Flatland

Three things have of note have happened in the last two days. Firstly, we turned right. Secondly we got wet in the rain. Thirdly, we stopped in Tim Hortons for hot chocolate.

The plains are 1,000km of grassland and prairies, stretching thousands of kilometres to our north and south. Highway one is a taut and shimmering line connecting the infinitely distant horizons between which we slip. To see one landscape here is to see them all, and to pass over them gives an impression of being stuck in space; the only indication of time is the sun passing over our heads. Everything would be still if it weren't for the ambient truck noise, occasionally crescendoing into a maelstrom of dust and an intense but brief tailwind before it's passed, and we return to our comatose state of pedalling and waiting for something - a hill, a building, a tree, a thought, or another kilometre.

The only thing to punctuate this endless repetition is our conversation. Brief small talk and sarcastic, even caustic comments about our journey make the day a little brighter, and by sharing the hardship, it seems to dissipate. There is nothing to do but pedal and eat. One stop every few dozen kilometres to stuff a banana or wagon wheel, but otherwise all we do, all we can do, is crack on, pedalling in the rain.

We've gone through wind and rain, and have been promised more to come, but heavier and more persistent. 160km in the wind is a totally different world to 160km in the calm and the wind is relentless, always present and never favourable. We slog through it all, and still we're waiting for the other side, for the promised sun and tailwinds that usually feature on this barren and surreal land.

To do this alone would turn all but the strongest minds first into philosophers, then into madmen.

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