Ahh, Friday. Time to leave Darwin. The Symposium finished yesterday. A full report on it later. I'll call this "the day of the heat". Early morning departure from my very salubrious hotel (Darwin Central) - at 6am, I rode off into the dark suburbs. Even then, it was very hot. All I had under my leathers was a tee shirt and boxers but still very sweaty. And that was at 6am! And it was interesting that it takes me almost an hour to break camp after a night in the tent - it took exactly the same length of time to pack up from my hotel room.

But I had the bit between my teeth and just kept riding - until I got to Renner Springs, about 840 km - a very long day. I was pretty whacked and had a drink. a shower, and meal, before setting up the tent and collapsing into bed at 7:30pm.

Slept not terribly well - extreme noise at this campsite, trucks thundering past a few metres from my tent, and I think I must have the worst mattress (inflatable) and pillow (mini camping pillow) ever put together in one uncomfortable combination. But I woke up somewhat refreshed, at 4:30 am, ready to break camp, and set off on:

"The day of the wind". Dawn was beautiful and much cooler this morning - wore thermals and a light jumper under the gear - and it was fantastic to watch the dark sky turn pale orange and then pale blue, everything bathed in an early morning milky light, before finally taking on its bright central Australian hues of reds and greens under a fierce blue sky.

Then, as the sun got higher, the wind came up. Never ridden so far in wind like it. Buffeting me all over the road and fuel consumption was up by 20% since there was quite a strong headwind component in it. This was particularly unfortunate today because fuel on this part of the trip was nudging $1-70 at most places... through grotty roadhouse after grotty roadhouse. The best was Aileron, intriguing name, the worst was probably Barrow Creek but competition for that title was strong...

But I hung in there, with frequent stops for brekky, drinks, lunch, more drinks, etc, until finally arriving in Alice Springs - 740 km approximately. Just in time to check in to a motel and watch the Grand Final on their ginormous screen.

Will have a good rest tonight before pushing on tomorrow, the target being Coober Pedy. I am a day ahead of where I thought I would be by now. so that's good. The T-Max is proving to be a comfortable tourer, although longer legs (more cc's) would be better. It cruises OK at 110 kmh but it is something of an effort with this big load.