Today we have 55 miles to cycle unless we get desperate (we are always desperate) and stop midway at a very run down motel. As there was a “continential” breakfast supplied we picked up some cakes! fruit and a cup of tea before we left (they do like a sweet cake or donut to start the day here). Then it was onto highway 60 which we follow all today.

Goodbye Wickenburg

A short cycle to the centre of Wickenburg then a nice 10 miles of gentle upness starts. It was now 8.00 am and already 25°C. We cycled through a very dry landscape, I still love to see the Saguaro cactus (the one we all associate with a desert cactus) standing in all it’s glory, I know if you live here they are nothing special but they are just fabulous to us.

As we got higher the views of the hills and plains got better. Our favorite ruler person had been here and the road was straight heading west towards the coast. In this case 30 miles of straight. Much of the ride then proved to be a gradual down, you still needed to pedal though, there was no coasting. But we made good speed around 12 mph.

The road just goes on forever

After 25 miles we entered Aguila, a small town of 800. The very heavy Mexican influence was everywhere to be seen. Here we grabbed a cold drink and an icecream, which went down very well indeed (as well as very quickly). Around here the temperature hit its highest of 42°C, you could fry an egg on the bonnet (hood) of your car, if you had one, if not then the owner of the car is probably not very happy at the moment.

Around 20 more miles and we entered Wedon, this had the usual gas staion and grocery. Here was another cold drink stop (although you would have not have wanted to buy much else there, some shops do themselves no favours at all with the way they are maintained or not in this case).

Outside we were told by a passing man that god would bless us which is of course a nice thing.

We passed some pistachio trees and almod trees, and the fields grew alfalfa and melons. There was good water availability here.

A passing train

The final few miles we cycled next to the railway into Salome. This has a few more shops and it did have Voyager Haven RV park, a kind person we stopped randomly phoned ahead for us to check they took tents (many RV parks do not) and for $10 we got showers and a nice room to sit in with a fridge as well (very important in these temperatures). We were warned to watch out for snakes, it is their mating season and you do not want to tread on mating snakes!

A lovely shaded camp

The owner brought us a sample of a cake she had baked, we got talking about cakes and later she brought me a copy of her favourite recipes, the prune cake looks very nice (no really, I am being sincere here).

There are an awful lot of birds here, more than likely due to there being actual real trees and water here unlike the last 55 miles!

It is now getting dark and still 26°C, a warm night tonight.