Lots of camping, lots of being outdoors, getting lots of exercise, have a massive challenge
to go and prepare for and then do.
There's definitely an instinct to just swim like a duck.
It's completely instinct.
Obviously, completely drone bagged up.
No!
Hello there.
Hi!
I think we've both lost quite a lot of blood today.
Not through anything untoward, just the mosquitoes.
Basically, we're camping in the middle of a dry river.
If you're watching this, it's a really stupid thing to do, so don't do it.
It's just been a huge amount of writing in the last week.
It's been a lot more fun than cycling on the step and it's quite relief really
to have managed to make this all worthwhile by doing this kind of stuff
It seems stupid at the time, but it's also brilliant fun.
This is a bit of a classic in the culinary repertoire of this particular journey, wouldn't you say?
It's a potent combination of instant noodles, Russian instant noodles.
Whatever the hell that is, it's got a picture of a cow on it and that's good enough for me.
And this, this is slightly more obvious because it actually says on it stewed beef in hot sauce.
All together it's going to be one hell of a dinner.
Come on, come on, have a look.
Get a little close up there.
Look at that chunk of meat, look at it.
That, after today this looks like a little slice of heaven.
Is that going to make you hallucinate later?
I don't know, I hope so.
That stuff gives me the craziest dreams.
This stuff gives Andrew the craziest dreams.
That is amazing, that is incredibly tasty.
Well done Tom, you're doing a great job there.
This meat is so succulent.
Shut up.
Why?
I'm not sure.
The scenery is grey but the mosquitos are completely destroying the whole experience.
They're even like, they're sitting on the mesh door of my tent now.
They can smell I'm in here but luckily there's no way in so...
Go away, I'm not invited.
Where's the wind when you need it?
Having said all that, today has been one of the most fun days, I think ever.
It's just because it's been such an unpredictable series of obstacles.
I'm going to put my gloves on.
We've basically taken a route which has gone down the dry riverbed.
We had absolutely no idea what the conditions were going to be like and we didn't know
that there was going to be a road and it turned out that there wasn't.
The last time we saw a human being was at least two days ago.
I'd like to say this was a struggle but I'm just used to it now.
It's just ridiculous back there though, it's like gigantic rocks.
But the bike just seems to keep going.
What that little line on the mount means is that if you really, really need to get through
then you probably could if you were stubborn enough.
Luckily we're stubborn enough and we've got through this far.
Today we've again trudged along the bottom of a riverbed all day.
About 20 kilometres in total distance.
At the end of the day we had a bit of a scare regarding the water situation
because we basically didn't have any water left and I went to get some water out of the river
and the river had completely and utterly disappeared.
Basically it came down to the decision that we had to go back and get some water from the river
the last time we saw it.
Tom said well first before anyone goes anywhere then I'm just going to go and check out this track
because we found this junction in the track down there
which is kind of heading the direction we wanted to go in.
Tom walked up it and by a stroke of luck he found a small sort of watering hole in a bog, a peat bog.
That's water that's almost boiled.
Once it's boiled for three minutes then it'll be good to drink.
From this point forth basically we're going to drink some water, we're going to get hydrated again.
We've had our dinner, we're going to put the tents up and camp, sleep for the night because it's getting late
and then tomorrow we're going to head to this town called Wretchen Humble
and follow this track which goes up somewhere up into this forest up here.
We're going to basically just go through the forest up the hill and try and find this fucking town
which is called Wretchen Hunger or something.
Even though the town exists there are like kitchen utensils and various bits of half-constructed furniture lying all over the place
and it's a bit eerie because it's as if someone basically was living here and then they started packing to leave
and then suddenly they just left without finishing their job.
There is one set of tire tracks going up this valley and several hundred thousand trees
and that's a little bit unnerving.
There's two vehicles going along that track down there, made us think that maybe since the bearing of this town
is basically directly over this hill here behind me, that if we went down there and went along that track
basically it might go round the hill in the same way that the track of the valley might go round the hill the other way
so it looks like maybe the way that the vans were going is the right way but we don't know
so we just got to get as much information as possible and then decide which way to go.
Common sense has prevailed over technology and we've located the town.
It's all coming together basically.
All that either of us can think of right now is getting in there and just stuffing our faces.
That fucking saw.
Oh, that fucking saw.
Oh, it's not a saw, it's a bit.
Oh, that fucking saw.
Oh, it's not a saw, it's a bit.
