24 October 2020

 I'm awakened by a combination of early morning light and that gentle sound of waves lapping / breaking on the nearby beach.  Eyes closed in an attempt to go back to sleep, I roll over, but as it becomes obvious that it's not going to happen, I start to think that perhaps we should be getting up and on the road again.  Eventually locating my watch, I find that I've woken at the surprisingly (and disappointingly) early hour of 5.30AM and conclude that despite waking after only about 5 hours of sleep, I feel quite good.  There's no important soreness or stiffness, which is remarkably good news.

The view from the swag is quite nice - we're closer to the sea than I'd imagined, despite being able to hear it clearly.  The clouds look a little ominous, but the forecast does not include any notable rain.

I check the news, emails and all of that crap, then decide to get moving.  Mr C is still asleep as I head off to the bathroom for a bit of a morning ablute.  On my return, he's still not moving.  Poor little fella is all tuckered out - looks like he might be able to sleep all day!

He eventually stirs with some gentle shaking and grudgingly comes awake.  We pack up the swags and get things organised on the bikes.  I look around for an option to pay for our camp site, but there doesn't seem to be anything.  The office opens at 8AM, which we're clearly not going to wait for so off we go.  I push the bike down to the front entrance of the park before firing it up - don't want to wake anyone who might be still asleep, although it's probably a forlorn hope.

We head off out of town with an expectation of finding a service station, and therefore breakfast, but before too long it's getting a bit rural and no sign of the hoped-for station.  Reluctantly, we turn around and head back to town, eventually finding somewhere to fuel up bikes and bodies.  Let's just say it wasn't a particularly healthy breakfast!

We're eventually on our way at about 7AM, far later than it should have been due to our (my) stuffing around and poor choice on where to find fuel.  Off we go in a westerly direction through a series of relatively rolling green hills, moderately cloudy although there are small patches of blue sky.  The road is quiet, with just the occasional car and truck, both in our direction and the opposite.  Temperatures are lovely - nice and cool.  Lovely day for a bike ride!

It's really quite nice down here and having never been before, I resolve that I must come back again, although who knows when that might be.  Kilometres continue to tick by - first we arrive in Ravensthorpe for the first refuel and toilet break, then onwards to Jerramungup, where Highway 1 swings south for a while on its way to Albany.  My buttock soreness is increasing...

My mental calculations of fuel economy thus far on the trip, the distance since Ravensthorpe, and remaining distance to Albany has me concerned about the chance of actually reaching Albany.  There has been a surprising lack of fuel stations since Jerramingup, where I didn't take the opportunity to fuel up while Mr C was have a bathroom break, as I was stretching my legs.  With the appearance of the fuel warning light with a good 100km to Albany, I continue to curse my earlier stupidity...  Dropping down to 80-90 km/h to conserve fuel, it seems remarkably slow.

Driving through the hamlet of Manypeaks, I spy a fuel pump in front of the general store.  I loop back, pull up and find with disappointment that it is only 91RON fuel, which is below approved specification.  The lady behind the counter seems to be rather disappointed and somewhat curious as to why I've only put about $7.50 (6.2L) worth of fuel in the bike.  I sheepishly explain about the fuel quality issue and that I only need a few litres to get to Albany.  She loses interest very quickly...

We roll into Albany and find a service station on the main roundabout where we need to turn north towards Perth.  There's a little bit of last-second maneuvering through the roundabout to get to the fuel but we pull it off without being run over!  Of course, there's a delay due to the presence of a fuel tanker filling up the system, so we take the opportunity for a healthy pie and sausage roll(!), washed down with a Coke.

Fueled up, northwards it is.  Mental calculations about time remaining to the 24 hour mark and the remaining kilometres to get to 1,600 - it's not looking good.  In fact, it's not going to be possible at any level of legal speed.  Damn it.  We cross the 24 hour mark about with about 1,570km completed.  Damn it.  Mr. C takes a happy snap from his GoPro thingie to mark the occasion.

Admitting defeat, we stop for a relatively long late lunch in the roadhouse at Williams, where there's a nice salad to balance out the earlier evils.  It's very warm by now, so it'd a great opportunity to enjoy some air-conditioning and take a layer or two off.  We discuss our failure, but accept the fact that it was all to do with the long and slow exit from Perth.  A smarter starting point would have been out at The Lakes, or at El Caballo - anywhere but the middle of the city!  If we had of done that, then we'd have been fine.

The ride back to Perth seems like the slowest part of the trip.  It seems endless, my bum is very sore and it's hard to find a comfortable position for more than 5 minutes, and probably a whole lot less.  And then we're there.  Down the escarpment and stopping at the traffic lights in Armadale, I take 10 seconds to stand up to relieve the agony.  It's truly remarkable how much it helps.

Now it's a matter of navigating the stop-start of city traffic on the way home.  We make a final fuel up a few km from home.  I'm keen to get home and watch the remaining half of the Grand Final (AFL), but Mr C is not so interested, so he decides he will head straight home.

Unpacking is done to a minimal level, then it's time to settle in on the couch.  I find it endlessly amusing that the first thing I was to do when I've been on a long ride is to get off the bike and sit down.  It is true that my couch is far more comfortable than the bike seat...

Final fuel economy, fully loaded with luggage system and swag, trying to sit on around 118 km/h (110 km/h actual), has been 15.6 km/L.  Not so great, and means there's barely 300 km out of the tank.  Means there's a lot of breaks to fuel up, which is going to make it hard to keep up that 100 km/h average speed.  There's a bit to think about for future attempts at the 1,600 km in 24 hours!