off road, WTF
When you ride the 3900km from Perth to Sydney, or 4400km Darwin to Perth, along the highway, you tend to spend all day in the saddle, day after day. Making distance, consistent velocity in your clip-ons. No time, or inclination, for much else other than turning those pedals.
That’s destination travel. You just happen to travel through territory on your way to somewhere else. The objective is to be somewhere other than where you are. Maybe proving something to someone. I hope they care.
There’s a great alternative type of travel. That other path is where the journey becomes the destination. Not 5 weeks but 5 months on, or off, the main roads. Or 12 months.
For those who want a little adventure there’s plenty of unsealed roads to explore.
At 15km/hour you see the nuances, the changes, the rocks, the cloud formations, or their absence.
What happens when you strike off the main roads?
For a start it takes a change in mentality. Stop and get off the bike occasionally. Climb that hillock for a view. Chat to the curious locals. Explore that abandoned car or old railway ruin. Check out the raucous birds at a waterhole.
The landscape seems much closer. The scorched earth policy along many highways nukes everything within 50m of the asphalt. The shrubbery eventually grows back but the highway landscape is as natural as Tuscany.
On unsealed roads the graders might come through once a year after the rains. The roadside is often less devastated by machinery.
That means more opportunity to see wildlife.
There’s less traffic, much less traffic. Hooray!
And with no white line to channel a passing vehicle they tend to give you a wider berth.
But the corrugations, the dust, the heat?
Corrugations are for the 4WDers and their off-road caravans. On your bike you only need 6 inches of hard surface and it’s rare that those little waves are fully across the road. One side or the other is generally clear. With not much traffic you can spend 70% of the time on the right, (wrong), side of the road.
The occasional dust cloud, a small price. Usually there’s a breeze which dissipates the haze and swapping sides of the road avoids the fog.
The heat? Pioneers lived out here without air conditioning. Wear a hat and long sleeves. Up near 40ºC? Sit under a tree to avoid the worst of it. And lay down for a while for a siesta.
Get used to it.
Bored out there?
Nah. Never.
Never came close. Not even in the most desolate country.
Specially not in the not-much-around landscapes.
Wwwwhyyyahhh
The, umm, what do we say, overweight woman, younger than me no doubt if I cared to check, waddled over from her passenger’s seat in the huge stretch Winnebago and without introduction immediately launched into the standard interrogation.
You’re not a reporter are you, I joked.
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early biking history
The first bloke to circumnavigate the Australian continent was Arthur Richardson. He warmed up in 1896 by doing the first ride across the Nullabor from Coolgardie to Adelaide taking 31 days. Carrying only a small kit and a water-bag, he followed the telegraph line. He recalled much ‘sweating and swearing’ on sandy roads west of Eucla, and hot winds on the Nullabor (‘about 100º in the shade’) and judged the twenty-four miles (39 km) of sandhills west of Madura station the worst in Australasia.
In 1899 Richardson set out to be the first to ride round Australia. He left Perth on 5 June, heading north, carrying “not more than 25 pounds (11.4 kg) of luggage” and a pistol. Heavy rain slowed his progress in Western Australia, and later in the north, where the black-soil plains were unrideable for several days. He had to push and carry his bicycle through much sand, and encountered ‘hostile blacks’ across the north. He arrived back in Perth on 4 February 1900 after travelling about 11,500 miles (18,500 km).
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many picture man
The third person to circumnavigate Australia was the colourful Donald Mackay. He kept a diary to note his adventures.
In 1899 he heard about Arthur Richardson’s proposed attempt to ride around Australia on a bicycle and began planning his own trip. Mackay arranged to ride with Frank White who had cycled around Australia from Perth to Rockhampton and back. They were to start in Melbourne and travel anti-clockwise via scarcely known areas north through Queensland, round and down to Perth, and then back to Melbourne. Richardson, who had started about a month before them, had travelled north from Perth in a clockwise direction.
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slow travel
There’s probably 100,000 people “going around Australia” at any time. There’s blokes in their 90s and there’s people travelling with new born babies. It seems to be what people do here. The roads and caravan parks are filled with overlarge caravans with their own bathrooms and never used ovens and Wicked backpacker vans.
Not many do it on a bike.
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about your guide
Yup, I’m the guy who shuffled this all together. A bloke who realised that he had to do it rather than just dream about it.
A map of my own bike westwards tour of Australia looks as if it was designed by a wandering ant: Mawson Trail, Arkaroola, Oodnadatta, Finke, Mereenie Loop and West Macdonnells, Tanami Track, Purnululu, Buntine Highway, Gregory National Park, Kakadu, Gibb River Road, Karijini National Park, Wiluna, south coast of Western Australia, Munda Biddi Trail.
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faraway dreaming
… Get on ya bike and go … long distance bicycle touring … leaving the city … months on, or off, the road … no fixed itinerary … camping on your lonesome wherever you end up for the night … a vague trajectory across remote country … wondering what will be over the next rise … maybe not … few other travellers out there … and plenty of WTF when you meet them … swimming in a cool, not quite clear, waterhole … sharing your campsite with a pack of semi-shy dingos … the cacophony of the local birdlife … some minor mechanical problems to be overcome … taking a break under the only tree you’ve seen for a while … breathing deep at the top of a hill with a 360º view … the full moon rising as the sun sets … an abrupt change from red soil to blue sky at the most distinct horizon you will ever see … that bright carpet of stars in a full dome … no constraints …
… Arkaroola … Oodnadatta … Eringa … Finke … Yuendumu … Rabbit Flat … Billiluna … Kalkarindji … Koolpin Gorge … Maguk … Imantji … Karijini … Meekatharra … Wiluna … Starvation Cove… Point Ann … Nglang Boodja … Southern Cross … Elachbutting Rock … Bilung Pool … Mt Augustus … Warakurna …
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