Tour Journal page 2

Hello To All!

3 January/04

A quick message to let you know where I am and where I'm going.

I am currently in Pemberton, WA, 250km west of Albany. I have turned the corner and am now heading east, finally. The West Coast part of the trip is over. And what a trip it was!

From Cervantes I rode a hard road through awful heat heading south. Down through small towns and by roadhouses. Eventually I came to the beautiful Swan Valley, a wine drinker’s mecca north of Perth.

I posted 6kg of unused gear home to Vancouver when I got to Perth.

Freemantle is a beautiful port city. Old buildings have been kept in great shape.

Then south through coastal towns Rockingham, Mandurah, Bunbury, Busselton, Dunsborough, and down to the surfing mecca that is Yallingup. Nice beaches all the way. This whole area was supremely busy over Christmas and New Year's. Plus, all the schoolchildren are on their summer holidays. Busy everywhere and tons of traffic.

After checking out some surfing action, I headed down Caves Road, an area that has over 300 caves. Caves Road also has a number of wineries with cellar sales and wine tasting.

I'll tell you now that I did not go caving, surfing, or wine tasting. Just biking, and lots of it. Caves Road is a very winding and hilly stretch of bitumen. A hard ride of 110km from top to bottom, that's Cape to Cape if you're checking on a map. Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin. Beautiful coast and amazing forests all the way down.

I sidetracked over to check out the town of Margaret River. The town was full of yuppies and their kids, surfers, and artists. A strange mix, but they somehow all manage to make money off each other. I picked up some groceries and left the tourist hell. I had heard a lot about “Marg's”. It was pretty much what I had expected. Nice setting though.

I made my way down to Augusta and rode out to Cape Leeuwin, the place where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. Then it was time to head east.

From here in the timber town of Pemberton (I'm right across from the mill), I head east to Albany, then Esperance. I'll keep ya'll updated.

Trip distance to date: 1804km

Pictures shown at right (top to bottom) include:

Freemantle Jail, Freemantle, WA
The P & O Hotel, Freemantle, WA
Canal Homes, Mandurah, WA
Dawesville Channel, Near Mandurah, WA
Koombana Beach, Bunbury, WA
Cenotaph, Bunbury, WA
Lord Forest Head, Bunbury, WA
Smiths Beach, Near Yallingup, WA
Yallingup Road, Yallingup, WA
Karri Trees, Caves Road, Near Margaret River, WA
Plain Goofy, Bushby Road, Near Karridale, WA
Flinders Bay, Augusta, WA
Bike at Cape Leeuwin, Near Augusta, WA
Cape Leeuwin, Near Augusta, WA
Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, Near Augusta, WA
Donnelly River Winery, Near Pemberton, WA

Attempting To Glimpse A Peak At The Elusive Willy Wagtail In Walpole

5 January/04

Well, I'm now in Walpole, 100km east of Pemberton, and 117km west of Albany. Walpole is a nice little town in yet another scenic forest setting. They have a big "Tree Top Walk” here, a suspended platform to view the tips of the giant Karri trees. Pretty amazing! Also, the bakery here makes a mean Hedgehog slice, kinda like a brownie. Major cocoa!

I will only be here for a couple of hours, then on to Denmark, 66km east. I will be contacting a family in Denmark that I met at the Billabong Roadhouse on Day 8 (16 December/03). I will see if I can use their shower...

It's been hill after hill for the last 5 days, ever since I got on Caves Road back in Dunsborough. The hills are burning me out. It's getting very annoying. I have a few sore muscle spots in my left thigh. The trailer is too heavy. I am carrying too much weight for hilly terrain. The constant climbing is taking its toll. May need to jettison more gear soon.

Rain and cold wind this morning. I had to break out the rain gear for the first time. It was only light rain, but enough to keep everything wet. I was racing downhill, shivering but coherent. Um, this is Australia isn't it? Gimme back the hot sun! (I'm sure it'll be back with a vengeance.)

Spent a prickly night last night sleeping on some light brown spiky plant with very sharp, porcupine quill-like protrusions. Ouch! Nasty plants they have here. It seems like every species is trying hard to protect itself from predators. I was pulling these quills out of my shoe soles, panniers, tent, and even my bike tires!

The question that enters my mind is: "What's next??"

Well, gotta go find "What's next". And in case you were wondering: Willy Wagtail is a type of bird found (sometimes) in this area. Still more elusive are the Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike and the famous Noisy Scrub-bird, rarely seen, but the male's loud call in spring may be heard around Two People's Bay. Good to know if you happen to know where Two People's Bay is. I think only two people know where it is, and they're not tellin' nobody else.

Don't worry 'bout me and them hills. They aren't endless. They'll end by Norseman, fer sure. 'Course Norseman is about 800km from here! Well, it's just a matter of time...

Trip distance to date: 1977km

Pictures shown at right (top to bottom) include:

Cloudy View, Near Walpole, WA
Spiky Campsite, Near Walpole, WA
Giant Karri Tree, Near Denmark, WA
Karri Forest, Near Denmark, WA
Bike and Brick, Albany, WA
Old Building, Albany, WA
Empire Buildings, Albany, WA
Beautiful Home, Albany, WA
Galahs, Jerramungup, WA
Galah, Jerramungup, WA
Bush Sunset, Near Jerramungup, WA
Sheep, Near Jerramungup, WA
Pink Lake, Esperance, WA
West Beach, Esperance, WA
Second Beach, Esperance, WA
Blue Haven Beach, Esperance, WA
Observation Point, Esperance, WA
Great Ocean Drive, Esperance, WA
Wind Farm, Esperance, WA

Let The Crossing Begin

16 January/04

Okay Blogsters, here we go...

This won't be a long one, the sun is going down and I still need to find a place to camp! I'll need to split this report into two parts.

I am currently in Norseman, WA, at the lovely "Railway Hotel”. It's recently been renovated and looks stunning.

Norseman is the start, or end, of the Eyre Highway, which runs almost 2000km across the lonely Nullarbor Plain, joining Western Australia with the eastern states. Nullarbor is bad Latin for "no trees", but apparently there is only a small section of the highway where there are actually no trees. I'm sure further inland (north) it's a different story.

My plan is to ride 1200km of the highway, as far east as Ceduna, then head south around the Eyre Peninsula, through Port Lincoln, then north to Port Augusta. From there I will travel south to Adelaide.

I need to point out that there are no towns between Norseman and Ceduna, only roadhouses--10 of 'em. That's it. Nothing else. That's 1200km, no towns, limited water supply (at the roadhouses only), and get this...it was 43C here in Norseman yesterday. It all adds up to MAJOR FUN!!! I can't wait to start!!!!

This Crossing is seen by many as a pilgrimage, a symbolic crossing to another land, another place, not only on the outside, but also within oneself. In writing this I can feel the change beginning already.

Okay, that's it for tonight. In the next episode I'll catch ya'll up on what's been happening since the wonderful town of Walpole.

Trip distance to date: 2809km

Pictures shown at right include:

Eyre Hwy Distance Sign Near Norseman, WA
Beware Unfenced Road Sign, Eyre Hwy, Near Norseman, WA
Eyre Hwy, East of Norseman, WA
90 Mile Straight, Eyre Hwy, WA
Caiguna Distance Sign and Bike, Eyre Hwy, WA
Cocklebiddy Roadhouse, Eyre Hwy, WA
King Of The Can, Eyre Hwy, WA

Crossing The Nullarbor Part 1 – The Hot Days

30 January/04

Crossing the Nullarbor Plain on bicycle is like enduring a bad day at work. One of those long, bad days that seem to go on forever. You know the ones: you’re ready to go home at 10:20am but you’re committed to stay until 5:00pm. The work isn’t exactly hard, just tedious. By the time 5:00pm rolls around you feel like you’ve spent your adult years waiting for the day to end. For me, crossing the Nullarbor on bicycle was like one of those days. Only my day was eleven days long.

I started to think that Ceduna was a mythical town that did not exist. At roadhouses and lookouts people would speak of it: “We’ve come from Ceduna this morning.” “We’ll stay in Ceduna tonight.” Ceduna. Ceduna. But Ceduna, to me, seemed very far away. In the wind and heat I started to think that I was on some kind of tortuous treadmill, that I would never reach Ceduna because there was no Ceduna. I thought the idea of a “Ceduna” to be a cruel joke, with the crueler irony being that I had somehow been transferred to Cycling Hell; an eternity of roadhouses and road trains. Heat and highway; the black bitumen a gauntlet of despair, a conduit of mental ruin, a treadmill of forgotten days strung out along a featureless plain. It would be roadside strangers and Snickers bars forever and ever.

Well, it really wasn’t that bad. Not all of the time anyway.

The first few days out of Norseman weren’t too bad. It was hot, high 30’s. I laughed when I saw that someone had removed the “r” in “Norseman” on the welcome sign. It read: “Welcome to Noseman”. Which is okay, because that’s how Australians pronounce it anyway. Further down the road a sign read: “Adelaide 1986km”. I looked back at Noseman, then ahead toward “Adelaide”. I managed a smile and wobbled forward, eastward.

On the bike I was carrying 16 litres of water, 1 litre of soy beverage, and several kilos of food. I had mailed 8 packages of food to all the roadhouses along the Eyre Highway in WA. I knew I would not go hungry. Each package had the same contents: 1 litre of soy beverage, 2 Power Bars, 1 sesame bar, 1 banana and pecan bar, 1 package of mixed nuts, and 1 package of dried fruit. (By the fourth day I was absolutely sick of dried fruit and nuts.) I ate pasta and rice for dinner and had no fresh vegetables for eleven days. I managed to find a few old pieces of fruit in a couple of the roadhouses. I pedaled the heavy load over hills on heated blacktop. For a “plain” it was very hilly.

The distance from Norseman to Balladonia (the first of 10 roadhouses on the 1200km trek) was 191km. I put in a good riding day (124km) and camped in the bush 67km west of Balladonia.

Balladonia was nothing more than a truck stop (roadhouse) with a motel, a small tourist museum (the U.S. Skylab crashed close by in 1979, so they proudly display their prize find: a large, charred piece of the space vehicle), and a caravan park (campground). The whole thing would fit in half of a city block. But to me it was an oasis of water and chocolate. A conversation with a carload of five young British blokes, here in Australia on a surfing safari, went something like this:

Brit: “You ridin’ ‘cross the Nullarbor?”

Me: “Yup.”

Brit: “No.”

Me: “Yup.”

Brit: “No you’re not.”

Me: “Yes I am.”

Brit: “No.”

Me: “Yup.”

After they were convinced that I was indeed doing this crazy thing, to which they were all very impressed, off they roared in the direction of Norseman. I took my water and chocolate and moved off into the heat in the other direction.

The water went down my throat and evaporated out through my pores. The chocolate just melted. I needed to eat my Snickers bar with a spoon. I camped in the bush about 50km past Balladonia. The air that night was silent, still, and hot.

I drank a lot of water on that second day. I started to ration. I went to bed thirsty. It wasn’t fun. I had 8.5 litres left for Day 3’s 130km ride to Caiguna. Sweating and thirsty, but not willing to drink any water, I fell into a nightmarishly dry dreamworld. I now see how people go mad without water.

Day 3: I awoke before dawn, eager to beat the heat. In my favour was the fact that I was on the “90 Mile Straight”, a 146.6km straight road from Balladonia to Caiguna. It is the longest stretch of straight road in Australia. “The Straight” was flat (well, relatively flat) and I made good distance.

On the downside was the sight of hundreds of kangaroo carcasses littering the road and shoulders. “The Abattoir Plain”, as I came to call this section. Carcasses from years ago appeared as skeletons. Some were from the night before. All had been killed by speeding blunt metal and glass blades; shearing and slicing and busting and crushing. Shattered leg bones protruding through skin. Bent, broken necks; the mouths gaped open in a silent scream. It’s a sickening sight to view from a bicycle, a mere metre away. Over and over. A thousand times over, no exaggeration. The stench in the heat was overwhelming.

The trees thinned away in spots, leaving low brush and bush. Rust coloured dirt was everywhere. The bitumen changed from white to black to grey to dark grey, all within a kilometre sometimes. In places the shoulder was a metre wide and paved. In other places there was a 10cm drop off the edge of the bitumen down to a sloping gravel and dirt ditch-side. The latter was very difficult to navigate when a passing road train necessitated me to leave the road for my, and the driver’s, safety.

I completed the 130km to Caiguna in about 10 hours, and still had 2 litres of water left when I arrived. I drank those 2 litres at the roadhouse, along with a litre of orange juice and a couple pieces of carrot cake. I had a hot shower (washed my clothes in the shower), then went down the road for 1km and into another time zone. The clocks moved ahead 45 minutes but the sun went down at the same time, early.

Day 4: At Cocklebiddy I picked up my food package and enjoyed a cold orange juice. I talked with a Perth couple who were originally from South Africa. They were on their way home after 3 months on the road in the south half of Australia.

I also ran into a couple of cyclists at Cocklebiddy that I had met way over by Augusta a few weeks prior. Ann and Norm were both in their early sixties and were riding from Perth to Norseman via the south coast. We ran into each other almost daily on that route. When they had reached Norseman, they hopped a bus back to Perth. Now they were returning home via the Nullarbor (by car); Ann to Alice Springs, Norm to Hobart, Tasmania. Both Ann and Norm had previously ridden across the Nullarbor during the winter.

“You should be okay,” said Ann, “as long as the wind doesn’t come out of the east.”

The morning clouds burned away, leaving the sky a blazing blue. The temperature topped 30 degrees. I rode through the heat, the tires hissing on the melting tar. At 5:30pm, with the sun lowering in the sky (sundown was at 7:15pm), I made camp in the bush, 30km west of Madura.

Day 5: The day my stomach knotted up and my mind became unglued.

The road into Madura was mostly flat with only a slight incline as I climbed the western side of Madura Pass. From the top of the pass (150m above the plain), one can see the sparseness of scrub, shrubs, and a few lonely trees that dot the plain. The land spreads south, then stops abruptly at the Southern Ocean. Here, lining the coast, are the famous cliffs of the Australian Bight, stretching for kilometres in both directions. To the north of the highway lies an escarpment (a man-made cut through it forms Madura Pass) which runs for a few hundred kilometres to the east, ending at Eucla. Atop the escarpment are the Hampton Tablelands.

Surrounding Madura Pass is an oasis of Eucalypti trees. Apparently they feed off the underground salt streams. A woman working at the Madura Pass Motel told me that if I licked the leaves on the trees that they would be salty. I took her word for it. The location of the motel made it one of the more unique roadhouses along the Eyre Highway.

A slight breeze (gusting at times) blew out of the south. It helped to keep the temperature down in the low 30’s. Still, I could feel the sun burning the backs of my legs. Any exposed skin was apple red, despite the liberal use of sunblock. My lips cracked, blistered, and bled. Eating any salt or citrus was a painful experience. The prunes in the mixed dry fruit helped me to defecate 5 times on this day. I urinated 12 times. Something was wrong. My stomach was working overtime to digest the pasta, nuts, and fruit. I started to feel weak. It hurt to bend over. My face was encrusted with salt. My eyelids were sunburnt and raw from wiping the sweat and salt crust from them. My cycling jersey had white salt stains all over it from sweating. I was experiencing an enormous amount of eyestrain from fatigue. My eyes twitched and flexed. I saw blasts of light like daytime lightning.

For the first time on the trip I started to think of how nice it would be to end the horror, to be done with the trip altogether. Questions ran through my head: How far is it to Ceduna? 600km. Halfway. Ugh. How many more days on this bloody plain? 5 or 6. Ugh. How many days remained in the trip? 50. Ugh. How far is it to Brisbane? 4400km. UGH. Why do I do this to myself? What’s the point?

Somehow I managed to ride 129km that day, ending 20km west of Mundrabilla. I struggled to set up my tent in the bush. All I wanted to do was sleep. The thought of eating made me gag. I managed to drink a litre of soy beverage, which acted like a laxative, much to the displeasure of my flaming sphincter, but it helped to relieve the intestinal pressure. With earplugs in to shut out the rumbling road trains, I passed into a deep, well-needed sleep.

Daily cycling distances across the Nullarbor Plain:
Day 1 – 124km
Day 2 – 128km
Day 3 – 130km
Day 4 – 125km
Day 5 – 129km
Day 6 – 101km
Day 7 – 84km
Day 8 – 112km
Day 9 – 97km
Day 10 – 103km
Day 11 – 107km

Trip distance to date: 4145km

Pictures shown at right include:

Food Parcel, Eyre Hwy, WA
The View From Inside, Eyre Hwy, WA
Eucla Pass, Eyre Hwy, WA
Welcome To South Australia Sign, Border Village, SA
Border Monument, Border Village, SA
Distance Sign, Eyre Hwy, Border Village, SA
Caution Sign, Eyre Hwy, Border Village, SA
Lizard, Near Border Village, SA
Great Australian Bight Cliffs, Eyre Hwy, WA
Nullarbor Plain Sign, Near Nullarbor Roadhouse, Eyre Hwy, SA
Ceduna Distance Sign, Eyre Hwy, SA
Highway Harvest 1, Eyre Hwy, SA
Highway Harvest 2, Eyre Hwy, SA
Beetle, Ceduna, SA

All's Swell In Ceduna

30 January/04

Howdy!

Gotta say, it's nice to be here. After eleven days on the Nullarbor, the sight of a real town sure is welcomed! I arrived here on the evening of 27 January. I've spent the last three days rehydrating and errand-running. No time for relaxing. I leave this afternoon for Streaky Bay, then further south to Port Lincoln.

Much cooler here in Ceduna, right on the ocean. Lots of clouds. (Clouds are GOOD!) Small town, but with all the amenities. Population: 3600. Pleasant place. Library has free Internet use. The foreshore is nice (Murat Bay), but the beach is not very inviting.

Well gotta go. Don't be afraid to email me...

Rod

Trip distance to date: 4145km

Cowell Calling

6 February/04

I'm in Cowell, SA (186km south of Port Augusta), on the east side of the Eyre Peninsula. It's bloody hot here - 35C. Blasts of furnace hot wind this morning while I was riding. It's only the second time that I've felt these hot wind conditions. Yesterday was the first time. I'm not able to go to the beach here because, well, they don't have one. The coastline here is swamp and mangrove trees. They do have a dredged hole with a floating diving platform next to the jetty. It is isolated from the ocean. I guess that is the "public pool". I am not going swimming in that!

I'm waiting until it gets real hot, then I'm going to leave for Whyalla, 111km north of here. (I'll wait until 3pm this afternoon, the hot time of the day, 'cause I like it hot. I've heard that "some like it hot". My dad'll get that joke...) It's supposed to get up to 38C tomorrow. Gee, can't wait...

Hope all is well where you are. Stay tuned for those other updates...I'm still working on them. Don't worry, I've haven't forgotten. Lots of good stories I intend to share.

Trip distance to date: 4747km


The Race Is On

27 February/04

Hello everyone! A quick note to let y'all know that I'm fine and healthy and happy.

I'm currently in Lakes Entrance, Victoria, a beautiful, but touristy, locale on the ocean close to the Victoria/New South Wales border. A number of lakes surround the town with a backdrop of forested hills. Nice place to spend a few days, if I had a few days to spare. But I don't.

I've been hauling ass over the past three weeks. Time is tight. I fly out of Brisbane on 21 March, and I currently have over 1700km to ride from here. That's 1700km in 23 days. I hope I have time to stop in Sydney. I had to bypass Melbourne. I'll see it on the next trip to Australia.

Let's see...After leaving Cowell, SA, the heat rose to over 40C for days on end. Very hot going thru Port Augusta and south to Adelaide. I was in Adelaide for one day. Then rode thru the Adelaide Hills (tough riding) to the town of Murray Bridge on the Murray River, Australia's longest river. It was here that I sent the BOB trailer back to Canada. My loving partner, the sweet and very cute Sara, had posted my front panniers and front rack to a hotel in Murray Bridge. The swap complete, the load lightened (somewhat), I rode into a 45C day and rattled off 136km!!

From Adelaide I rode south to Mt. Gambier, then over the border into Victoria and onto the Great Ocean Road. What a spectacular ride!! By far the loveliest road I've ever been on. Mind you, it was a twisty, hilly affair, but the sweeping, jaw-dropping views around each corner made up for the effort.

Next it was a bypass of Melbourne via a 40 minute ferry ride from Queenscliffe (south of Geelong) to Sorrento. Then I took back roads to Drouin where I rejoined the Princes Hwy.

It has been non-stop riding for almost the whole trip. I can only remember one rest day, in Denmark, WA, and even then I still rode 14km that day. It's been a tough slog across this big country. Other than the first week in Perth, I have not paid for accommodation during this trip. Except for the two nights that I spent in the Ranger's shed at Steep Point, and the one night I stayed at Colin Dymond’s house in Geraldton, I have been sleeping in my tent. 79 days in the tent, sleeping by the highway side, waking at 5:00am to ride yet another day. The lack of showers and hot water and luxuries are grinding me down. (Or are they toughening me up?)

So, the final race is on. The last challenge lies ahead. I have a self-imposed deadline and I am determined to meet it. I said to myself when I was planning this trip that 16 weeks would be enough time to complete a cross-continental journey of Australia. I will hold true to that statement. Fear is my stop sign. I hold no fear and I will not be stopped...

Well, I hope all is well in the place you call home, wherever that may be.

Keep checking back in the coming three weeks for updates as I close in on the goal: Cape Byron, the most easterly point on this big, brown land.

Love to you all.

Trip distance to date: 6718km

The First-Gear Coast

1 March/04

Hello ya'll!

I'm currently in Bega, New South Wales, a lovely place of rolling, green hills and shadowy, distant mountains. I am here only to write this blog and to grab some food and water. Then it's back to the grind of the highway.

I have come through some very hilly terrain full of rainforests and windstorms. Challenging riding. Towns ridden through: Nowa Nowa, Orborst, Cann River. Entering and leaving Eden is a hellish affair by bike. Crazy hills on both ends of town. I saw a semi-truck come to a complete stop ahead of me on the north hill. He had to gear down and use his brakes in order to not roll backward. I waited in the safety of the ditch while he got himself back on track.

Pambula and Merimbula are both located in fine coastal lushness. Unfortunately, the former is a full-on holiday town, so I split the scene in a hurry. Unfortunately for me, I also split my time this morning fixing two flat tires, bringing the grand total of flat tires to 14, an average of one per week! Add to that the fact that the left side of my front pannier rack has cracked and broken off at the place where it connects to the end of the fork. I discovered this little annoyance only 10 days after I made the switch from the trailer to the panniers. Hose clamps and duct tape are holding this trip together.

Okay, I will now attempt to smile (nice try), and get back on the road. At least it's not snowing!!

Trip distance to date: 7024km

Bites, Burns, and Gorgeous Views

12 March/04 (Pt.1)

I am currently in Nambucca Heads. It's a beautiful sight to look out on the brilliant blue waters as the Nambucca River flows into the ocean. The town is located above the liquid action below, affording a stunning view. And, it happens to be sunny today as well!! I've seen a lot of rain lately, including some constant downpouring in Sydney. A tropical storm rolled ashore in northern Queensland, and Sydney got the tail end of it. All of my gear got soaked, including both the still digital camera and the digital video camera. Neither are working properly. So it goes. I hope the video cam dries out before Byron Bay. I want to get some footage of the endpoint of the trip.

Consider this just a little note to let y'all know where I am. I will go into details of the past two weeks at a later date.

I am approximately 350km from Byron Bay/Cape Byron, the most easterly point in Australia. I plan to arrive there on Monday 15 March. If I have time I will ride to Brisbane. If time is tight I will go to Brisbane by bus, and take the bike as luggage. Either way, the trip is almost over!!!

I feel good. I'm warm, dry, and healthy. The bike, on the other hand, is coming apart. The chain broke yesterday. Shifting is now a little stiff; a few less links in the chain. The grand total for flats is now 21. I'm getting sick of changing the rear tire. I had two flats the day I left Sydney, then none the next day, then two more the day after that. My patience is running low. But, everyday is a new day, a clean slate, and I continue to make the best of it. "Fix it and move on."

That's it for now. Moving forward...always forward.

Trip distance to date: 7970km

12 March/04 (Pt. 2)

Thirty minutes after sending that previous blog from Nambucca Heads, a fierce flank of storm clouds rolled over the town, split open their bellies, and let loose an unwelcome deluge of Biblical proportions. Bye-bye blue sky.

I stood under the café’s awning cursing the (now) marred day and rubbed the red swollen spider bite on my right hand. Having no desire to venture out into this latest torrent, I made my way to the nearest chemist (pharmacist) for some arachnid-afflicted advice.

Emerging ten minutes later, clutching my newly prescribed tube full of hydrocortisone cream, and nursing an empty reservoir of precipitation-patience, I donned my Gore-Tex cycling suit, cursed the rain again, and set off into the anti-drought.

Upon arriving in the small town of Urunga, 21km north of Nambucca Heads, the sun decided it was going to make a fiery return and proceeded to turn the place into a sauna. I peeled off the Gore-Tex suit and slumped against the wall of a closed petrol station. The highway was littered with tourist vehicles on their way to their dry motel rooms, and I sat, soaked and tired, cursing each one of their passing cars. As the bitumen dried, I found a tap to fill my water bottles. I straddled the saddle again and made off to find a place to camp.

It was another sticky night in the tent. All my cycling clothes were soaked with no chance of drying. In the morning I would have to slide into them again, just as I had for the past week. The thought of it gave me a headache.

The sky went black again and threatened to unleash another downpour. Taking no chances, I scrambled out and secured the rain fly on the tent. Then it was time to cook dinner.

Now, cooking dinner in a tent in 25C heat and 100% humidity is no fun. As if sweating out enough body fluid to fill a child’s play-pool during one day of cycling wasn’t enough, I thought I might just sweat out a bit more. I reclined back onto my slick sleeping bag and waited for the water to boil. I’m not sure who was more cooked in the end, me or the pasta. Who would think that preparing a dinner of canned baked beans and pasta could damn near kill a person? When you’re as exhausted as I was, anything is possible.

As I laid naked that night, listening to a million mosquitos serenading me to sleep, a tinge of sadness shivered through me. I realized then that the trip would soon be over. Everything I had worked so hard to achieve was now history. No more would I see large black parrots soaring in slow motion above my head as I cycled through their rainforest home. No more would I hear the nightly laughter of the kookaburra or the morning screech of a pink galah. Soon I would be returning to Vancouver. Returning to routine. Returning to the mundanity of a work-a-day world.

A day that had begun with me fixing a flat tire ended with me wiping a tear from my eye.

Trip distance to date: 7970km

13 March/04

Well, my tears must’ve drowned the alarm clock.

I snapped awake, bolting upright, wide-eyed and sweating. The sleeping bag came up with me, stuck to my back. I reached for the little black clock. Dead.

“Shit.” I muttered.

Daylight was everywhere, but how long had it been light out? I guessed it to be around 7:00am.

Sometime during sweatfest, (sorry, I mean breakfast) the clock started working again. I finished my meal of rolled oats, nuts, and spirulina, packed up the gear in a cloud of mosquitos, and left camp at “9:15am”.

I checked the time at a grocery store in Coffs Harbour (20km north) and surprisingly, the clock was dead-on. (I guess it needed some sleep too.)

I ate lunch in the shade of an Evangelical church and pondered the idea of asking Jesus for some help. Guessing that He might be preoccupied with the situation in Iraq, I decided to put off the prayer and go back to riding.

Coffs Harbour was a myriad of malls and mad motorists. In contrast to the glitzy playground of the “Gold Coast” to the north, the region around Coffs Harbour is known as the “Banana Coast”. Banana plantations abound. It’s possible to go from fruit to fantasy in the space of a few hundred kilometers. A quick trip to the “Banana Coast Credit Union” will ensure that you will have all the funds necessary to live out your wildest dreams.

Not to be out-done by the overhyped, Disney-stylings of its northerly neighbour, Surfers Paradise, Coffs Harbour has its own “Big Banana”, a sight so inane it was once voted “Australia’s silliest attraction” by a travellers’ poll. Fronted with a huge banana, the place boasts an ice-skating rink, a toboggan ride, and a mini-railway that runs through the plantation and theme park.

I couldn’t get out of town soon enough.

A string of beaches with names like Emerald and Sapphire lie 6km north of Coffs Harbour. By 1:00pm the temperature had soared over 30C again and I badly needed to cool my body off. These gems sounded too inviting to turn away from.

I turned off the highway at Woolgoolga and was surprised to see the impressive Guru Nanak Temple, a place of worship for the local Sikh community. Also in town was another Indian-style temple, the Raj Mahal, complete with two huge elephant statues out front. I’ll take swords and elephants over bananas and ice rinks any day!

But wait, I went there to swim. And swim I did. There’s nothing like a refreshing plunge in the ocean to put a smile back on your face. I stayed at the beach for two hours, amusing myself in the waves. Small children were having less fun than I was. I dried in the sun while watching the flea market venders pack up their wares.

Following a quick trip to the grocery store for some orange juice and a chocolate bar, I was back on the bike and heading north.

At Corindi Beach the highway turned inland. Immediately the road started to switchback. Although I knew that anytime one ventures away from the coast they immediately encounter the coastal ranges, it still came as a surprise to me to be climbing. In no time I was up to an elevation of 110m, sweating all the while. And what would the day be like without a good thunderstorm? As George Dubya would say, "Bring it on!" I was drenched in sweat anyway.

In a virtual repeat of the day before, the grey and black clouds swallowed the sun, threw down a few bolts of lightning, and commenced to pour down feral cats and dingoes. I barely had enough time to put on my (still) wet Gore-Tex raingear. Grumbling to myself as sheets of rain made visibility difficult, I pushed on through to the servo (service station) at Halfway Creek.

Halfway Creek was now a full-time river. I took a long break, walking around under the awning at the servo, my shoes squishing and squeaking. The rain didn’t let up a bit. After half an hour I struck out again. It was still 25C outside and I was starting to smell like an ice hockey player in June, if you get my drift.

At 5:30pm the daylight started to fade. Riding on the highway was becoming too dangerous. I still had 20km to go to reach the town of Grafton. Cars raced by, their headlights reflecting in the curtain of falling water. I was keeping a watchful eye out for a place to camp but everything was covered in water. It seemed like the ground itself was moving in all directions. Any higher ground I found was either sloped or inaccessible.

At 5:50pm I had had enough. Jesus Christ was nowhere to been seen, even though I yelled out His name countless times. I came upon a highway operations gravel dumpsite. I rode in to investigate. The site was flat, but completely water-covered. Then I spied a barbed-wire fence atop a small rise at the back of the site. One of the fence posts had been torn down. On the other side of the fence was a flat spot to camp. Overall, it was pretty grim, but it was the best that I was going to get. I lugged the bike and gear onto the private property and set up the tent. If there were a million mosquitos at the previous night’s camp, then there were two million at this one! Their incessant buzz continued all night long.

Trip distance to date: 8061km

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