe columns. Its purpose was to collect rainwater and funnel it, via gutters, to an adjacent water storage tank.

After we arrived at the campsite, and throughout the evening of the 20th, the wind increased till it was blowing around 30 to 40 km/h, with thick storm clouds building all around us. By the time we crawled into our tents (pitched under the metal roof), the thunder and lightning came on fast and furious. I voiced a bit of concern about being under a large metal roof during a lightning storm, but Mattie assured me that the metal poles holding up the roof would properly ground any lightning strike we might get. My thought, “Sounds fine, in theory. But maybe…?” The lighning and thunder continued all around us for about four hours, but luckily we didn’t have to experience any electrical grounding.

Typically, we’re woken up in the morning by the sound of birds screeching and cawing. This morning though, it wasn’t so much the screeching but the sound of about 10 galahs (a type of parrot) tap dancing on the metal roof directly over our tents. When we got out of our tents, we noticed that the galahs would hang on to the edge of the roof and peer over at us. Then they’d go back to more tap dancing. The entire episode was quite comical.

We were packed and on the road at 5:30 this morning, and had a fantastic ride for most of the day. The road was flat and we quickly covered the remaining 40 kilometers of the 146 km straight section, arriving at the Caiguna Roadhouse around 8:30 am. After filling some of our water bottles and downing a huge plate of french fries (chips in Australia), we were back on the road, headed to our nightly destination of Cocklebiddy, 64 km further east. About 40 km east of Caiguna, a caravaner passed us and stopped on the side of the road just ahead. For the entire trip so far, I’ve fantasized about people stopping and giving us an ice-cold beer. It looked like my fantasy had finally come true. Although they gave us bottles of cold water straight from the fridge, instead of beer, it was much appreciated and we thanked them multiple times. We wished we had been able to get a picture of them.

This kangaroo, moving away from the road, lives to see another day (maybe)

By far, the defining characteristic of today’s ride was the kangaroos – some living, most dead. We saw our first living kangaroo yesterday. Today, we must have seen at least 50 or 60. All of them were several hundred meters away from the road, and when they saw us on our bikes, they would quickly bound away, but curiously, they always paralleled the road ahead of us, without getting any nearer to the road. Which was a good thing for them, unlike the literal thousands of others in various states of decomposition on the road and shoulders. In some stretches of road there were dead ‘roos every 20 meters or so. At one point, we came across two newly-roadtrained ‘roos in the middle of both lanes of the road. Then a hundred meters further there was a third fresh one. I  told Mattie, “I suppose we should drag them off the road, eh?” Her response, “Nope, I don’t have any gloves.”

One of thousands of unfortunate road-trained ‘roos

If the sight of thousands of dead kangaroos wasn’t enough for the senses, then the aroma certainly completed the mix. The rain from last night’s thunderstorm re-hydrated some of the sun-drenched carcasses, providing a truly pungent ride.

The bones of thousands of kangaroos litter the Western Australia roadside for hundreds of kilometers

We made it to the Cocklebiddy Roadhouse at 3:00 pm (which was really 2:15 pm, due to a strange 45-minute time zone change), and after showering, doing laundry, and a huge dinner (they serve LARGE portions in Australia), we hit the sack at 8:30 pm in anticipation of another early start tomorrow, en route to Madura, 91 kilometers further east. Total distance traveled thus far: 1,214 kilometers.

Posted by Scott