DAY 7: Bush camp to Nannup

44km @ 13.7 km/hr
After my traumatic night I awoke at 0630 and got packing right away - not wanting to hang around to be available for more unagreed blood donations. Soon after I got started the gently rolling terrain turned a bit nastier with steeper drops and climbs - mostly 'jump-ups' (where the road drops to cross a river and then climbs steeply up again). Some of these were up to 1 km in length and some must have been 20% slope.
I was feeling a little empty due to having had no breakfast but asured myself that Nannup - and a huge breakfast - was not far away. Well, the hills became more frequent and steeper and it seemed to be taking ages - which it was. Down to 13.5 km/hr average again. There were only about 3 houses between the bush camp and Nannup, so it really is remote, more so than anywhere in Scotland.
Today was nice and sunny but pretty hot too, and I was relieved to roll into, well, labour up a last 2 km hill to, Nannup. I was pretty tired and went straight to one of about 6 cafes in town (althougfh it is only a small place). Nannup is real cosy 'old' Australia. None of your modern town centre developments here, it's old and charming. I plonked down at the cafe and ordered a mega-breakfast to put back the 1000 calorie deficit from this mornings efforts. I got chatting to a lawyer and his wife from Perth who were here for a few days break - I am struck by how friendly the Australians are - when you meet someone new they invariably ask what I am doing and where I'm going, and they are very easy conversationalists. That's nice when travelling alone, in fact I reckon you get more of this when alone, a couple may not appear to be quite as accessible.
TH caravan park is just opposite and looks very cosy - hopefully a good sleep tonight.
It was only noon so I could catch up on housekeeping - throwing some stuff away that I did not need; laundry (unfortunately I put soap powder in the drier, put the money in and switched it on before I recognised it's true identity and had to go and beg a wet cloth to clean it up); bought half a bottle of wine for tonight (my first in Oz this time) and got to the Telecentre to type this up. I had in fact typed most of yesterdays post up in the tent last night so just had to upload from the SD card in the PDA.
I have photos to post but for some reason Blogger is not allowing me to upload grrr!