Day 8 - Narrabri to Ashford NSW 200km
Today: 200km
Total: 1683km
Two days to go!
Today was much the same as yesterday but with some brutal climbs thrown in, 40k gravel road and a fall by the anchor man!
Up again at 5:30 but this time no drive to the start but we decided to head out early and put as many miles in as possible to reduce the distance over the last two days.
Last night we changed the route as we found a back road that cut 60k off the journey and kept us away from the stream of trucks. Unfortunately we didn’t count on that road being a dirt road.
The morning ride had us rolling along nicely until team leader noted at our 25k foot down test that we were about to turn east. But isn’t that where the wind is coming from? Bugger. Isn’t that also a range of hills out east? Yep. Oh well it’s another lovely sunny day.
The hills we followed by 70k of more undulating land typical of yesterday.
Then we hit gravel. One of us literally. The anchor man doesn’t do gravel, not on a road bike anyway. He lasted 8k on the 40k stretch before falling off slowly in front of an oncoming wide body tractor. At least the farm hand stopped to make sure the injured man was ok. Sam of course was long gone skipping over the ruts and rocks like they weren’t even there. How does he do that?
He was however cooked by the time he reached Ashford and suffering a puncture bought him to a stop for the day. Andy had already called up the sag wagon so all ended sort of well.
Our stay is at the Inverell Motel which is 42k back down the road. Another early start tomorrow.
