Because of the epic ride yesterday we were about 400k's ahead of schedule. It was our intention today to follow the original plan and head north to do a loop through Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, back through Norseman and then do the 230k's or so to Esperance for the night. However, after riding the last 6 days through a heatwave culminating in our near 1100k ride yesterday through heat, thunder, ligthning, smashing bird and roo and dodging bushfires, quite frankly we were knackered.
So we decided to take our time and head straight to Esperance for an easy day. Today was cooler and as we travelled the road to Esperance, while there wasn't that much to see but towns with funny names (Salmon Gums and Grass Patch) and there wasn't any really exciting riding, it was just what we needed. Mindless tourism. Today I also realised how much I like my Highway Pegs. It was decided less comfortable over distance not being able to stretch my legs out, or in this case stretching them out on an odd angle because of the roo damaged crash bar.
We arrived at Esperance around lunchtime and despite being pre check-in time our room was ready so we set about washing every item of clothing we had, some of which was on it's second wear cycle. While that happened we watched some TV and just relaxed. I also found an area we could wash our bikes in the morning and located a hose I could "move" for the occasion.
All cleaned up it was time to find some food and some coffee. A nearby Tea House overlooking the bay was recommended so off we went on foot. What started out as coffee and cake turned in to coffee, cake, beer, gin, dinner and 4 or five hours of taking the piss out of each other and reviewing the ride to date. Once again we were extremely lucky in the food department, excellent fare! The waitress did get a little put off when I tried to order the macadamia stuffed ferret, it wasn't on the menu and she thought I had called her feral. It took a while for us to stop laughing and to convince her we did't think she was a dingo.
On the way out we had an incident with the restaurant's cat, that was just a little to uppity for it's boots. Walking back to the Hotel Heffy was having a D & M with his beloved Krittie while I serenaded her with some Bon Jovi in the background. Krittie thought I might have been Michael Buble!
Back at the Motel, we soon crashed and burned. We had been thankful for the cooler weather and werelooking forward to the short 400k or so ride to Albany tomorrow.