It’s not quite as straight as 313, but stage 314 is another candidate for the top ten of the most tedious stages of the tour to date. Not only does it have a lot of straight roads, but quite of lot of it is (slightly) uphill too.
The rollout is at the south eastern end of the clearing that separates the Dundas Nature Reserve from the Ngadju Indigenous Protected area to the north of the Great Australian Bight, fifty miles inland from the coast. The direction is initially south east but within a mile it swings left to pick up an east/north east trajectory for the rest of the stage: as the road takes the bend, it passes by the remote Balladonia Station Airport on its right hand side. The first couple of miles are gently down and up, and there’s a junction to Balladonia Station on the left soon after the airport.
As far as civilisation goes, that’s it for the stage: two miles in and there are no communities or townships for the remainder of the stage: just long straight roads and plenty of red dirt for company on either side.
The Eyre Highway descends briefly at four miles before immediately regaining its original elevation. Thereafter it’s lumpy to the kite at halfway and it’s at that point that the gradient starts to assume an upward feel for long periods. It’s never steep, but it’s sufficiently ‘there’ to make the straight road feel like a bit of a slog if you don’t have a wheel to follow.
There’s the luxury of a short right/left/right loop at seven miles, but from that point on the road is straight all the way to the finish sixteen miles to the east. The finish itself comes just after the highway picks up the northern edge of the Ngadju Protected Area once more, which forms the backdrop to stage 315.
Distance: 23 miles / 37 kilometres
Ascent: 266 feet / 81 metres
RGT Magic Road: EeCiFS8OjfxK
Max elevation: 378 ft
Min elevation: 317 ft
Total climbing: 266 ft
Total descent: -237 ft
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