Backtracking the Lasseter

Day 47

16 May 2009

Backtracking along the Lasseter Highway

105.82km

Total Riding Time: 6 hours 6minutes 16seconds

Since bread is such a sparse ‘commodity’ here…we figured all this bread would last us for about 2-2.5 days. Most bread here are sold frozen in the smaller grocery stores. The great thing about bread is it can be eaten rather quickly especially for lunches. No need to bring out the stoves etc…to cook. Some sort of can fish and tomatoes would help to make a reasonable sandwich.

An hour into our cycling along the highway we met the dutch couple. Seems like cycling is quite a normal lifestyle in Netherlands. They were very eager to hear about our cycling trip so far. It was good to have a drink and some morning tea with them along the pretty boring highway today. We showed them our bike setup and they showed us their camper van. It actually feels pretty homely and comfortable in the little compact van.

As you may have figured it out, there is only 1 highway leading into Uluru. It’s about 100km long.  Today we just spent the whole day backtracking the same route to get to the Kings Canyon turnoff which we hope we could reach by tomorrow morning.

During long days like these, your mind tends to wander. This stretch of highway is actually just pretty flat and straight. Lunch breaks and brief rest stops are the only thing we could look forward to on days like these.

Well at least we were able to encounter an emu crossing the roadhouse.

Also there is free camping here! Not such a monotonous day after all!. However when we arrived at this spot, it was only 4pm. Technically we can ride for about 3 more hours and cover more distances. We decided to pose with this sign and pedal on!

Outback has its own way of establishing the genders. Thank goodness for pictures….hahaha