Day 26 - Balranald to Hay
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2009
1
31
43
Trip End
Sep 18, 2009
Hay, New South Wales, Australia
Friday, September 11, 2009
And the landscape was flat and barren - the Hay Plains! No trees to speak of, and you could see the road trains and large trucks for 5 minutes in the distance before they went past.
It was dusty and quite hot - a real difference to the cool and cloudy days that we have had for many of the previous days.
All of us got sore backsides and were pooped by the time we got in at about 3.45pm. At one point, the food roadies (Robyn, Robert and Margaret) were quite worried as we took so long to get to the 100km mark for lunch - we were down to about 17 to 18kms/hour at that point and we had to stop more regularly for bum breaks and 'Gaza' stops (wee stops!).
We were all very pleased to get to Hay, and were very impressed by our accommodation - Claughtan House is a former boarding house for school kids for the surrounding farming areas. Sadly, there are not enough kids now, so it has closed and is now on the market.
We have bunk type beds (with a matress!), nice hot showers, a laundry and nice common room areas to relax.
Had tea at the local Bowling Club - chinese again, but it was very tasty.
Hay has got its local agricultural show on this weekend, and heard the fireworks later in the evening - we were all in bed by that time because we were all so tired!! My lower back, wrists, elbows and the palm of my right hand are all sore - the bitumen is very rough, and with the wind we probably rode a bit differently on our bikes, which used different muscles and joints. The poor bike sounds a bit rattly too.
Rest day again tomorrow - hopefully will fully recover before our ride to Leeton on Sunday - 163kms away.
