Tag Archives: roads

Day 194 – Rural life

Exchange trucks for potholes

Today, we made it almost all the way off the main tourist trail and poked our noses into rural Cambodia. The ride from Kampong Cham to Kratie was pretty short, only 130 km. We decided to take a bit of a back road – the lowest category that is still sealed. The turn off came about 40 km in. There was almost no traffic on this road, a real plus, and we finally saw the return of turns. On the other hand, for the first time really (other than the dirt roads) we also saw the return of potholes.

Other road users…

The houses here are simpler, a good bunch of them still traditional wood – all built on stilts and many with carved stairwells leading up to the first floor. Oh, and a brief return of mosques. The minority of the Cham practice a local variety of Sunni Islam.

Hitting the Mekong once more (there will be many more times traveling up Laos) instilled us with awe once more. The Mekong is truly mighty, even in the dry. It almost feels like an elongated lake rather than a flowing water. A short while later we checked in to our guest house – with river views, of course. The room was huge and still quite cheap. The only downside was that we had to lug all our stuff up three flights of stairs all the way to the “rooftop”.

Lazy and still a bit cooked from the road, we gave the guesthouse lunch a try. Which was – moderately edible. The oddest thing of all, though, was that we both had to change our order after half an hour because they apparently ran out of rice. To be honest, I would not have thought that possible to happen in a country where “eating” literally translates to “eating rice”.

I like that the river fronts are still accessible for the public. Best sunset spots ever

Later that night we went out to enjoy another majestic river sunset. The red orb sank right at the opposite side of the river and we had front row seats on the city’s long promenade. We went to one of the lonely planet recommendations for dinner, but for once it was rather forgettable and we hurried back to the guesthouse. With a last beer / Baileys on the rocks, we finished up a blog entry and retreated to our room. Not much, really, but a nice and well rounded day on the road.

: Crossing the Mekong in the morning. Our hotel was the one next to the tower 😉

: The Old French lighthouse on the other side of the Mekong

: Exchange trucks for potholes

: Detour over dirt. The normal road was a construction site

: The detour had some interesting bridges like this wooden one

: Other road users…

: Lovely rural scenes left and right

: Sunset over the Mekong

: I like that the river fronts are still accessible for the public. Best sunset spots ever

: Gym class on the footpath. All you need are speakers with really loud music and an enthusiastic crowd

Day 84 – Road. Works?

I am not sure why I mostly enjoyed myself on the road today. On paper, there was really not much reason for it. Maybe it was going well prepared, or the lighter bike, or just that the worst pain from the sunburn has worn off. The goal for the day was simple enough: Head 106km into the mountains and be there early enough to have a good long rest for a nightly hike up Tatamailau.

This is one of the better bits, no stopping at the bad ones

The first obstacle was an easy but annoying challenge to get through morning rush hour Dili. To get to the foot of the road going south into the mountains, we had to pretty much go through the city centre. Sweating but unscratched, we arrived at challenge number two: The entire first 800m climb is currently an 8 km long road works. Don’t get me, roads are in dire need of works, but they remain in full use while being torn to shreds.

The seal is gone where they work on the roads, leaving a talcum like dust with rocks strewn in between in its place. All is constantly churned up by the lorries and busses going along, seldom compacted and moderately slippery. That is until it is combined with water – then it becomes a soap-like mud. To keep the dust down somewhat, the road is of course watered. To add some fun to this mudslide, the road itself is an obstacle course of workers, concrete, building materials, lorries, houses, people, gaping holes and a good dose of pure anarchy. At least, everyone is reasonably polite about it.

Somewhere along the road

The mountain road from here to within 20 km of Maubisse allows for great views (and gaping drops) but is of moderate to bad state, with the seal gone from 5-10% of the surface in ever changing pot hole and gap patterns. With little traffic it is mostly an exercise in “find the continuous seal” slalom, but every so often one has to come off the seal, 5-10 cm drops included, and then “bump-bump” back on again.

Before Maubisse, there are another 20 km of road works. These feature much the same, but somewhat less chaotic, which is appreciated. Even the dirt and gravel surface seems mostly compacted, except in the corners where the lorries made a powder of it again. In Maubisse (70 km from Dili) we stopped for lunch at a guest house and restaurant next to a big old church / nunnery. The food was good, affordable and they even got me good strong coffee at the end.

The last 50 km would take us another 2.5 hrs. First along the inter-district road south, again much the same as the road to Maubisse, maybe a bit worse. Here, on a steeper section where the seal has been washed out I stalled the bike going over a boulder and we dropped it, sliding a bit downhill afterwards. Nothing much happened, but I am thinking about reinforcing the Touratech pannier mounts where they bent a little.

Everyting shakes.

The final obstacle of the day was another cracker. Turning off the main road, we would go up the mountains to a village / valley called Hato Builico. 18 km on a side road. In its defence, the road was not in too much disrepair – it just has always been terrible to begin with. Basically the entire length, it is a cobble stone road made up from about fist sized jagged rocks. Even with some air let out of the tires, going over 20 km/h would have shaken us and the bike to pieces. So we went, 18 km in first gear up the mountain, over passes 2120m high. My only worry was the clutch at some points, getting used extensively when even 1^st gear was too much.

And thus we arrived, at 3pm, after a day of riding. To give you a little perspective on the roads: In New Zealand, our average speed in motion was 72km/h, in Australia it was 85 km/h (both including gravel sections). In Timor-Leste, it has been 32 km/h!

We booked into a guest house at the foot of the mountain we are keen to climb. Ronaldo, called Aldo, the 12 year old son of the shopkeeper was our English interpreter. We got a room, a very basic dinner and a guide for tomorrow. Mountain here we come!

: This is one of the better bits, no stopping at the bad ones

: That is Dili’s waterfront in the back

: Somewhere along the road

: Clearly not made for such malae giants like me 😉

: good food, friendly staff and coffee!

: Bigger structures are usually build by: The Portuguese, the Indonesian administration or the Church

: One of many pleasant views from the road.

: The cobblestone starts beyond that pass.

: A lot of traditional buildings like this along the road to Hato Builico

: A cookie to get over the constant rattle

: Everyting shakes.

: Everything rattles

: Flag over the police station. 3 things to find almost everywhere: power, reception and flags!

: Eyes on the prize the evening before.

: The “center” is mostly for the market. People live dotted across the hillside.

: A lot of horses, here in front of an old Portuguese era mansion.

: Dear Aldo, our translator and supposed guide playing with friends

: Fingers crossed there will be no cloud tomorrow!

Day 40 – into the red

Graaaveeeelll!

Today marks the first day of the most adventurous part of our Australia section of the route. We left Wilpena heading north to go via Blinman, Marree, Wilams Creek to Coober Pedy to meet the Stuart Highway. This means we will do a good section of the Oodnadatta track, which is hundereds of kilometers of gravel through the outback.

We got the first taste of gravel on one of the beautiful tracks in the Flinders Range national park. We turned off the black top road towards Blinman to take some pictures at the Bunyeroo valley lookout. We could have gone further through the valley, but I wanted to tag some more lookouts on the Blinman road (and there would be plenty of gravel soon enough), so we turned around.

Another lookout

Stokes Hill lookout gave a nice wide panorama of Ikara from the east. After that, it was another brief push for a good long lunch at Blinman Cafe. The temperatures, around 29°C, called for drastic measures: Ice cream for dessert 🙂 We got some queer look when asked where we were heading and we pointed north. The tarmac ends at Blinman, and most people turn around here.

We took the gravel road east through the Glass Gorge and Parachilna Gorge to meet the the Hawker Leigh Creek road. The gravel was mostly OK, a bit bumpy in the probably 50 stream crossings (all dry but one). Nina still got shaken around a fair bit.

Into the dead flat red nothing …

As we came out of the hills the land switched to dead flat. We cruised out the rest of the tarmac on our way north for a camp at Lyndhurst Hotel. Truckies, beer cans and flat nothing. Small downer: A road train with an entire cow herd pulled up just after 6 – thanks for the smell, mate!

All of tomorrow will be gravel – shake it baby!