CLARE TO PORT AUGUSTA

CLARE TO PORT AUGUSTA
(Clare to Spalding, Spalding to Laura, Laura to Melrose, Melrose to Port Augusta)

11th March to 15th March 2016

Long weekend in March, my birthday weekend, camping out and riding for four days all rolled into one - How Exciting.

https://www.strava.com/activities/518331721
https://www.strava.com/activities/518331752
https://www.strava.com/activities/549076250
https://www.strava.com/activities/517333369


We headed off on Friday 10th March and dropped a car off at Clare and then drove to Spalding where we stayed in the local pub for the first two nights. A very old country pub that had cold beer and a good feed plus a comfy bed. It was also a museum for barb wire, yep had all sorts, shapes and sizes of barb wire and fencing wire displayed in the hall way. The first night was quite warm and the mossies pretty annoying so we shut the window and slept with the air-conditioner noisily running all night.
Come Saturday morning we were up before dawn and headed off in the car about 10km north of Spalding where we parked the car and started our ride back towards Clare. This going backwards/wrong way deal felt really weird but it was all we could do to cover the km's we needed to cover over this weekend. About 500m down the road we came across a guy and his bike who had ridden from Arkaroola and was heading home to Currency Creek. He had made himself a wild camp and had a billy bubbling away on his little fire. 

Some of the locals

We stopped and had a good yarn to him which was amazing as he was a wealth of knowledge as he had done many bike packing trips before. We continued on our way and of course rode back through Spalding where the town was buzzing with people, as it was their annual town garage sale. Bargains everywhere!!! We stopped at the local coffee shop, had a pretty nice coffee, a few of the locals wanted to meet us as the fat bikes are always quite an attraction.  We then got back on the bikes and continued on our way to Clare. Riding out of Spalding we passed the most beautiful old railway bridge over the Broughton River. It would be awesome to see this one day turned into a continuation of the Riesling Trial....fingers crossed. At the completion of the ride we then dropped a car at Laura in preparation for the next days ride.

The punishing climb up into the "Never Never Range"

Sunday morning we ventured out again before dawn and started just north of Spalding and headed towards Laura. Our ride started with a beautiful sunrise, 2 km's of bitumen and then a big, tough, dirt climb to the Never Never Range. Once at the top we found a picturesque spot to stop and have breakfast. Here we sat on a fallen log looking west over the range where you could see clearly a hand picked stone wall that seemed to go for miles.
 The continuation of this section was through beautiful private property, the bundaleer forest,  that then led to a really long down hill run into Laura. About 10-15km before Laura we rode past the old Manatoo School House. We love these old buildings and constantly dream about buying them and doing them up. Such a waste seeing them slowly deteriorate out in the harsh open elements. This school house was actually in amazing condition. The stone work just looked like new. It was built in 1920 and was closed in 1927. Here it stood out in the middle of no where, with absolutely nothing else around it or even close by. We sat quietly on the front step and enjoyed our morning tea while imagining what it would have been like being a school teacher here with the corner fire burning away, warming the room for the handful of children sitting in their seats who all must have ridden their ponies to school or got dropped off in a horse and cart. Back on the bikes and a fast run into Laura for a Golden North Icecream.















Monday came and it was my birthday. What a great way to spend the day riding my bike from Melrose back to Laura. It was a tough climb out of Melrose on beautiful red gum studded rolling hills. Once again we rode out early and stopped after the first hour for breakfast. This time our breakfast view was one of the top Red Angus studs of the region. Paddocks were green and cattle were happy and fat. Dave had third day blues and was struggling a little, but for me my legs felt good and strong. We had a combination of fire road and single track that made a fun day in the saddle. How could we not buy another Golden North Icecream when we rode back into town.




Mary's new GoPro

The beautiful riding of the Southern Flinders

Tuesday, the excitement of  our last leg before the big trip actually begins. We rode out of Melrose on the rail trail, crossed the main road at the end and tried to ride the scratchings of a new trail that is in the process of being developed. It was pretty rough and after 5km of hard slogging it, we jumped back on the main drag and road the bitumen into Wilmington. We found the local Cafe open and stopped for a good coffee and ate our breakfast. We then headed out on the Horrocks Highway to tackle the infamous Horrocks Pass. We detoured to the lookout to take the photo and cruised over the other side of the pass then taking the Old Wilmington Road into Stirling North. This road was dead straight, very long with a slight decline. No trees for shade, sun shining strongly and the surface was as rough as the cobbles on the Paris-Roubaix, thankfully smoothed out by our fat tyres. Stirling North was the end of our preparation stage. Just a small town situated on the outskirts of Port Augusta.