George goes to Gidgegannup

This post may be fairly delirious in spots, due to two reasons: I am incredibly tired, and there are children running around with solo highs.

In case you were wondering, George (our mascot taped the the trailer. He has one new comment to say every day) had this to say today. And I quote "It could be the scotch, but you sure do look good in that shirt". He's a bit of a character. I would explain but I've had some complaints that some of you are getting a little confused with these posts. Fantastic, I said, until it was pointed out later that this was apparently a 'bad' thing. So here we go; one moderately sensible blog post. And yes, this does count as selling out.

Pain. So much pain. Think of the worst pain you've ever had. It probably wasn't as painful as that. But it still hurt a bit. A 53km day turned into close to 70km of walking, including an uphill stretch of 28km walked along a dirt shoulder. Party time (that actually means walking, I hope you're still with me. normally I don't do these explanations) commenced at 4am, and finished around 7.30 pm. Yes, James Moore, that is a very long time to be walking. As George and I reminisced later "We made it to Gidgegannup, but at what cost?" Leigh and I knew the first day would be tough, expecially with the task of walking out of Perth. We had no idea it would be THIS tough. Basically at the moment we are licking our wounds, as well as each others.

Gidgegannup is a quaint little town. I'm pretty sure it's the same as all the other quaint little towns though. To be honest I haven't even been in it yet... amongst the many people that pulled over to talk to us during the day, two told us there was a festival happening on the outskirts of Gidgy, and that we should camp there. So... we are. I'm too tired to explain it, but it's at the football grounds, theres some sort of music act, and I tried to high five someone earlier. Or at least I wish I did. Speaking of which, people are ridiculously nice here. Everyone has been giving us advice and offering to help us out. They all seem quite impressed with what we are doing, and almost all of them keep warning us about the desert.

And now to some lesser seriousness as I'm way too tired for this seriousness. We had a puncture today. Well, I had a puncture. It almost sounds like a birth when you write it like that. It should be added then that we walked past a family birthing centre today, which sparked a fierce argument; is it a place for you to birth an entire family, or for your entire family to birth together? I voted for the latter, while Leigh maintained that it was for people to birth different family members at different ages all at the same time. But the puncture. What happened as far as Leigh will tell anyone is that I screwed a screw into the tyre when I was trying to turn stace the mace (my trailer) into a vehicle out of Mad Max. He has since banned me from touching any of his tools, and for the rest of the trip I am only allowed to refer to round objects in the third person.

Also, 30 cars honked at us today. Exactly 30. Ah and we witnessed a car accident at a petrol station right in front of us. A guy backed into another car, and straight away got out and yelled at the other person saying it was their fault. He said
"How was I supposed to see you there? I was reversing."
" You should have looked"
"Listen you #@!$ I was too busy reversing, I didn't have time to look."

And finally, for Tolstory and Brian, we had a run in with road pirates today, although they appeared friendly. They were two guys on a harley davidson, who stopped to chat to us and tell us about the nullarbor. They hold little hope for us. Great guys.

Leigh and I are extremely sore and tired, but hopefully we will still have the energy to make it to Baker's Hill tomorrow. It's supposed to be 34km but, after today, who knows. I am actually very worried that this trip is getting out of control in terms of distances. But.... it's only been a day. The first week is training anyway right?

Lots of love to my amazingly incredible Granny (I am eating and drinking plenty of food and water, and so far no waterholes. Also have a photo to send you of the two of us with Geoff) and the family. And of course, a massive manta ray hug to Beccy D.

From the Gidge,

James