In comparison to yesterday, the next two days would be long, monotonous and as boring as bat-shit. This piece of road was one that I had driven many times and I knew it would offer challenges for a cyclist.

The road itself was fine.

The first 12 kilometres out passed the airport was flat but then it becomes rolling hill after rolling hill.

Around me was dry, sun-baked Mallee stubble with a scattering of drought tolerant, widely spaced low growing trees was trying valiantly to cast even a modicum of shade.

In which it mostly failed!

Worst of all, I was no longer cycling alone.

Somewhere along the way, I had collected entourage of flies who were doing their buzzing best to get into my eyes, nose and mouth if it opened even slightly.

Their presence was unending and I began to wonder if it were the same 5,000 pesky drones staying with me for kilometre after kilometre or did they have a roster system?

Were they tapping out at regular intervals like wrestlers, to be replaced with a fresh flying menace?

My diary notes comment that “there was nothing difficult today but the many false hilltops with their unfulfilled promise of an easy descent became very wearing after a while”.

With no possibility of my reaching Renmark today and with no decent campsites discovered, as the sun was sinking beneath the horizon,  I selected a freshly dug section of dusty track alongside an underground cable on which to set up camp.

Wanting to escape the unrelenting flies, it was a hasty operation and as soon as I could, I slipped into the claustrophobic heat of the tent, and being to tired to cook a meal, ate another “breakfast” and lay sweltering for two hours before finally going to sleep, having vowed to buy a fly net when I got home.

Today the heat and flies had taken their toll!