We slept in today at Pimba as we planned for a short ride today. We left about 9am, said good-bye to Gwen Banneman before we rolled. She said that if she'd have thought of it she would have arranged for us to ride along with the bi-weekly mail run to the outlying stations today... too bad, that would have been fun!
We had just broken a sweat when we pulled into a rest area about 15km out Pimba and had a good chat with some guys that were headed up to do some dirt biking... they were impressed by the weight of our "pushbikes", and didn't think they'd want to swap rides.
We rode on to Lake Hart, our planned stopping point, and who should we see but Mary Taylor and Jazz5!! Its so odd to actually recognize a face when you're touring... and here she was sort of holding court with a few couples that were caravaning. She was delighted to see us, and said that she'd changed her itinerary - "every woman's right to change her mind", she said. Mary told us that she "knew" we'd be stopping into Lake Hart, and so she waited for us, what a gem!! We had a great chat amid millions of flies, and after a battery of hugs, Mary was off again in her little yellow Honda.
We decided to set up our tents on the shore of the lake, which is in fact a big salt flat. On the precarious path to the shore, I managed to swallow a fly and nearly lost control of the bike in addition to choking! ... I'm really regretting not buying a head net in Woomera! Anyway, we quickly set up our tents to escape the flies. I had a nap, but I'm still feeling queasy...and I'm dreading the inevitable urgent rush to the bushes later.
Later I got a nice fire going (w/out matches) and we all enjoyed the beautiful star show and the ambiance of the firelight.
