TravellingStrom

Had a rude awakening from Brian at around 5.10am, I had ear plugs in because of the bats in the trees above the tents so he was shaking the tent and calling my name. Apparently he reckons he wants to eat his breakfast and can’t do it with my snoring, well fuck him, I offered ear plugs last night and he declined, ignorant bugger! Went back to sleep and continued to snore 🙂
Finally woke up at a reasonable hour, I was here for another night so why get up too early? I went down to the point to take a few photos, have a look at the tidal range around the 16,17th, very large amount of water moving, it was high tide at this moment though.

This is the caravan park from the viewing spur

Then this is looking east, and this is where the Stairway to the Moon is supposed to happen this evening. But, first things first, I wanted to update my Blog, so this was a good opportunity. I went down to the Library where although I could not plug my laptop into the net, I was allowed to sit in the aircon and sort photos and write the blurb. The aircon lasted until about 11.30 when the town’s power supply shut down. I finished off and had lunch at an undercover car park because it was steaming hot by now and they had a back up genset. Then I headed to an internet cafe where it cost $5/hr but fast connection. I sat here while uploading and updating for a few hours. The biggest time consumer was uploading the burning truck video. After that I went for a ride around to see some sights, first off was the shell museum, not very inspiring, lots of the same, but OK I guess. The best thing there was this display of all the fish species around the area, it took up the whole wall and each was a model, but not to scale or life size.

This area of town is known as Chinatown because of the heavy influence from the Chinese pearl divers, the building reflect this.

Then I slipped up to Matsos Brewery where I wanted a look around, but apparently, you just get to look through the window and taste the finished product. I did not have a drink as I had a 1km walk ahead of me, but I took a photo of the vats.

On the way again I stopped off at the local fishing club boat ramp and watched a ship leaving

Before heading out to the point to look for dinosaur footprints. The paved road ends and the rest is soft sand so I left my bike near the race course entrance and walked the ½ km to the point. Here you can get an idea of the “road” surface, horrible stuff to ride in, nearly as bad as the Cape!

This is the slogan on the back of a Wicked van in the car park, quite true actually 🙂

So, I made my way down the slippery rocks at low tide, the cliffs look nice

I ended up finding only one of three footprints, that is it in the centre that looks like a V.

After that I headed back and picked up a few beers from the campsite before taking my chair and a book out to the point to get a good position for that nights viewing. This is after sunset just prior to the moon rise, I am settled in 🙂

More and more people arrived and the beach in front of the park was chockas! Then the moon rose around 7pm and it reflected light back over the tidal flats at low tide giving the stairway effect. My photos are shocking, but you get that

After that it was a few more beers, chatting with my fellow riders Jim and Lesley and Kati on the right

On the other side of the fence next to the tents was the park where a market was being held in conjunction with the Stairway, I went and bought some Kebabs for dinner, they also had music but it packed up around 8.30pm

We ended up chatting and drinking until around 10 or so and we were joined by Brian again. Once again I offered ear plugs but he refused, I was getting up early anyway 🙂

Day – 85km
Trip – 8274km
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