It soon became apparent once we took the right turn onto the Birdsville Track that we had another day of headwinds. The first 20 km were rolled out okay, but the combination of the headwinds and track conditions that varied from deep bulldust/sand to bone-jarring rock slowed us back a few notches from what we had previously experienced.
Terry, Brian & Harry passed us around 10 am just in time to see the bike train (riding four in line to limit the headwind) ride into a deep and long patch of sand. Dom shot off one way, Pete in a different direction and Ric in a hard skewing left turn. Andrew came to a sliding halt and then toppled off into the sand. No major injuries were reported, and indeed a few kms down the track Ric managed the same impressive feat - the sand monster continues his work!
The boys rode on rendezvousing with the troopie at about 40 km from Mungerannie. We topped up with water, and dried fruit and pushed on.
At this point Ric really began to have a bad day at the office. Nothing really went wrong, but Ric was hanging onto the back of the guys and just had nothing more to give.
When we rolled into our bush camp with 230 km to go to Birdsville, the boys rejoiced in having our "rest day" breakfast of bacon & egg rolls at 2pm. Fortunately Alan & Julie had picked a beaut spot under one of the few trees in the Simpson desert. We lazed around for the remainder of the afternoon trying to keep out of the sun and away from the ants.
Distance today 80km. Time 4:53.
Grand total 770 km
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