Day 9 Fortesque River to Nanutarra 163 kms

Woke this morning to a grumpy old camp site. No-one seemed happy or enthusiastic about riding anywhere today. None of them could identify the reason for the lack of enthusiasm. I felt it may be due to the fact that yesterday had been such a breezy day and today may not be quite so easy for them. Anyway they all got out on the road, even poor old Annie who was sounding worse than ever.
There were lots of wild flowers along the road today but not much else.

We were following the Parry Range and part of the Hammersley Range. There were large varieties of the flowers and I managed to get Collis to stop so I could photograph some. I was supposed to ride today but after seeing the grumpy group I decided to spend the day in the van and lucky I did as the road was the roughest ever today and everyone ended up with the sorest bottoms and shoulders.
At the end of morning tea Mark found his first puncture for the day. He ended up with three flat tyres but all on the front wheel and it took a while to find the cause of the flats. Left Mark a long way behind the rest of the group as he had to repair some punctures before he could move on. We were going to have lunch down by the Cane River but the group couldn't be bothered to ride down the track to the river so it was just on the side of the road. Once they all left, we went back to find Mark and give him lunch.

We found him down by a lovely little creek which had a small amount of water in it and made a lovely setting for his lunch. Everyone was into camp by 3 pm and they all cheered up quickly once showered and fed. Ben fell off to sleep in a chair in the roadhouse and tended to look tired most of the evening. I hope he isn't coming down with Annie's cold next. Mark was still out on the road and we weren't expecting him until 5 pm.
The roadhouse was really expensive with Annie paying $15.00 for an ice cream, a biscuit and a small orange juice. Mark got in around 6 pm and he, Woody and Georg had dinner at the roadhouse whereas the rest of us ate in camp. We managed to find the time tonight to have a nice chat around the dinner table.
2 young French backpackers and an Irish boy were camping with us on the nice green grass although we had to move the car off the grass. One car snuck into the camp with their lights off and parked just near us so I decided it was probably wise to lock everything up for the night.