We woke up a little earlier than usual, our mistake as the lights from the toilet block looked exactly like the sun had already started to rise. The result was we left at 7.30 am.

This was our grass patch last night

Impressive fruit on this palm tree

As forecast the wind strength increased considerably from yesterday. Up to 45 kph, but we still managed to plod along, albeit a struggling plod.

As yesterday the road was not really very busy only the very occasional truck, but I suspect that once the autumn harvest begins there would be a huge increase in commercial traffic.

The terrain continued where it left off yesterday, massive fields interspersed with areas of scrubland.

We passed a number of the salt lakes, one being particularly impressive with its layer of salt over the clay sand lake bed.

Salty

Only 30 km to cycle today in this wind, then we arrived at Salmon Gums, a very small town with a gas station (just for you PE teachers this is a petrol station) and a small post office / basic shop.

The site is excellent, nice clean showers and a basic cooking facility. We even had time today to hand wash socks and cycle shorts.

As the afternoon drew on the wind got stronger and more blustery, there were huge clouds of dust whipped up from the dirt tracks and fields that blew through the site coating everything with a light brown crust.

Then it rained for 20 mins, by rained I mean torrential downpour, combined with the wind did not do our tent any favours. Eventually it passed leaving a spectacular rainbow.

There is gold just over the horizon

While all this has been going on, there have been 2 major fires spreading towards Albany, the very strong winds moving it forwards quickly. Also if you have been following the posts, around the bauxite mines near Collie there has just been an impenetrable cloud of dust you would not want to drive through let along cycle.

By 5.30 pm it is dark and the wind has calmed down quite a lot. All is well at the end of the day.