After waking to a glorious sunrise, I left Miranda to her watercolour painting of the grape vines behind the Leasingham Caravan park and retraced some of the ride we did together yesterday down the rail trail or more correctly the ‘Riesling Trail’.

Yet again I was blessed with favorable winds and other conditions were good, however, on one particular slight downhill section while pedaling along well in excess of 50 km/hr, I noticed a large bulge in the bitumen looming very quickly. I managed to veer slightly so my wheels missed it, however I was not quick enough with the pedals and my right pedal clipped the top of the bulge, lifting both wheels off the road for an instant. On landing I was drifting precariously towards the left of the road and, resisting the temptation to brake, just managed to avoid falling off the edge, still at very high speed and with control restored I braked gently stopping briefly to regain my composure. It was a real heart in mouth moment.

Not long after this incident, the wind suddenly shifted to the west and increased in intensity so much that I found myself in the middle of a dust storm. A kind lady stopped and offered me a lift, however I said I would press on thinking that it would not get any worse. I was wrong, it did get worse to the point of almost zero visibility at times and the dust was clogging my nose and filling my mouth.

Another person, Garry, stopped in a van to offer a lift and this time I accepted, it was just too dangerous to continue on the road. He drove me about 5km towards Gawler where the dust cleared where I got out. I continued towards Adelaide into what had now become a serious headwind. There was quite a bit of evidence of the devastation reeked by the November / December bush fires and Garry felt they were also responsible for the dust as many hectares of forest and farmland had been razed.

I met Miranda in Adelaide at a lovely café named Rawsome just around the corner from our good friend Mal’s place where we were to spend the next three nights.

Mal cooked us a sumptuous dhal for dinner in his thermomix (the newer upgraded model) and we had a lovely evening catching up on each others happenings, mostly mountain climbing, since we last enjoyed an epic ride together a couple of years ago.