Earlier start to beat the heat, and frankly I did not know what to expect. The Savannah Way is already pretty remote, though there is a route further up north, but I was told it’s pretty rough and with a lot of corrugation, so we opted for this one. The first section was still greenish, before it turned into proper dry, red, and dusty past Mt Surprise (not sure if the surprise is that I could not exactly see the mount…). Cows were grazing freely on the road, swapping from one side to the other, especially when I rode past them (“Oh f^ck! What was that??”) – they are probably a lot more used to road trains than cyclists!
Loads of signs to various natural features, waterfalls, gorges – and a lava park. Understandable, as the look and feel of the place is a bit Martian. It was so good though, especially when the road turned into a single bitumen strip with gravel on both sides. I had to get off a number of times to let various vehicles through, but the last 35 km or so were some of the best ones of the trip yet. There was a bit of a longer climb, but then an awesome descent across the vastness of this land which seems to go on forever. I had turned on the headphones and “Down Under” came on exactly on the descent. The best soundtrack for it.
In Georgetown, which is rather tiny, we are camped in a park which has a gazillion flying foxes all circling around and making the place quite stinky. Justin will likely elaborate on the why and what and how, but the chittering is loud and the smell is pungent. The people of the town are using all sorts of stratagems to make them go away, gas guns (Spike is terrified!), beeping from B-doubles, drums, cracking whips, smoke and more stuff like that, but the result is that they just move from one side of the town to the other. A bit of a losing battle…
At the moment, it’s very dry, but we are told that in a couple of months, the water will be sloshing, and no doubt turning all this dirt into mud. It’d be very interesting to see, though probably unpleasant. Crocodiles in the creeks too!
I changed the chain on the bike as it was getting quite noisy. I think this dry weather is going through the wax faster than I expected. Today was a good day.
Day 28 – Sunrise 
Day 28 – Cow on road! 
Day 28 – Mt Surprise 
Dy 28 – Car-eating cows 
Day 28 – Dirt! After Mt Surprise 
Day 28 – Wandering cows 
Day 28 – Single lane and dirt 
Day 28 – Einasleigh River 
Day 28 – Best descent! 
Day 28 – Mars landscape 
Day 28 – The Gulf Developmental Road 
Day 28 – Happy 
Day 28 – Red road 
Day 28 – More Mars, with scattered trees
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