Ringo-Expedition Dust day 88

I woke up quite sore, feeling very reluctant to get out of my sleeping bags. One of the better benefits of it only being me out here is I have two sleeping bags to keep me warm! I looked out toward the first big sand dune. For me, this was the beginning of the French line track. I got my water boiling on the remnants of last nights fire. While I waited for my water to boil I got my grill tray from my bike and made some damper for my lunch. I was up about an hour before I normally would be so I could get on the bike a little earlier, hoping I could ride an hour longer while the sun wasn’t at it’s hottest. I poured my boiling water into my Radix and finished packing my bike bags with all my gear. While I was eating my breakfast, just before I set of I sparked up some incense, it’s something I do every day to get me in my flow. As I rode away from the camp I could feel the difference between the tracks, I knew this was going to be much harder to ride!

The first vehicles I came across nearly took me clean off my bike, about 12 motorbikes came zooming over the dunes in front of me. The last one stopped and told me what they were doing. They were all riding from east to west over 21 days, pretty much the same trip as me but using a slightly easier transportation method. The morning on the bike wasn’t the hardest thing i have had to do but it sure was tough. As the sun rose higher in the sky it got tougher, after about 1130 it was hot hard riding. The sand was so hot it burnt my feet making them red and itchy. I had to push on anything that wasn’t flat, I began to get worn out. I checked my distance at 1300 hours and had only moved 23km in 4 hours! I was going to be pushing in these sand dunes for longer than I would have liked... At my lunch spot I decided to rest for two hours to escape the hottest part of the day. As I lay under a tree an old sick dingo came and lay opposite me. It was the skinniest thing I have ever seen and could hardly lift its head, he was slowly dying from starvation and dehydration. I know all the signs say not to feed the dingos, but I’m a human and my emotions got involved. I made the dingo a Radix and gave it 700ml of my daily water allowance. As I rode away it tried to follow me having to stop every few meters to rest. As I reached the top of the first sand hill, I said goodbye to Ringo the dingo.

Over the afternoon my legs and shoulders became sore from pushing and dragging the now 50kg bike up the dunes, I was very tired. As the sun began to set and the moon started to rise I spotted Ben standing on top of the next dune. He had been dropped off and was waiting to take some photos and videos of a very tired Brando. He rode the last few km to the spot I wanted to camp. When I arrived the old blokes had made a plate of beans and sausages, I lit a fire and made my dinner and lunch for the following day. Ben and I were sitting around the fire and at about 2100 hours Ringo the Dingo came wandering into camp and started eating all the little scraps other campers had left behind. Ben and I couldn't believe it, the dingo had just traveled 23 km following me. I lay on the ground and the wild dog slowly approached me I held my hand out and he placed his wet nose on the end of my fingers as if to say thank you before he wandered off into the desert night.