Day 8
Thurs 13th Aug

I got up around 6.45am to a beautiful morning. I love the light at that time of the day, and the red dirt glowed as the sun shone through the trees.

I absolutely love the colour of the dirt here, and with the green on the trees and the big bright blue sky it was the perfect place to wake up for another day on (and off) the road.

It was a 50/50 split between country roads and dirt and gravel roads, which was quite good as far as getting into the swing of things goes. The dirt was easy to ride on apart from the odd pothole here and there, which I always seem to hit despite my best efforts to miss them.

The deeper gravel on the other hand was much more challenging. I soon discovered that cornering on gravel with the 90 is interesting. I told Ed that I was struggling with cornering as the bike kept sliding out, and he said ‘Which end?’ ‘Back end’ I replied. ‘Back end?’ he said, ‘Normally it’s the front end. ‘Well maybe it was the front end… actually I think it’s just the whole bike’. Ed then explained that you’d normally steer in to it and power through, but having only the former and none of the latter it would just have to be a case of teeter round and hope for the best.

The bikes snaked around on the gravel and you really had to concentrate, but it was satisfying navigating it and finally reaching another section of pavement. They, whoever they are, often say that you have to have the lows to appreciate the highs, and the same goes for pavement and challenging off-road riding. It can be a bit of a love hate relationship, as when you’re riding on gravel you’re wishing for pavement, but once you get back on to the pavement you’re wishing it was gravel again. The thing with gravel is you kind of need to let the bike do what it wants within reason, but reign it back in when needed. Despite our best efforts at holding on to the handlebars loosely we still managed to get a bit of forearm pump keeping the little bikes under control. We both managed to remain upright for the entire day though, despite a few major wobbles and me veering wildly off course at one point, due to a corner full of gullies and me managing to take the worst possible route, as always.

We were whizzing along at one point when Ed came to an abrupt stop in front of me; enter… sand. Thankfully it was only a very short section of it, but it gave us a glimpse of what it’ll be like when we get to the very sand sections; slow. With a whopping 8hp we just don’t have enough power to get through it easily, but with a slight change of gearing and our usual smiles and determination I reckon we’ll be ok. I mean, it’d be boring if it was easy now wouldn’t it?

So that was the day; hot southern sun, country roads, dirt roads, dirt and gravel roads, deeper gravel sections and the odd bit of sand thrown in for good measure. It was so dusty that I was absolutely covered by the end of the day, and had achieved by the end of it what we call in England an Essex tan, which is basically a very shit orange. Oh and I also got stung by the same bee three times. It went straight down my top and proceeded to sting me while I shouted ouch and help repeatedly until Ed came back to assist; extreme adventure right here folks 😉