Disaster strikes

There was much talk before left on this trip of cracking. whether i would crack and refuse to go on, whether Garrett’s body would crack, whether the terrain would crack us both. however, just 10k after i wrote the last post we heard a noise and found a crack. in the rim of the back wheel. game over.

what follows this story of misfortune is one of mainly fortune. we rode on for a short while until coming upon two angels in the form of grey nomads Shirley and John Scott. after hearing of our plight they piled us into their already packd car, threw the bike in the caravan and proceeded to driive us past caiguna, through balladonia and then on to norseman, the next real town. all in all nearly 400k and 3 days of riding. i admit i shed a tear when we headed across the longest straight sealed road in the world, i wasexcited to ride it but it was not to be.. and we were so grateful to our saviours for the ride – thankyou thank! and they wouldn’t accept a cent.

once in Norseman we put our contact to work. Garrett phoned about a hundred shops, and finally the good folks at Cannondale, hearing of our trouble, sourced a new rear wheel for us and have put it on a truck which is currently heading our way! We are of course waiting with baited breath for it to arrive so we can complete our journey, minus the 400k taken in very quickly via a comfy 4wd.

The damage

This trip has been full of surprises, there is still more to come no doubt, we are not there yet and anything can happen.

Norseman has the first grocery store we’ve seen since Penong which makes us happy.
Plus yesterday we spotted four camels outside Balladonia, another thing to cross off the list.

Perth, here we come ( we hope!!!)

Thanks again a hundred times to John and Shirley, the friendly folk at Gateway caravan park in Norseman and our wonderful bike community mates, who will drop everything to lend us a hand – and a wheel!

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