In the early hours of the morning I heard rain, when it was time to get up it was still raining. Great! It’s always fun trying to pack up in the rain. We haven’t had any serious rain like this since Mother’s Day in Nambour, and it’s still really cold.

Tony pulled the trailer right up beside the camp kitchen so that he could spread thing out in the dry to pack everything in the right order. There’s a real art in getting all the stuff we carry into the trailer. Someone we were camped next to once likened our trailer to Doctor Who’s Tardis. I think of it like Mary Poppin’s bag, more and more things just keep coming out of it.

It wasn’t a pleasant day for riding; it was probably about 10° and pouring down with rain. We had nearly 400km ahead of us and were hoping that the weather would fine up as we travelled north towards Wave Rock. We rode through the Stirling Ranges and the clouds were right down to the ground, and the wind and rain were bitterly cold.

We stopped at The Lily an authentic Dutch Windmill, it’s an imposing site and can be seen from a kilometre or two away. They do tours of the windmill which is used to produce wholemeal flour that is sold in the restaurant, but the next tour wasn’t until 12pm. The restaurant is an ex railway station that was dismantled and reassembled here. We had a cup of tea to try and warm up.

After taking some photos we headed off, the rain had stopped but thunder, lightning and the wind continued.

We stopped off at a roadhouse for petrol where we met a guy who’s been travelling on a BMW, doing a lot of off road travel. He told us he’d had a few troubles with deep sand at a couple of places, a bit of a worry when you drop the bike and you’re on your own.

The further north we went the finer the weather was. We passed lots of wheat properties, most of it yet to be harvested. There were also lots of salt pans and lakes; we passed another pink lake and also a lime green lake.

We refuelled again at Hyden, 4km from Wave Rock; we can take off early tomorrow without worrying about having to get petrol. The weather by now was hot and we were steaming under our wet weather gear.

When we arrived at Wave Rock camp ground someone yelled out to us “No bikers allowed in here!” It was Jack, who we’d met along with his wife, Kath, at Carnarvon. While we set up the soggy tent, Jack went and made us a billy of tea, a very nice gesture, much appreciated.

18km from Wave Rock is a cave, Mulka’s Cave. We thought if we went and had a look at that first then we wouldn’t have to go out again, as the camp ground is right by Wave Rock.

There’s an Aboriginal legend that a giant named Mulka lived in the cave, he used to eat children. There are cave paintings in Mulka’s Cave, including handprints high up on the roof of the cave.

We stopped off at Hippos Yawn before heading back to the campground, we probably could have walked, but we realised that once we’d already ridden there, we were out and about anyway.

Wave Rock is a lot smaller than I had imagined. There’s only a small section where you can get a photo that doesn’t include trees and other parts of the landscape. I think tomorrow morning will be better for photos; the sun should be at a better angle to light it then.