Day 6

Today is the first rest day. Most people have pottered about doing things like re-lubing bike chains (definitely needed after riding in the rain yesterday), cleaning bikes, doing laundry and other housekeeping tasks. (Laundry is done at a local caravan park using their laundry facilities.)

As for myself I've been fighting off a cold for the last couple of days, so as soon as we dropped into Norseman yesterday I went looking for a pharmacy to get some cold symptom relief. There is no pharmacy in Norseman! Got some bits and pieces from the supermarket, but not particularly useful. This morning I wasn't feeling crash hot - not helped by getting really cold yesterday morning. On checking with the Information Centre they confirmed that there is and never has been a pharmacy in Norseman. Seems odd, but there it is. What you do is you go to the newsagent! (Actually it is called Norseman News and Health) They have a basic selection of pharmacy items and I got what I want. Apparently if someone here wants a prescription filled they take it to the newsagent and it gets shipped off somewhere else (Coolgardie? Esperance?) to be made up and sent back. You get it back two days later. Don't know what happens for more urgent matters. By the way I feel much better this afternoon, so should be ready to roll on the first of our almost 200km days. On one or other of those long days many of us think we might overshoot for a few kilometres and return so as to make the 200km mark

This rest day dawned with a clear sky (and crisp temperatures). It didn't take long for cloud cover to appear. No rain around though. More significantly a good westerly has been blowing all day, so there is hope that we'll get the same tomorrow.