August 14: "Truly out in the wild"
We meet an Italian
cyclist, Luciano, who catches up with us and with whom we share our lunch
and he shares with us his worries about the weaknesses of his wheel whose
rim is splitting around the spokes. After telling us that he had pedalled
3000 km across Australia in 15 days, we were less astonished by our relative
slowness. He leaves before us, forgetting his spectacles on the ground. I
stop a car that accepts to return them to him upon catching up with the lone
rider. 15 km further on, we find him eating beside a stream, having recovered
his glasses. He passes us on a hill and an hour later, it is our turn to catch
up with him, his bicycle upside down at the edge of the road and his hands
filthy black with grease. Derailler problems. He passes us once again half
an hour later, problem apparently solved. (An e-mail received in France after
our return reassured us that he had succeeded in completing his trip in spite
of his multiple mechanical problems.) Today was entirely sunny with weak or
hind wind but a lot of riding on gravel and worse still 13 km of road under
reconstruction: very unstable roadway. We started by trying to continue on
our bicycle but right off almost fell when the front wheel started burying
itself in the soft gravel. The keep our balance, I had to turn the handlebar
bruskly almost at right angles which stopped the bicycle dead. Unfortunately,
the stop was not the only fatality. One of the spokes kicked the bucket, on
the brake disc side of course (According to Jenning's corollary of one of
Murphy's laws: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down
is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.) obliging me to dismount
the disc to be able to change the broken spoke. Meanwhile Anne sets up camp
in this true wilderness far from the slightest hint of civilisation. The nearest
swimming pool is 59 km away, no hint of restaurant nearby, nor toilets, nor
houses. Alone in the midst of splendid nature and not far from a river where
I sunk almost up to my knees in quick sand while trying to fetch water for
diner. Cracks everywhere: I had the impression that the ground was about
to split open around us!? And we are about to sleep here all alone!!! We
lay down exhausted and despite the distance between our tent and the road
(50 meters away) we feel earthquakes at each passage of a truck, a slightly
worrying imitation of true earth tremors. Next morning, another 8 km of walking
on the road under construction. These small misadventures almost made me forget
to mention the fabulous lunar landscapes which we covered with mini volcanos
as far as the eye could see, very large coal black hills and vast plains without
the slightest vegetation! A sort of black desert rather worrying in which
I feel oppressed: for nothing in the world would I have slept in this decor
despite it's unreal beauty!
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Luciano
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Dirt road
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and its
inconveniences
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Lyophilized
meal seasoned with flies
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Camping
beside the road
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