A day (and a bit) in the life of savannah cyclists

Thursday August 19
0430 Alarm goes off but I don't hear it
0520 Waken up by an engine starting- a miner who lives in this Mt Surprise caravan park heading to work. Scurry to pack and leave to escape the heat
0610 On the road! What bliss! The bike just hums along this flat savannah way. Pedalling seems almost perfunctory, like my bike has a will of its own drawing me ever westward.
0630 The sun is rising behind me, warming my back in a promise of the heat of the day to come
0640 We stop at a creek to watch a Jabiru legging wirily through the shallows, then ascend skyward and float skyward, a calligraphic question mark heading for the horizon.
0650 Ryan has a flat tyre. We declare it breakfast time ( soaked mueslie with figs, nuts, dates and the ever-present cinnamon)
0730 Try to leave. Ryan's bike (Walnut) refuses, revealing another hissing hole, and then two more.
0815 Ok! Tyre fixed, back on the road- we should still be able to get some good distance behind us before the day heats up too much.
0845 Walnut has another flat. Pull off the now single-lane highway into some paltry shade.
0915 Ryan still fixing and searching for holes and their sources. I help by taking photos.
0930 A car stops to say hello and out gets Tash, who I met on the sunshine coast- small world! Unfortunately not carrying any thorn-proof tyres.
0945 Eat half a packet of jatz out of boredom
1000 Back on the road! Getting warm.
1015 Another flat. Somehow still haven't heard Ryan swear. Examine tyres in fine detail and extract tiny but deadly thorns. Shade is getting shady, in the dodgy sense, not in the shielding-us-from-the-sun sense.
1100 Back on the road.
1130 Half an hour with no flats! Bringing us 30km since we left over 5 hours ago, to the sandy banks of the Einasleigh river. Stop for a 'swim' and decide to shelter here from the heat, as it's the best shade around
1230 Baked beans for lunch!
1300 Siesta time!
1315 What the hell are we doing here?
Confined to the languid midday shade, whiling away these stifling hours. I watch weebills flit from tree to tree. Australia's smallest bird, moving with freedom across that seems so daunting and vast to me, despite being hundreds of times bigger. Makes us clumsy humans luggan all sorts of paraphernalia merely to survive seem pretty comical.
1330 I sit on our only banana. Mix with peanut butter and declare it a new dessert- 'Platano plano'
1400 Did I mention it's hot?
1430 Try to leave but still too hot to move.
1530 Action! Not that it's cooled down noticably but hope to create some of our own wind. Sunglasses on as we head into the lowering sun. Given up on making it the 90km to Georgetown, but we should at least make it up the Newcastle Range, our last decent climb of the trip.
1630 An hour and no flats! Celebrate with peanuts.
1700 Start to climb the range
1715 Ryan gets a flat. We declare it a day and set up camp just off the road (actually quite a pleasant clearing, with ghostly termite mounds dancing politely around stately granite tors, and sweeping views back to the east)
1730 Ryan fixing flat (or 5 flats to be precise, bringing the days total to 11). I help by playing ukelele
1800 Too hot and tired to cook (still 32degrees we later find out), we eat sandwiches for dinner.
1900 Too hot for the tent, we flop onto our mattresses on the groundsheet, sheltered from the highway by a big friendly rock.
1901 SLEEP.
Friday August 20
0630 Wake to the spectrum of the rising sun
0700 Porridge!
0800 On the road, just hoping for no flats for the 30km into Georgetown, where we plan to wait till Ryan can get better tyres posted.
0815! Yes! Up the range, the bike just hums along, pedalling seems almost perfunctory, I am drawn magnetically westward, through glowing hills dotted with charismatic termite mounds and skeletal Kapok trees, passing handfuls of crayon yellow flowers to the sun. What bliss!

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Postscript: We cheated a little and got a bus from Georgetown to Croydon, an interesting historic goldtown in which to spend a weekend (it used to have 36 pubs!). Ryan's tyres should arrive today and then we'll be on the move again, this early summer weather is predicted to cool off at least slightly. Only one banana was harmed in the writing of this blog.