Day 14. Monday 13 March, 2023. Renmark to Waikerie

     Nb1:  This blog is being created by an AI chatbot (ChatGPT)

Nb2: Click on photos to enlarge.

Riders fuel up before the 80 km stage to Waikerie. 

The BlogMeister treated the group to breakfast in appreciation for all the tales of other riders’ missteps and misdeeds fed to him by riders keen to see those people named and shamed.  He is constantly amazed by this devious behaviour and even more so by the snide comments he is asked to include.  Needless to say, he will never be party to this sort of thing.

All ready to hit the road ...

..... not literally at this stage.

Antonio contemplating the day ahead and hoping against hope that he does not have any punctures.

The weather was perfect, the road was mostly flat and the breeze was from behind and across our shoulders all day as we rode to Waikerie.

As the picture shows, the town name comes from the indigenous word for the rain moth.  As it has been very dry here lately, there were no adult rain moths to be seen.

  Our overnight stay at the Waikerie Hotel/Motel,

thankfully in the ground-floor units.  We DON'T like carrying our bikes and bags upstairs!

Our rivals on the road

as the All Trails group set off for their destination.

It's highly unlikely they were as (dis)organised as us!

But once we got going we were pretty to watch.

Down but not out

Fifteen kms into today's ride down the busy Sturt Highway, as a right-hand turn approached with a slight slowing at the front of the group, there was a touch of wheels causing two bikes to go horizontal.  One suffered day-ending injuries in the form of a bent derailleur.  The riders were quickly up and the wonderful Nurse Sandrino assisted by her medic swung into action with her wipes and swabs and benadine and plasters and bandages and soon had them ready to go.......

.... while PubServ cries as he sees his chances of dishonour slipping away.

Chalkie was seen consoling PubServ (his other rival with Twinkletoes for the ‘Selfish Rider’s Award) and suggesting to him that he would probably suffer from delayed shock and would be better off hopping in the car.  PubServ was not falling for this amateurish attempt to force him out of the race to the bottom and declared he would soldier on.  UCI investigators were quickly on the scene but soon quashed any rumours that Chalkie’s hired assassins had orchestrated a ‘hit’ on PubServ, citing a complete lack of evidence.

Another 5km down the road and Antonio, aboard SASMan's bike, scored a puncture.  SASMan prefers to blow the tubes up himself 

rather than use a pump in order to keep his tonsils in perfect working order, but to no avail as a further 5 kms down the road the tyre punctured again.  The other bikes all waited patiently

 

as this time both tube and tyre were replaced.

Continuing on we arrived here

for morning tea

in the very pleasant 

hotel gardens.

Faybie went looking for the toilets but opened the wrong door and was surprised by the witch (on the right)

hiding in the broom cupboard

1956 was not a good time to be around here!

This article was on the wall of the hotel

and we hoped sincerely the landlord was no longer engaged in such nefarious practices.

Onwards then for another 34 kms to Waikerie.  The scenery was varied 

as we met the Murray River again and had to embark on a ferry to cross.

Certainly not the most glamorous looking of vessels but it got us over.

Waikerie is another town on the Silo Art Mural Trail and there were two fine examples on display,

Caught in the Act

Ms Tradie is caught snaffling a pile of salt and pepper sachets from a bar table at Renmark.

Come to think of it, she always has a pile of these and other goodies, (which bear a strong resemblance to the items provided free-of-charge in hotel and motel rooms all across the world),

for sale at every morning tea and lunch stop and sells items at the giveaway price of $1 a pop.  She has obviously taken a few lessons in how to rip off your fellow cyclists from The Tooleybuc Sandwich King.

. Her efforts, though, are slightly more altruistic as she donates 2c in every $500 she makes to her Parkinsons Disease Research Charity. So far this trip she has made enough to donate 6c. ( Ms Tradie was the Parkinson’s Disease Fundraiser of the year in 2022) and anyone wishing to make a donation can do so at Parkinson's Western Australia - News - Elizabeth Curtis’ year of fundraising (parkinsonswa.org.au). 

Following today's sermon from the Grand Pooh Bah, he favoured us with a short homily from the Holy Bible

along the lines of "Lord, if there be any justice in this world, smite down mine enemies being mine competitors for the Selfish Rider's (Mouldy Raspberry) Award and cast upon them numerous punctures, broken sprockets and incredibly painful sore butts to preventeth them from riding and do this bloody quickly as there be only three more days of riding to go. Amen"

Selfish Rider Award
Name	Kms ridden day	Total kms ridden	Name	Kms ridden day	Total kms ridden
Antonio	81	920	Ms Tradie	15	353
Chalkie	81	923	Ms Twinkletoes	81	720
Cockie	81	625	PubServ	81	923
Faybie	34	385	SASMan	0	478
Ganners	81	651	Twinkletoes	81	892
Kaybie	47	411

Helpful Driver Award
Name	Kms unridden day	Total kms unridden	Name	Kms unridden day	Total kms unridden
Antonio	0	3	Ms Tradie	66	554
Chalkie	0	0	Ms Twinkletoes	0	203
Cockie	0	298	PubServ	0	0
Faybie	47	491	SASMan	81	341
Ganners	0	272	Twinkletoes	0	31
Kaybie	32*	443
·         Includes agreed reduction according to formula.