Waa! Waa! Waaaaaa! (Pause) Waa! Waa! WAAAAA! The black raven
called. I didn’t have a good
night sleep and was ready to be an avian murderer. The night before, I realised
that I had lost track of my days and forgot to cancel swimming for the children!
Pancakes and Nutella were for breakfast. It was a homemade
dry mix that only required eggs and water.
We drove to Blacks Gap on the Moralana Scenic Drive.
As soon as we approached it, I was pensive about the multiple undulations that
even our car struggled with. It was inappropriate for our family ride. We
abandoned this idea and drove to the rest area in the middle of Moralana Drive.
I cooked lunch of Maggi Asam Laksa noodles while
Kim prepared the bikes. A feral cat walked by. It wasn’t big but it strode with
an attitude. We formed a rock circle and ate in the shade. Perhaps that was the
purpose of Stonehenge?
To minimise Ella Mae’s struggle with the flies yesterday, I
found a stretchy tutu material in the car that I packed for the
“just-in-case-moments”. I wrapped it over her helmet and face. She looked
ridiculous but we didn’t care for fashion in this part of the world.
Moralana Scenic Drive was tough. The road was continuously
corrugated with additional slippery gravel and rocks of different sizes. It was
very different from driving through here. We passed about 5 cyclists. One of
them was pretty amazing. A lone cyclist, his dad was his support team whom met
him in designated areas.
Thomas was in front of me at one point, about 5 meters away.
At the corner of my eye, I saw an emu who appeared a little spooked. It had the
desire to cross the road. Behind him, were two more agitated emus. Thomas,
oblivious to my fear was riding into the impending emus’ path. I yelled,
“Emus!” I pedalled like a mad woman and stopped by him as the emus rushed across.
My heart was beating so fast and hard that I thought it was outside my body.
Ella Mae couldn’t get enough speed to maintain her balance and
fell off her bike quite often. One of the falls, she went over her handlebars
in slow motion as her front wheel hit a rock. The damage was only a little cut
on her arm. I had to be more patient with her and tried to understand that she
was having a difficult time. I explained that these rocks and slippery path
were like challenges in life. If they were standing in her way, she had to
persevere and push through. She asked me, “What happens if I cannot push
through and move forward?” “If that is the case, you go around the problem and
move on. This is the same with life’s problems.” At this point, I felt
enlightened by my own words and I hope she understand that this issue too will
pass.
Thomas was very tired by the time we returned to camp. He
was being quite mean to all of us. After dinner, we enjoyed the warmth of the fire
and watched out for shooting stars. Thomas corrected me and said that these
were in fact meteorites, not stars. Nevertheless we saw them, closed our eyes
and made wishes.
Dinner was soba noodles, sardines, tomatoes, sesame seeds
and dehydrated peas.
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