Riding in Hay – Emus, Eagles and Ewww.

Just a quick ride report from a 36km spin I did at Hay on Monday afternoon.

I knew the Hay Plains were flat, but 17m of climbing in 36kms is probably a record for me. It was quite hot, and I had been driving for 8 hours, so I just wanted a short blast to get the body moving. Heading west on the road to Maude, I was going into a fairly stiff breeze. On the way out I was traveling for a short time on a road I thought deserved a photo.

I then rode for a while, past the Murrumbigee River to the South and to a spot with a sign as seen below.

I was getting low on water, and what was left was getting very warm, so with the wind in my back, I set off on the return journey.

Sitting on a nice speed, I looked out to the left and saw 2 emus running along parallel to me. I was doing nearly 40kph and they didn’t seem to be struggling to keep up. I did consider stopping for a photo, but realised they would have been specks in the distance.

I pushed on. At one point I looked over my shoulder to see if I could see any cars coming up behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted an eagle just over my right shoulder. I looked again and he seemed to be following me. It was a very big bird, maybe a wedge tail. He was just gliding along behind me.

Whilst watching him, I reached into my back pocket for a Honey Shotz, a small portion of honey, to give me a lift. Whilst watching the eagle, I cracked it in half and squirted the honey down my throat. There was a few milliseconds of confusion, then the disgusting taste kicked in. I looked at the small package in my hand. Sunscreen! Holy melanoma Batman! I had a mouth full of sunscreen. Now, before you all jump up and down calling me a fool, check out this photo. (Edit : Also, I didnt realise I had grabbed the sunscreen, I thought I had 3 satchels of Honey)

There is a stuck match between them in size.

A coughing/vomitting fit ensued. Rinsing my mouth out with warm grape flavoured water didn’t help a great deal. I can still taste it 4 days later.

I carried on, the eagle still tailing me. About 4kms from town, I looked over my left shoulder just in time to see the eagle spearing towards the ground like a missile. I will admit, I rode off the road and into the gravel watching the eagle swoop down and grab a rather sizable lizard. Wow. I think he must have been following me waiting for an animal to be startled.

As he flew off into the distance, I rolled back to the motel and the first thing I did after plunging into the pool with my knicks on, was skull a few good mouth fulls of Fanta from the fridge.

Ride data is as follows.