After out lovely rest day in Helena we had a late start after eating far too much at the free breakfast.
We headed out at about 10am & it was already HOT!
The guide book had inferred that it would be a reality easy day , so much so that we had decided to do a day & a half riding.... when will we learn!
The book only mentioned a 12.8km gradual climb then a downhill which we did with ease... noticing along the way notices saying the campground was closed. We didn't stop to read the fine print until a little later when we did the notice was talking about the campground you are suppose to stay at @ the end of the day.
After the downhill hill we started to climb .. & we climbed some more & it was getting hotter in fact 40'c HOT!! (on Scott's watch), we stopped part way up to replenish our water bottles at a stream we have to filter all of our water so even that was hard work in the sun.
We had been stopped earlier by a car travelling in the opposite direction to tell us that they had just seen some Black Bears further up the road. Whilst Scott was filtering the water another car stopped to tell us that they had just spotted a baby Moose on the road about 150yards away & that mama moose would not be far away so to take care.
We pedaled on ringing our bells & calling out "Hey Bear" " Hey Moose" whilst climbing & frying.
The only wildlife we saw were several cows!!
We finally reached the nights designated camping area (the closed one). By this time we were both feeling a bit hard done by as the last 12km of solid climbing had not been mentioned in the book. So we headed into day 2 of the guide book which sounded relatively easy apart from a 4km stretch of rough & steep road. This time the book was accurate it was unrideable for the most part - extremely rocky where it was not sandy & really steep (even Scott had to push!) it took us 1 1/2hrs to cover about 5kms!!
Thankfully once we completed the climbing it really was all down hill for about 12km. This followed a really nice creek / canyon all the way to the weirdest town so far - Basin! ding -ding da ling ding (banjo's!).
We had forgotten to get cash in Helena & noticed a sign at the "Hotel" saying it had a ATM machine inside.
We went in (note, it is Friday night 6pm) & all 4 people at the bar & the Bar lady stopped turned around & stared! These goes those banjo's again if only we could hear them over the heavy rock music blaring...
As it turned out our card did not work so we left quietly & as quickly as we could hoping that the campsite accepted Visa.
Oh by the way into town - Scott's welcome to Basin was by getting his foot bitten by a Blue Heeler called Brownie (what the??) . We then stopped by a man who had just caught a little snake that was on the road. His daughter wanted to see it!!!!!!
1st off we should tell you that basin is a town where old cars go to die... & they are parked all over the main street - Incredible!
We asked a young guy for directions to the campsite his directions were as follows " head back down the main street to the big white church, turn right & you will notice a bunch of old car - Fords mainly .....blah blah blah... " Ford mainly - this cracked us up!
the campground was located at the Mary Widow Heath Mine this is a place people come to go down a old mine to enjoy the Radium gas - apparently helps pain? they also take bottles of the water to drink.
Saw some interesting people there, some Japanese ladies some Russian apparently & a group from Missouri, this last group were some type of Amish type religion, they were quite interested in what we were doing. 1 had even sleep in a tent once - before he was married - ha
Great thunder & lightening storms rolled in just as we got the tent & tarp up, we cooked/ showered & crashed whilst seeing the lightening through closed eyes - cool... it was very close!
DISTANCE: 68.9km
AVERAGE: 11.8km
RIDE TIME: 5.50hrs
ASCEND: 1520m
PUNCTURE: 1 - Scott
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