Got off to an at 8am start when the weather was cool and still for a lovely peaceful ride along the gravel North Parham Road back to the Princes Highway for the trip into Port Wakefield. I used my Camps Australia iPhone App (which shows free and low cost camping and wayside stops) to find a place for a short break away from the traffic. I was hoping to get to town early and have a relaxing afternoon.
After about 30kms, and 5kms out of Port Wakefield, I felt a strange wobble in the back wheel and could see the tyre coming off! so I retreated to the treed median strip in the middle of the dual lane highway and spread out my tarp where there was room to investigate. After removing a piece of wire from the tyre I inserted a new tube however when I pumped it up the tube bulged out the side of the tyre in one section. This was not a good sign and I discovered that the tyre beading was broken rendering the tyre useless. At this stage I was regretting that I had posted my off road tyres ahead to Port Lincoln to save weight, as now I had no spare, and had to push the bike into Port Wakefield where I already knew there was no bike shop. Mind you the SchWalbe Marathon tyres were meant to be high quality and had given me no trouble for the past 1000 km.
After arriving at the caravan park I called a sports store in Kadina where I was headed and found they could courier me a new tyre but I would have to spend 2 nights in Port Wakefield which was not my preference so I headed off around town to see if anyone (including the motor mechanics and the fish and chip shop), had an old 26" tyre to get me out of trouble. Port Wakefield is part roadhouse strip and part colonial buildings if you delve a bit further. One thing led to the next and I finally found myself at the Rising Sun Hotel (if all else fails go to the pub) where Graham (the bar tenders husband) offered to give me a tyre from an old bike at home so before long I was headed back to the caravan park to put it on.
Fell into bed after shower, clothes washing, fixing my puncture and cooking dinner.
