Bike SA Annual Tour - Day 3

Parndana to Western Kangaroo Island - 22nd October 2013

We're alive!!  Hurrah!

We cautiously emerged from our tent this morning, expecting to find tent related carnage around us. Fortunately we didn't see any, though there were a number of stories relating to water getting into various tents, including Brett and Karen.  Unfortunately for them this seemed to add to their already too long list of things that became wet when they're prefer them to be dry.

Steam rising from the road,
ominous clouds in the background

Given all the rain, and various stories as to how bad the unsealed road had become, Miss V and I had reluctantly decided to take the sealed road option for today. A little disappointed since this was the one day that we had earmarked as being a definite unsealed day. However, I think in hindsight we made the right choice since I suspect that we would have struggled to enjoy ourselves battling the elements today.  As a bonus we were able to ride a bit more with Karen and Brett.

Todays route was a fairly simple one, with quite gentle gradients. the first 35 km or so being a gentle climb, and the ride finishing on a nice 25 km downhill stretch.

For all the disappointment that we felt in not taking on the unsealed route, I think I had a really good ride. I spent a fair amount of time tapping out a decent pace for Miss V, and the occasional hanger-on.  Despite the fast pace, we were still able to look around and enjoy the scenery, and stop to take a few photos.

Final section into Western KI

We rolled into western KI caravan park which was already a bit of a sloshy mess to try to find a site for the tent. So much so that one of the luggage trucks had already become bogged. We found what we thought might be a reasonable spot and set up. Things started going a little pear shaped when the winds came. Apparently 60+ km/h winds, if not more, were sufficient to illustrate the deficiencies in our tent set up. Suddenly our planned and hoped for rest stop was turning into a bit of a drama as our tent looked ready to collapse in on itself. Eventually, after a bit of messing about, we stabilised things but I think it took a lot more out of us than we'd have liked, and became a bit of a source of stress for the days that we were here.


Dinner tonight was provided by the local business Tucka on the Run, providing us with pumpkin soup, steak and fruit salad served in brandy snap cups. It's always very impressive how these smaller communities manage to put on such a good spread of food for so many people.

Wandering into the shower block I was fairly surprised to see a beady set of eyes staring at me from on top of the shower partition. Talk about value add, my very own possum butler in the shower!

Fortunately the winds appear to have died down, and is predicted to stay like that, so the hope is that we can get a calm and peaceful sleep tonight and a relaxing rest day...... fingers crossed.

Strava data