Looking at today’s weather forecast it was going to continue much as yesterday finished, 40 km/ h winds. Undeterred we packed up and left at 7.30 am.

Salmon Gums general store, they do sell food, we ate all the pies though

As soon as we turned on to the Norseman Road There was our first road train of the day, a bad sign of things to come you may think but no how wrong you would be, in fact that was the only lorry we saw today.

Progress was slow, the wind hindering any thought of rapid movement. It proved to be a toil for 20 km as we passed through open farmland. It was noticeable that the fields we now a brown clay colour instead of the sandy white we had been so used to seeing, it is amazing what a little rain does.

Wet and very windy day

After 20 km there was a sign “Entering the Great Western Forest” and everything changed, it’s greatness managed to deflect a lot of the wind and suddenly 16 km/h was a reality, there was still the occasional gust to remind us it was still there. The forest continued to protect us for the rest of today’s cycling.

At 48 km we turned off the road on to a disused metal pit, it is a lot better than it sounds. The area would have been used to store ore in the past so was a large flat area, now disused nature has taken it back to a certain extent but still leaving nice flat areas to camp.

However all the campers who have stopped here over the years still cannot manage to take their rubbish home with them.

Tin can alley

We had an extra 6 litres of water (which has a mass of how much?) as there is nothing here except flat ground.

Our nice very private campsite

Cooking tonight produced braised beef, tomato and noodles although the word cooking could be replaced by reheated or even warmed up. It did taste very nice though.

There is now nothing else go do apart from sit in the tent listening to the wind whistling through the trees and the very occasional pitter patter of rain, a nice position to be in.

Hopefully it will clear up a little by tomorrow, we shall see.