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September 27, 2001
Overland Australia - Update 54
September 27, 2001
Day 66
10 kilometres west of Lajamanu Community
from Git
If you’ve been reading our updates from the last few days, you’ll know that we recently made a change in our daily routine. We used to wake up, ride (or slog through sand) for eight hours, then find a campsite around 3 p.m., write updates, have dinner, collapse into a heap on the ground somewhere, and call it a day. This schedule works fine if you’re living in, say, Cleveland, or Liverpool, or Nundle, Australia: anywhere except the desert. When, by ten o’clock in the morning, the air has already warmed to 98 (37) degrees, you’d rather eat Vegemite on Weetabix than sweat blood on a bike. After discussing and debating and worrying and planning, we’ve finally managed to put our new plan into action and test it out for a few days.
Our new routine is as follows:
4 a.m. leader for the day wakes up and begins breakfast (light the fire, boil the billy, make porridge, set out peanut butter, jam, damper, Weetabix)
4:30 a.m. leader wakes up the others
4:30-5 a.m. pack up tents/swags/sleeping bags and other personal items and put them in a pile to be loaded on the truck
5-5:30 a.m. enjoy a fabulous porridge and tea when Git’s cooking (or slice it out of the pan with a carving knife if Todd or Josh had a hand in it)
5:45 a.m. load computers, chairs, books, table, food, shovel, personal items, kitchenware, etc, etc, into the truck
6:15 a.m. cycle!
6:30 a.m. enjoy the sun rising on our backs
7 a.m. quick (theoretically anyway) 15 km stretch break
7:15-11 a.m. cycle, taking quick breaks every 15-20 km 11 set up afternoon camp (computers, table, chairs, “kitchen,” tarp for sitting/sleeping) in any shaded area we can find
11:30 a.m. strategy meeting (discussion of the day’s biking logistics; brainstorming for the day’s educational theme; assigning updates to be written) eat mid-morning snack of tea and damper, baked beans, and canned spaghetti
12-2 p.m. write updates, cook afternoon meal, clean what needs cleaning (Crister is not cleaned at this time), fix bikes and tires, nap if you’ve escaped chores 2-3 eat afternoon meal, continue tasks
3-4 p.m. finish tasks, clean up lunch, try to grab a nap
4-7 p.m. cycle again
7 p.m. find campsite, unload the truck, set up computers, chairs, tents, and kitchen, again gather firewood, have second strategy meeting, make evening meal, eat it, clean it up get things ready for the next day: fill water bottles, prepare cycling snacks, repair tires
10-11 p.m. go to sleep
The new schedule saves some sweat and sanity. Occasionally we’ve had to alter our planned routine. Today, for example, we were hard-pressed to find shade alongside the road for our afternoon camp. Since we’re on aboriginal land and are not allowed to trespass by straying too far from the main roads (see geography update), we had to continue cycling until we found a campsite for the night. The new schedule is a great addition to our routine: as we found out today, we’re now prepared for several logistical contingencies.
As of today we’ll be posting a few Aboriginal place-names for you to enjoy each day. As you can see from today’s offerings, they are quite colourful in their English form and more often than not linked by origin to the land and/or people.
COOMALWANGRA: Talking possums
WARDIYALLOCK: Running water
GULLINGARI: To fall from a height
Our educational theme for today is Aboriginal Rights -
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Posted on September 27, 2001 2:40 PM