DAY 42 31JULY MOUNTAIN CREEK TO ROPER BAR

A good 14km on,past Ngkurr (unseen on the north bank of the Roper River)  was the fabled caravan park of Tomato Island.  Hot showers, clean water, lawns. Filled our waterbottles and picked up Chris O’B who was still packing up. The bus in the photo was a commercial bicycle tour operator giving keen mountain bikers a taste of cycling out back roads.  Little did they guess what awaited them!

Then the road went to rubbish. The next 20km was by turns stoney and rough but rideable or corrugated and rough but mostly rideable. It was all dusty and sucked energy from us as we laboured along. The next 20km to Roper Bar got progressively better but by then we, and particularly me,were very tired.

Arrived, finally, at the Roper Bar caravan park about 16:30. I was so tired I could not untie my panniers so Christine and Brian had to get my gear off the bike so that we could get a further three kilometres to the Roper store before it shut.

Three kilometres of revolting badly corrugated road later we were at the store.

Chris O’B had arrived about two hours before. He had phoned Bruce to tell of our completing the horror stretch since Borroloola. Bruce stunned us all by shouting us a drink of our choice from the store (paid by phone and credit card). We all went for 1-2 litre bottles of milk/softdrink as was our want.  Bruce, thankyou! Very thoughtful and deeply appreciated.

I was still so bonked all I could do for nearly an hour was sit on a bench and drink softdrink (sugar hit) until I could think and talk again.

Brought sausages and some vegetables before heading back to camp. All in bed very soon after Brian and Christine had cooked the diner.