Day 109 Route Kingston to Beachport
It rained during the night and it was cold, wet and miserable with a strong breeze from the south in the morning, so I waited until 9.30 to see what the weather was going to do before making a move. It did clear up a bit and the tent dried out so I decided to go – straight into the teeth of a 35km/h head wind, getting 17-19km/h in TURBO 7, which combination surprisingly resulted in the adequate range of 90km.
The scenery is pleasant too, except for all those annoying signs everywhere declaring the area to be off-limits for gas extraction. It reminded me of all those “nuclear-free zone” signs you used to see in the 80s – whatever happened to them? I guess someone realised nuclear medicine is actually very beneficial. The blue sign below wasn’t annoying – just humorous: a marketing idea that didn’t go anywhere, perhaps?
Robe: its a gem of a place, much better than Kingston – why didn’t I stay here last night? Four caravan parks to choose from, but I just settled for a 3-hour stopover to charge up the batteries down at the marina, using the two power outlets behind the Fisherman’s Memorial – very convenient – while having a (very ordinary) chicken schnitzel burger and chips ($15) at the Marina Café. One of the charger leads must have fallen off pretty much as soon as I’d started charging though, as only the one battery charged.
Then it was a real ball heart-breaker, heading directly into the teeth of that strengthening southerly again. I tried to keep in TOUR 7at 19km/h for long stretches to eke out the batteries, but they still expired 20km before Beachport anyway and I had to sit at a rest stop for 1½-hour in the howling wind while they recharged on the generator.
Beachport is also lovely (though not as nice as Robe!) and I stayed at a nice caravan park on the ocean beach. I had a beer at the pub, which was lively at 8 o’clock on a Friday night, and then it was back to the camp kitchen for pasta salad and a KitKat while working on this blog. I was in the groove and wanted to work on longer, but the kitchen has no doors and it was freezing cold.
I mean, just what were they thinking of!! – A brand spanking new building with deliberate wind funnels built into the centre of the northern and southern sides (the prevailing wind directions) – stops it getting smelly in summer, I presumed, but the owner told me next morning it was because of fire regulations, because of the gas BBQ inside. There’d other design solutions I’m sure.
