During the rest day there was a lot of anxious consideration of the weather for today's ride. Earlier forecasts indicated a change coming through early that would turn the ugly winds of Friday to the SW which would be great. However forecasts later in the day indicated that the change would come through late in the afternoon. If that turned out to be the case, we could have a day like Friday, only 40km longer.
As it turned out the latter forecast was right and the change arrived at about 5pm. However the wind had shifted from the N-NNE around to more like NW and that was enough to change the complexion of things. That meant wind on a hind quarter for the whole distance except for about 10-15km after Darlington Point we were turned due North. A great day's riding with clear skies and good temperatures.
During the rest day Jim Blaxland went out in the car to scout a couple of alternative routes for the first part of the ride. The aim being to try and skip as much of the Sturt Highway as possible without making the route too much longer. This was done and we cut off 60km of Sturt Highway at the cost of only about 5km extra. Morning tea was on the Murrumbidgee at Carathool bridge. Lunch was beside the Murrumbidgee at Darlington Point (60km and 120km respectively)
Lowlight of the day occurred when one of our number (Mark) got a bee sting on the ear. A quick check to see the sting was out and he was under way. However a few km further on when we stopped for Edna's niece's husband Phil to join us for the run in to Leeton, Mark suddenly felt really crook and packed up his bike and got in the car. (He said later that it came on him so suddenly that if we hadn't stopped then he might well have fallen off and caused a prang.) A little later he vomited, so Eric took him straight off to the Leeton hospital (that's the 3rd time on this trip). Turns out he settled down OK. The hospital gave him Phenergan and he appears to be OK to ride tomorrow.
Picture is morning tea at Carathool beside the river (look carefully to see the river).
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