For once the side of the road was better than the middle but it wouldn't be long before I realised that Northern Territory has the worst roads in the country. It had been a quiet morning but in a minute the E wind picked up to 40 k/h later increasing to 50-60 k/h. So it was a hard 5 hour push to do 70k before lunch especially over the countless rolling hills though they sometimes protected me a bit from the wind...