Day 32: Kynuna

Day 32: Thursday August 11
I'm at Kynuna tonight, camped in the most basic of dongas, furniture falling apart, and stinking of damp. All for only $60. I'm wondering if I will need to use some of my precious Duct tape to patch up the door to keep the mozzies out.

It was a hard ride with strong head winds. You know the wind is strong when you are panting with exertion at 10 kilometres an hour on flat ground! I could barely get enough food into me.

I'm expecting the wind to continue-- there is no internet or phone to check the weather-- so I will be up at 4 a.m. There is a rest area 20 kilometres out, where I will grab a bite to eat, and then nothing for 50 kilometres; it will be a long day.

I rang Wendy reverse charge from the phone box. We've just found out that each time I've rung her reverse charge it has cost $19. Reverse charge is a fully automated process which takes a few seconds and must cost a couple of cents. And Telstra wonders why people hate them. Don't act like a bank, you tools!

I was attacked tonight by the most vicious magpie next to the pub. It would not stop until I got back under the veranda. I tried to facing him down but he had me corkscrewing around so much that I was giddy and nearly fell over. Incredible aerobatic skiils! I can hear him out there ambushing other people as the evening progresses!

There are lads working for the mines who have been boozing until 2 a.m. They woke me up (again) going to bed, so I ducked out to the toilets. "Bloody crazy. Fucking idiot." was their liquored opinion of me. It seems to me that there was more than a little fear in their despising; they were like Year 9 boys slagging what they don't understand. It's terribly sad; living out of dongas which are nothing but a tin box, nothing to do but drink, and narrowing horizons. They turn into the lost old men you see in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek, who look like nothing has changed in their life since the seventies.