Wide Open – Day 33 – When it all lines up

25 June 2026 – 80 kms – Hazel Vale Station to Mutawintji National Park

Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, and Malyangapa Country

The sun is shining. The wind is at my side instead of in my face. The road is empty and travels through country invigorated by rain. The bike is built for this sort of road and eats up all the terrain that can be thrown at it. I feel strong and capable and excited for the landscape to come. It’s one of those days where all the external variables line up positively and you can’t imagine being anywhere else but on the bike. These sorts of days are few and far between on this ride, so I enjoy it while it lasts and take none of it for granted.

After 5 kms on the shoulderless highway riding into the sun glare, we turn off onto Waterbag Road. It will throw all sorts of stuff at us – dried and packed mud, sandy bits, sandhills, wet sand through a creek bed, big gravel, little gravel, packed clay, rutted and chopped up stuff with a definite line and smooth bits that ride like asphalt.

But we never see a soul for the 66 kms from the highway to the park boundary. I love days like this.

There are low depressions, some with water, as we make our way through a landscape made vibrant with rain. The tall ground vegetation, the trees and the occasional waterhole makes the scenery look like an African savannah instead of something semi-arid Oz. I guess this is Oz savannah.

It’s sunny, and I warm with the effort of riding, as we pass livestock grids and move from one sheep station to another. But I can see the bank of cloud on the horizon, and eventually, we ride into the fog.

Later, as it starts to lift, there are a zillion water droplets crowning the spears of grass making them look frosted and icy. Spider webs twinkle like lace necklaces on fences. As the fog breaks, we have views of the low ranges in the distance.

We ride a couple kms of of wet and sandy track through a low area before then climbing over soft and sandy dunes that require an easier gear, lots of spinning and bit of power and grunt. I do not put a foot down, though, so I feel good about building my riding skills on different terrain on this trip.

I get to a gate that has a sign on it suggesting it’s very sandy. I have a few questions about this, but seeing as how the living beings with legs out here include me, some emus and some kangaroos today, there’s no one to ask. We’ll just let the road unfold.

Maybe it’s sandy in summer? Because I never get to anything particularly hard. Oh, there’s a few sandy bits, but nothing that we haven’t already seen today. And some of it is hard-packed enough to ride fast – so much faster than that big diameter chipseal of yesterday.

Yes, I love all this varied terrain today. The bike is not a means to an end for me. I love the riding part of a bike tour as much as I love seeing new places and getting a better understanding of the forces that created the landscape. I love reading the road and finding the best line and getting better at tackling different types of terrain. It does this in a challenging way today, but not in such a way that I feel like I’m going to come unstuck. I’m out there in the middle of nowhere, no one really knows where I am and there’s no one coming along the road, but I never feel isolated or afraid. I’m just out for a ride.

There is one section just before a major creek where the creek has taken the road as an overflow route. That could be very boggy and sandy, but there is a ‘high road’ around it that is so well-used that it rides just as fast as everything else. All this stuff that’s ‘4WD only’ actually rides very, very fast once dry!

The six kilometres into the park, at the end of the Waterbag Road, are really shit, though, with tons of sandy corrugations. The wind happens to be in my face, as well. Ugh. But we just had 60 kms of absolutely blissful riding, so I’ll take six kays of shit in exchange for that.

I stop at the visitor information centre and read all of the interpretive material displayed. I use the wifi to grab the latest weather forecast. All okay. Then I ride down to the campground, rounding a long ridge with rounded rocks high above the road. My nerdy bit is getting excited.

The campground is open and weedy stuff that’s recently been mown with scattered acacia and red gum along Homestead Creek. There are scattered tables and fire rings – it’s an attractive setting. I find a really nice spot and get everything spread out to dry while I have something to eat.

After setting up the tent, I go do a bit of the western range walk with the remaining daylight. It traverses gently along a hill, following upturned rocks that create a long brown line leading up the hill. We then wander down and over a creek through some thorny bushes and then commence a climb right up along the sandstone ridge. We’re down in the shadows and climbing and clambering from rock to rock. This is good stuff. If this is an ‘easy’ trail, I can’t wait for the Grade 5 one. Maybe I’ve been hanging around the goats too much, but I’m excited for all the rock-hopping and weird angles required of legs and arms and ankles to get up into the ranges.

This bit reminds me a little bit of the Grampians, a little bit Front Range foothills (e.g. Bobcat Ridge), a little bit CO in general. I climb to a viewpoint and read my big arse geology pamphlet I ordered before the trip. The woman at the national parks office was very impressed I had this – she was going to give me a little condensed version when I said I was really into geology. The next few days should be so much fun!

The campground fills up to about seven groups. It is not crowded, and amazingly, everyone is either in campervans or tents. The caravan crowd is not here for whatever reason for my entire stay.

I go cook my rice and lentils sitting on a concrete pad on the back side of the bbqs. The people camping closest to me look like they are having all sorts of issues getting set up and sorted – as if this is their first time car camping. The woman comes over to check out the bbq. She asks me if it’s any good. I tell her, “I don’t know. I didn’t use the bbq, I just used the structure as a wind break. It’s good for that.” As I’m talking to her, I realise: Oh noooooo, please no, it’s the slightly obnoxious lady asking all the questions from the national parks office! She at least goes off to gather her cooking stuff and I escape back to my site before she returns.

Venus is massive in the sky as the sun sets. Jupiter and Mercury show up not long after, and that bright planet alignment is certainly eye-catching. I like how small it makes me feel – a little tiny human in the Quaternary Period looking at rocks from the Devonian, underneath light reflected from Jupiter 45 minutes ago, in a universe that is infinite. These are the nights I wish I had more of on this trip.

And the shandy water from the campground taps… best-tasting water of the whole trip!