I was woken up this morning by the sun shining directly from the horizon to my eye. Very effective alarm clock. Most of the morning was just a blitz along good jeep roads. When it got to lunch time, I was nowhere near any shade. No big rocks, cliffs, trees, nothing. It was super hot, so I set up my tent and used that for shade. I put my sleeping bag on the roof to keep the worst of the heat out. It was still very hot. Turned out to be a quick lunch, then back out into the heat.
In the afternoon I had to walk on the shoulder of a highway for a bit, and a cyclist came up beside me (scaring the bejesus out of me) to chat. He was riding from Jasper to somewhere. Nice guy, from Brisbane. I was a little jealous he was getting to town today…
After that I hit a spring, which had a ton of wild horses outside. Inside the fenced spring area I scared a huge snake out of it’s grassy hiding place. I then had to walk to the spring through many grassy potential snake hidey holes and completely freaked myself out.
At dinner time, I got attacked by a swarm of flying ants. By attacked I mean, they were just everywhere, trying to fly in my mouth, nose, my food and water. Really annoying! I had a nice view from that spot too, but I packed up quick and made a run for it.
As I was starting to look for a place to camp, I ran into a herd of cows with a bull with massive horns protecting it. I would have had to go way around not to annoy them, so I just went through carefully. The bull ended up following me awhile, but just made me nervous, didn’t do anything.
Town tomorrow, hopefully before it gets too hot!
Daily Summary
Date: Aug 27, 2011
Day 64
Daily Distance: 32.4 miles
Trip Distance: 1261.7 miles
Sounds like you need a fly/ant swatting partner Ryley! When Blair and I went to Ayer’s Rock there were flies absolutely everywhere and we literally needed to have one person swatting away flies while the other ate! Nothing wrong with some extra protein I reckon 😉