Kimba, major accomplishment on top of more personal accomplishments than I can count. Kimba is the half way point crossing Australia. I’ve ridden all the kilometers from Perth so far, even though I had a major confidence hit back the day we attempted a “camp out” in WA in the Nullarbor. Roughly speaking, we’ve ridden 2200 kilometers from our start on August 1st and arriving in Kimba on August 18th.
We all had a great dinner in Minnipa, and the accommodations were very comfortable, so I got a good sleep before our Kimba day. Having had a rest day in Smoky Bay only 2 days before certainly helped as well.
We got up in good spirits in Minnipa and prepped a huge breaky courtesy of our Airbnb host, Fiona. A breakfast like that made me tempted to take a few morning hours off, but no, out the door and back to the bike, Kimba calling.
The day was nice, off at our usual about 7:30 after meeting our host, Fiona. We gathered a bunch of fresh oranges off the backyard tree and off we went. The morning passed with our usual hour or so breaks for a bit of food and to drop some clothing layers as the sun warmed us a bit. We started in the normal 17 degrees C and by about 80 k into the ride after making a left turn towards Kimba, we stopped and assessed the weather conditions. No more sun, grey, overcast, cooling and what looked like rain clouds. Off we rode but staying closely aware of changing conditions. Scotty was the first to pull off a few k down the road and we talked and decided to start layering up again, rain jackets, booties, not that they really helped much as they were water repellant not water proof. Our blue nitrile covid gloves were back on again as well. Perfect timing as we started riding and got attacked by a deluge of rain that lasted about 25 k. So much for warmer, sunny conditions.
We made it to Kimba; I was chilled and shivering. Another 140 kilometers done and for those interested in tracking effort, 324 TSS (Training Stress Score, a way to track how hard one exercise event impacts the body) on top of the 350 TSS effort getting to Minnipa the day before. As a comparison, winter of 2024, I average about 200 TSS for a week so in two days I did the same as about 3 weeks of MN winter training.
The halfway point is the site of a tourist stop with the Big Galah statue and a huge sign stating the obvious, “Halfway Across…” The afternoon we arrived, we tried to get a bunch of pictures, we had to ride past our hotel and down the road a bit to get to the site and then phones, cameras, fingers, whatever, we could not get pictures done. We were shivering cold from the rain storm. We just gave up on pictures and headed to the hot showers.
The motel room was tiny, barely room for the three single beds but the shower was hot, and I was finally warmed again. Time for a feed.
Off to the local pub and larger hotel in Kimba, that was a bit deserted. Remember this is 2022, so the effects of Covid were still playing out in Australia. All the rules, restrictions and safe guards were changing daily so not a lot of desire for people to gather at pubs and restaurants. One beer to start the meal, “Cheers Mate”, another hearty feed and time to wind down. We walked around inside the lodging, fun to look and learn and then a quick drive back the 5-6 blocks to the tiny motel room and started prepping for tomorrow and getting set for bed.
Pillows over everyone’s heads to keep the snoring at bay, good night.
Pictures you asked. No video until after Adelaide, sorry, soon. See the link below to get to some fun picture memories.
As always, click the link below to get to pictures or go to MENU, top right of the Home Page and scroll down to Minnipa to Kimba link.
Such an amazing adventure