I left Midura heading East along the A20 and was not very impressed with the lack of shoulder and volume of traffic even though it was early on a Sunday morning. A glance in my left mirror showed a spoke extending from the wheel which needed attention so pulled over and after extensive searching for my spoke key and removing every bit of gear from the bike to search for it I resigned myself to using the crescent. No spokes were broken but at least two had stripped the threads out of the nipples so did my best to tweak things up and carried on for 5km then checked to find that most of the spokes had now come loose 🙁
The continued hammering that this wheel gets from hanging off the edge of the seal is taking its toll.
As I had only traveled ~30km from Midura the only sensible option was to head back there and perhaps find a bike shop open on a Sunday. Got WIFI just out of town and discovered a shop open until 1pm so rattled (gently) in to see if they would look at it. Long story short – $15 and an hour later it was repaired.

Some quiet cogitation and I decided that continuing East was not pleasant, a slow explore up the Murray to Echuca was far more enticing after the long days I have ridden for quite some time but for today I would find another motor camp and chill out. The Palms seemed a reasonable bet so headed there to find it was perfect – cheap and quiet with great facilities so am staying 2 nights. Shouted myself a Falafel Souvlaki followed by some Pain au Chocolate’s in town just because…

The spoke key appeared as I was setting my camp up 😉