Despite the fact that the Australian leg of Around The World is now well over halfway from Perth to Adelaide, the Nullarbor Plain still hangs over the route like a bad smell, offering nothing but rough dry scrub and dirt on either side of the highway, and virtually nothing by way of civilisation. However stage 333 does offer something by way of progress because it’s a stage in which the trajectory of the road changes direction to hog the coastline some five miles to the south, as the Great Australian Bight starts to head south east towards Nundroo.
333 is also a stage with virtually no flat road. The rollout is uphill for two miles before a descent drops you back down to the same elevation as you started, and all before three miles have passed. Then it’s uphill to five miles after which there’s a lumpy flat right hander in the middle of two straight sections of road. The flatness ends at ten miles with a short sharp climb that’s followed by four miles of lumpy descent to fifteen miles where two separate dirt roads head north to join the old Eyre Highway in the Nullarbor Regional Reserve.
From fifteen miles there’s a consistently sharp and lumpy five mile climb to the final bend of the stage, a right hander at twenty miles: that’s the site of a short steep descent which then becomes an even more steep testing climb to twenty two miles, and the highest elevation of the stage at three hundred and forty feet. You’ll be pleased to know, however, that that’s the end of the climbing, and that the last two miles are steeply downhill for a fast run in to the finish in the Middle of Nowhere.
Distance: 24 miles / 38 kilometres
Ascent: 502 feet / 153 metres
RGT Magic Road: Cd8SKFMPsUmZ
Max elevation: 341 ft
Min elevation: 191 ft
Total climbing: 502 ft
Total descent: -421 ft
You must log in to post a comment.