Easy ish day today, loads more off-road stuff, mostly dry gravel roads that just run for miles & miles. We had a bit of variety this morning heading up through some lovely rarely used lanes into forest land, this took us across the Mississippi, which is a seriously wide river at Helena, the little run down port town we went through on our way to Arkansas.
Once over the bridge & into Arkansas, which is flat! Very bloody flat, for as far as the eye can see, the only thing to break up the flatness in little stands of trees & water, lots of water, everywhere. I have to be honest I'm very glad we're coming through here in a dry spell, because you get the feeling this would be a bog infested hellhole in heavy rain.We encountered a couple of sections of water only today & they were nearly axle deep for the main one, the rest just went on for a fair distance. All the water is a dirty brown colour or covered in green algy, it's not very inviting at all.
Most of the lanes are built up above the water, some higher than others, we rode past a tractor cutting corn this afternoon & only the cab was visible above the corn & we were still higher that it, the 4x4 that was nearby we only saw because the sun glinted off its roof, (the only bit that was visible below us).
Its my turn to get a nail in the back tyre today, it didn't go in too far but it did give me a slow puncture, so that's one in both tyres now. We really do need to get the rear tyres replaced now, another 140+ mile day on mostly rough gravel has left the poor things looking ragged & the bikes covered in dust/dirt.I'll keep pumping them up until we get to Searcy tomorrow, apparently there is a good big bike shop there, so that will be our fix 'em up stop.
En route today we passed a place that was run by a little old guy called Percy Kale, he & his two mates try to get all of the TAT riders to stop by & sign his book, while we were there, 2 other guys appeared from nowhere ville to have a chat too, apparently the guy in the sawmill that we had passed earlier had called Percy, who then called his mates to come for a gossip. Magic!! We took the photo, had our picture taken for his 2014 photo album & then headed off again, with some good local info about bike shops & who else had passed through in the last week. Priceless these little things when your travelling.
After this we had some fab sand & gravel lanes to get us to Clarenden when we stayed in a motel run by a lovely old lady who offered us rags to clean the bikes & had a good ole chat with us about the local place & other riders. (J& M Motel, right on the TAT, $60 for two of us).
Dinner of a burger & chips then sort out some failing electronics, (Surprise, surprise!) & off to bed.
Another great day on two wheels!!
Once over the bridge & into Arkansas, which is flat! Very bloody flat, for as far as the eye can see, the only thing to break up the flatness in little stands of trees & water, lots of water, everywhere. I have to be honest I'm very glad we're coming through here in a dry spell, because you get the feeling this would be a bog infested hellhole in heavy rain.We encountered a couple of sections of water only today & they were nearly axle deep for the main one, the rest just went on for a fair distance. All the water is a dirty brown colour or covered in green algy, it's not very inviting at all.
Most of the lanes are built up above the water, some higher than others, we rode past a tractor cutting corn this afternoon & only the cab was visible above the corn & we were still higher that it, the 4x4 that was nearby we only saw because the sun glinted off its roof, (the only bit that was visible below us).
En route today we passed a place that was run by a little old guy called Percy Kale, he & his two mates try to get all of the TAT riders to stop by & sign his book, while we were there, 2 other guys appeared from nowhere ville to have a chat too, apparently the guy in the sawmill that we had passed earlier had called Percy, who then called his mates to come for a gossip. Magic!! We took the photo, had our picture taken for his 2014 photo album & then headed off again, with some good local info about bike shops & who else had passed through in the last week. Priceless these little things when your travelling.
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| Percy Kale & Geoff |
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| TAT stop, sign the book, get a free bottle of water! |
Dinner of a burger & chips then sort out some failing electronics, (Surprise, surprise!) & off to bed.
Another great day on two wheels!!
