Day 146 | Ellery Big Hole camping ground, WMNP: back to the best swimming south of Buley Rockholes

92 km | zzOz total: 7,573 km

I’m being chased down by a couple of other cyclists.

This was the similar situation to my previous tootle round these parts where two “Asian”, then becoming “Japanese” cyclists, who later proved, almost three weeks later, to be actually Australian and Malaysian, Ahn and Chee, when I was finally bailed up at Kings Canyon.

Today a young Dutch couple in their campervan told me that they saw two other riders, complete with Bob trailers, about 50 km out of Kings Canyon heading this way. A German and someone with an indeterminate flag, blue, red, white and a, (or some), stars. Probably not North Korea. Could be Chile or Cuba? Dunno. (There’s a few more likely choices: Phillipines, Taiwan, or Malaysia and they didn’t notice the crescent.) When you travel by car everything becomes a blur.

Less than 24 hours later I crossed paths with the same couple: the cyclists were down at Glen Helen Gorge, just 11km away. The German flag bearer, they could recognise that flag, was a guy and the other cyclist was a woman. The bloke says he thought she was Burmese but the gal laughed at that: but she was definitely Asian.

No explanation as to how they had covered 200 km of the Mereenie Loop road in that time, maybe they are super riders, caught a lift, or that the “50 km from KC” estimate was vastly inaccurate.

My bet, knowing the observation powers of the average tourist, was Option 3.

Being mid afternoon and being off on a 7 km each way detour, I thought I might meet up with them at some stage but it proved not to be the case. (The next day, my last day riding for a while, they were still “2 hours” behind me.) With the speed I travel maybe if there had been a few more days on the road they might have caught up, then again they may well have passed me when I was off on one of my diversions.

The thing with travelling obscure dirt roads is that you generally don’t meet up with other bike riders. Round here the chances are significantly higher, Alice is a definite magnet for the Stuart Highway brigade.

My score in the encounter department over the last 150 days riding was a mediocre three: the strange guy, claimed marriage to different women in Japan and Indonesia, both with offspring, but him currently resident in Australia, who nicked my beenie back at the Albany backpackers, (there were only two of us in the room); the other long distance bike bloke on the Panasonic heading to Kalgoorlie via Esperance, he of the neatly dressed appearance and bike breakdown near the end of his previous Noosa to Kalgoorlie via the Great Central Road trip, in the most unlikely setting of the Lake Grace library; and, of course, cycling Dutch girl, Mirjam, who has also now written of our encounter out in the middle of nowhere.

Funny the things you dream up for the blog in a few hours each day with those wheels whirring.

I was contemplating the different styles of riding for the average bike tourist.

A “sailor” is a happy type quite content to sail on past all but the most intense attractions that lie a bit off the route. There’s mucho treadling involved but basically you are steering port to port.

I’m clearly in some other camp.

Mt Sonder? It’s a 5 hour roundtrip walk up a big hill.

Sure, no worries.

Today is a case in point visiting: the Mt Sonder Lookout, a 40 minute diversion, 95% of which was spent contemplating the fine view of yesterday’s efforts and just above the Finke River, not only with water in it but even a dribble, can’t really be described as a flow; Glen Helen Gorge, where one of the world’s oldest rivers, 100 million years, give or take, has hacked its way across the valley and through a hill; the staggering Ormiston Gorge, with its two ancient rock masses slid on top of each other and a plenty deep water hole; the Ochre Pits, where Aboriginal men have been extracting the various coloured clays for body decoration for at least 20,000 years, (contemplate that for a while); and ending up at the Ellery Big Hole, another gap in the cliffs where water must occasionally rampage.

That’s five big distractions from the task of getting A to B, no wonder it’s my 150th night since I left Perth.

And the last night in my own exclusive Palace for a while.