Across the Nullarbor: Day 2…

After yesterdays exertions, I needed another day just like it, like I needed a hole in the head…!!

But I was carrying a 1-nil lead into the second half of the game, and I planned to make it a 2 – 0 finish by the end of the day…!!

Esperance to Port Augusta – 1875 km in two days sounded like a splendid result to me…!!

I set course for Port Augusta, and at 6.30 am, I lit the afterburners...

I refueled, and left Border Village, riding into South Australia, and into the rising sun… I stopped at the Nullarbor Roadhouse, capital of “Nothing and Nowhere”, to draw some cash from the ATM, and chug down a bottle of water… There I met Kevin on his Honda Gold Wing, and Phil on his Yamaha FJR 1100… We would see each other later that same evening, at a place I did not expect to be sleeping at…

Kevin and Phil left together, while I took some photos, stretched my legs, and then with thirst quenched, tore after them a few minutes later…

I had just got up to my cruising speed of 120 km/h, when I saw two flocks of crows feeding on either side of the road… As I approached them, they lifted into the air as they usually do, and flew further off the verge… Then, inexplicably, a crow from the flock on my left banked sharply, and decided that he would rather join his mates on the opposite side of the road… It was the very last decision he ever made…!!

My view looking forward had undergone a rather dramatic change...!!

Not in the slightest bit amused...!!

There was no time to jink the Big Fella to avoid the bird… The crow smashed into my windshield, and cannoned into my left shoulder at 120 km/h…

The bike didn’t miss a beat…!! My heart missed a dozen or so…!!

The crow and the wind-deflector attached to the top of the windshield, disappeared behind me; and the broken part of the windshield hit me square in the face, mercifully with the flat face of it, and not the jagged edge…!!

I was riding with my visor up as I usually do, otherwise the broken piece of windshield would have bounced off and been lost…

It then fell down and lay trapped between my chest and the tank bag…

My left arm hung uselessly at my side, completely numbed by the impact…

My right arm had no idea what had happened to it’s partner, and kept the throttle open, taking us away from the scene, while my brain analysed what had just happened…

I looked down at my arm, still numb and hanging loosely at my side… At first I thought my collarbone might be broken, and I figured there was no point in stopping or slowing down, as I wasn’t sure I could stop the bike with one hand and keep it upright when it stalled…The next bit of civilization was the Nundroo Roadhouse, 148 km away, and I thought that it would be better to fall off the bike there, than out here in the middle of nowhere…

It took about five minutes before I could feel a tingling in my fingers, and then slowly, got some feeling back into my arm…

Not pretty, but it'll have to do I suppose...!!

I used my right Pinky finger to lock the throttle control at about 100 km/h, and then began massaging my left shoulder and upper arm with my right hand….

See…!! All that riding with no hands can come in very handy…!!(Pardon the pun…!!)

After ten minutes of prodding and rubbing, and having covered another 20 kilometres, I discovered that there were no broken bones, and managed to work enough “life” into my elbow and shoulder, to get my left hand back onto the steering…

It took only a moment for me to realise how lucky I had been, thank all the spirits above for keeping me on the bike, (and ask them to please bring life back into my left arm…!!) and within minutes, I began planning how to get a replacement screen…!! There was no point in dwelling on what had happened, no amount of negative thought would change the result…!!

I mentally counted off the number of people I would need to send emails to, and then got on with the more serious business of the ride…

I stopped at Nundroo to refuel, and stood gingerly massaging my shoulder, while the Big Fella drank deeply…

I think I met all twelve residents, and judging by the number of dead Wombats I began seeing on the edge of the road, the number of Wombats no longer stood at 2.5 million....!!

Steve, the manager of the roadhouse noticed my discomfort, and after hearing of my little incident, said,

“You sure it was a Crow…?? Crows are clever birds and almost always get out of the way… It’s very rare for even a car to hit a Crow…!!”

“It was a Crow alright… Black bastard, this big…!!” I replied holding out my hands to indicate that it was no sparrow that I had hit…

Steve then gave me a piece of “steel-tape” and a pair of shears, with which to try and patch the windshield… I did the best I could, and it held all the way to Ceduna, where I pulled over to add a few more pieces to strengthen it even further…

Whites Knob and Big Galah's...?? Intriguing....!!

This was the first place I had been able to pick up a cell phone signal since Norseman, 1200 km to the west…!! It would also be the last until I reached Port Augusta, another 470 km to the east… (Don’t get me started on Australia’s fourth-world telecom system again…!!)

I made a hurried call to South Africa, to wish my father a Happy Birthday, and woke the household up from deep slumber…!! I had forgotten that having crossed into South Australia, I had gained another two and a half hours on South Africa…!! 2.30 pm in Ceduna was 6.00 am in Margate…!!

(Sorry I woke you Dad…!! Hope you had a great day…!! Hang in there, we have lots to talk about when I get back…!!)

Back at the Nullarbor Roadhouse earlier that morning, Phil’s eyebrows had shot up when I mentioned I was aiming for Port Augusta…

“We’re going to try and make it to Kimba, about 160 km short of Port Augusta… Going any further will see you riding in the dark…!!” he had said before he and Kevin left…

The time I had wasted repairing the windshield and riding a bit slower than usual as a result of the wind now buffeting my upper body, made me reassess my situation… I punched “Kimba ” into Gi-Gi’s menu and saw that it was a further 320 km down the track…

Just outside Ceduna, I passed a guy who was pedaling his bicycle across the Nullarbor. This was not an unusual thing to see, but what WAS unusual, was the fact that he was wearing a Superman outfit….!! I kid you not….!!

I had seen a flash of red up ahead of me and thought it was a red bike… When I drew closer, I saw that it was actually the red cape of a superman outfit, streaming out behind the rider…!! I was so surprised that I did not think to stop and take a photo…!! The guy had his head down and was pedaling furiously…

Nutters abound in this part of the world…!!

Two and a half hours later, I pulled into the service station at Kimba, and saw Kevin standing at the door to the little restaurant attached to the motel there…

“We waited for you at Ceduna, wondering what had happened to you… Are you pushing on to Port Augusta…??” he asked with a frown…

“I would have made it for sure if it wasn’t for that…!!” I said pointing at the front end of the Big Fella…

While I told him about my ordeal, another rider of a 1200GS pulled up at the pumps… He whipped his helmet off and the first words out of his mouth were,

“You must be the guy that hit the crow…!!”

“How did you know..??” I asked…

“I stopped at Nundroo after you had left… People there were still talking about it…!!”

We chatted for a while and as the clocked ticked on, I decided to end the day’s ride there in Kimba…

Moments later, I checked into the motel and called it quits for the day… It had been eventful enough to call it “complete”…!!