A good feed of Chinese . What else ? A snooze and at 11pm we headed out to the starting line avoiding the traffic jam by pushing our way to the front . The backup vehicles were left to their own devices . From here we had to zig zag our way climbing 2,600 metres in elevation up the face of a very steep valley for 30km to Nyalum .
The night was clear with a full moon , which helped as the Enfield headlights were just enough . We passed by road workers sleeping where they worked by the side of the road in tents made with plastic sheets . The dirt road varied from undulations to thick mud and minor creek crossings . It started to get very cold as we climbed . There was more than one ‘ off ‘ by Steven , who we had nicknamed “ Dudley ” ( as in Wild Hogs ), before we got to the top and arrived at our lodgings for the night . It was 2am , it had taken us three hours to do just 30km and it was impossible to tell what colour our bikes were ! We had a hot tea and cleaned our clothes while waiting for the backup vehicles .
It was freezing during the night however , local doonas do the trick . Nobody had trouble sleeping and sunrise was at 9am , followed by breakfast .
We had to have a rest day to acclimatise and avoid altitude
TRAVERSE 25