DAY 10: Pemberton to Shannon River campsite

DAY 10: Pemberton to Shannon NP campsite
58 km @ 14.3 km/hr
slight headwind, 20 deg C

Awake at dawn (0540) and away at 0715. Earliest start yet but I hope I will get packing up and breakfast to under an hour. It was a little cool but a mostly clear sky despite the overnight rain. I headed out NE to meet Highway 1, rather than ride the longer way via Northcliffe. I had a faint hope that if I caught a tail wind I might make it the 115 km to Walpole in 1 day.
Lots of birds around again, Whip Birds, the ubiquitous Kookaburra, and magpies - 1 of the lattter attacked me a couple of times but didn’t make contact. Magpies are notorious for attacking cyclists during the nesting season.
The road in this area is hardly ever flat - up and down, up and down, sometimes steep but usually short climbs. Constant cries of birds and occasional smell / sight of dead 'roos.
Soon after noon I was in the Shannon NP so planned to have lunch at the campsite then maybe carry on and wild camp somewhere nearer to Walpole. However the forest setting of the campsite was so attractive that I decided to stop here for the day. Only $7.50 (3 pounds). Each site has it’s own table and ‘fireplace’, and logs are provided free. There’s no drinking water though there are showers / toilets. The forestry organisation here is CALM (Conservation and Land Management), and the site is managed by volunteers John and his wife.
There’s lots of wildlife around here, Kangaroos wandering about quite openly, and Currawong lurking ready to pounce on any unattended food - these birds are beautiful and make wonderful noises, but are a bit of a pest here it seems - John told me that one went aftersome food that a small girl was eating and managed to spear her straight through the cheek.
This place is really peaceful and I'm glad I stayed overnight.

NB/ having tyrouble uploading pics, probably because I have the camera set to high resolution, I'll have to see about resizing pics or changing camera settings.