Roadhouse Blues

When planning this trip, my biggest fear was not getting kidnapped by Al Qaeda, getting our bikes stolen, or being attacked by bears. It was developing thighs disproportionate to the size of my torso. Someone, please hand that lady a muumuu! These fearsome thighs were in very real danger of being realised on our big push across the Nullarbor Plain.

The superlative Nullarbor Plain! Not only does it boast the world’s longest golf course, it is also the largest piece of limestone in the world. It began life at the bottom of the sea, forcing itself up between 26 and 5 million years ago. From it’s westernmost point in Norseman, to Ceduna in the east, it is 1200kms long. Once inhabited by the Spinifex Wagiri Tribe, now the only settlements one is to find along the Nullarbor are the small towns along the railway line further inland, or the roadhouses on the Eyre Highway, of which there are 12. If you include the kiosk at the Fraser Range station, riding the Nullarbor is like cycling from John O’Groats and stopping just shy of Lands End – with only 13 places to fill up your water bottle. It’s a beast.

The first European to Cross it was Edward John Eyre, who described it as “a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets to in bad dreams”. He was reputed to have said this before he attempted the crossing. I haven’t found any quotes for what he said afterwards, but I imagine they went along the line of “Thank f*&k for that”. His first attempt was in November of 1840, but was abandoned when three of the party’s horses died of dehydration. Undeterred, he set off again in February  the following year. His party reached Caiguna, but with dwindling supplies and sorely tested patience, two of the three aboriginal guides mutinied; killing Eyre’s companian John Baxter, then making off with the remaining supplies. Eyre, along with Wylie, his remaining Aboriginal guide survived on bushcraft and the good fortune of obtaining supplies from a whaling vessel which was anchored in Rossiter Bay. They completed their crossing in June 1841.

The first car drove across it in 1912, which makes it even more impressive to learn that the first cyclist to cross it, Arthur Charles Jeston Richardson, did so in 1896. It took him 31 days. With the help of tarmac (completed in 1976), and our friends Kaye and Gil carrying half our groceries, we were hoping to do it in seven.

We had decided to forgo the option of posting food parcels to the roadhouses as some cyclists do. We planned to carry as much food as we could and have occasional meals in the roadhouses when we reached them. We knew they would be horribly expensive, but thought it would be good to have something to look forward to (we are easily pleased). At  most, the roadhouses are almost 190kms apart.  But having realised that after ten months on the road we had become machines, we hoped to avoid any days in which we wouldn’t pass one, thus minimising the possibility of running out of water.

Water is what requires the most planning for a trip across the Nullarbor. Nullarbor is a latin word, which means no trees, but the aboriginal word Oondiri is far more accurate, it means waterless. Water is in short supply for everyone on the Nullarbor; the roadhouses have it brought it on tankers at great expense so do not give it out. In the bathrooms, the water is usually desalinated bore water and not fit for drinking. On a bike, with the potential for the ride to take up to two weeks if we struck headwinds, water was definitely our biggest concern.

We had bought ourselves an ungainly 20L water container in Albany that fit perfectly across my rack on top of my two back panniers.  On the morning we left Esperance though, Stuart found an empty 10L water container  in the rubbish bin. We filled this up, as it was definitely more user friendly than the bigger one and set off at half past five.

The tail wind was true to its word, and we reached the portenteously named town of Grass Patch just after ten o’clock that morning. I realised that vegetation was going to be in short supply if the arid town that we had just rolled into was named for its greenery.

The road house sign said it was open at ten, but the door was still locked. The loud noise from the television inside suggested someone was in there, but they didn’t hear us knocking. Just as we were about to cycle off, the door opened for business, and a Wanda Jackson look a like greeted us with a nasty stare as we walked in to buy some cokes. Heavy eye make up, black hair piled into a bouffant on top of her head, she was all we wanted and more from a roadhouse proprietor, except maybe she could have been a bit nicer. No bother though, we were bracing ourselves for the worst when it came to the roadhouses. Stuart had met a Swiss cyclist a few weeks earlier who had just finished the crossing “I like all the Australians that I’ve met, they are all so nice” he said, “except the ones who work on the roadhouses across the Nullarbor”.

The next settlement was Salmon Gums, where we stopped for lunch at the service station. After two cheeseburgers, a huge bowl of chips, then icecreams, another packet of chips and two chocolate bars to go, the lady asked us where we were heading that day. We told her that we were carrying on to Norseman, 100kms away. “I don’t know how you people do it!” she said. With a cool nod towards our empty plates, piled high on the counter, I affected my best western voice, “That’s how, lady” I drawled as I swaggered out.

We reached Norseman and decided to stay at the caravan park instead of wild camping. That way we could fill up our water bottles and have potentially our last shower for a number of days. “Bring it on!”, yelled my inner Huckleberry Finn. The woman who checked us in was in a humorous mood, launching into an assault on my accent; six and sex, fush and chups!, ha ha. “Look lady, I’ve just cycled 200kms and I’ve heard all these jokes before. Just show us where to put the tent”, said my inner John Wayne, elbowing into position next to Huckleberry. She then realised that for one dollar less, she could offer us a fully equipped caravan, complete with kitchen, TV and bed linen. With nothing to prove to noone, we grabbed the deal of the century with both hands and moved into the caravan.

We woke to an ominous charcoal sky, lit up by forked lightning. It was spectacular to see, but slightly intimidating as you ride your steel framed bike onto a large, treeless expanse of limestone. Leaving Norseman and turning right onto the Eyre Highway was exciting. There was no turning back, we were going to cross the Nullarbor! I was afraid of headwinds and running out of water. Stuart was afraid of being tremendously bored. Either way, we were on it.

After a couple of hours we saw two cyclists coming our way, which is always a joyful thing. We rode over to meet them. They were German and British, riding identical bikes. The German man travels everywhere with two bikes, and finds someone to cycle with him as he travels. It was their last day on the Plain and they were looking forward to hot showers in Norseman. They didn’t seem to be carrying outlandishly sized water containers like ourselves, so we asked them how they managed with water on the way. An awkward cough preceded the admission that they had a support vehicle travelling with them, carrying 90L of water. I then noticed that each bike had a small pack attached to the frame, with the Bosch logo on it. I jokingly asked if they were travelling with cordless drills. Another awkward cough preceded the information that these were in fact motors!!!

I quickly asked for a swap. Nothing doing, so we headed off on our way, the hard way. Bring it on, said my inner John Wayne. As we rode off one of the cyclists called out that there was a really good supermarket coming up, with cold beer and lots of fresh fruit, only 1200kms away. “I’ll give you oranges!” I yelled back, though I don’t think he heard me over the roar of the Bosch.

After 100kms we reached the Fraser Range Station, which lies 2kms off the road. We thought we’d visit, and see what they had in their shop. On the way in, we met a lone cyclist, well almost alone except for the huge toy kangaroo he had hanging off his bar bag. He was clearly not worried about wind resistance. He was glad to be finishing, telling us the Nullarbor was really boring.  This was just what Stuart wanted to hear with 1100kms to go.

The Fraser Range shop was shut, but had a small note on the door saying to call Johanna through the VHF radio that was left there. We did this, and soon Johanna came riding down on her quad bike and opened the shop for us. We bought a few extra supplies, including a reasonably priced block of cheese. Apart from getting huge thighs, one of my fears in life is running out of cheese. And yes, I do realise the irony of this. Johanna told us to go and make our sandwiches in the camp kitchen and to help ourselves to the free tea and coffee there. She opened a small carton of milk for us, and said, “Here, this is free for you to use”.

The camp kitchen was a beautiful, rustic affair. A huge wooden table dominated the room, an enormous rack hung above it with a profusion of pots, pans and frying pans. We stayed an hour, soaking up the quiet ambience of this remote farm, filled up our water bottles and carried on our way.

We reached Balladonia at about half past eight that night, after 187kms of riding. We were dining in the roadhouse that night, so braced ourselves for our first Nullarbor roadhouse experience. It was a pleasant one, with a friendly German backpacker behind the counter. We ordered two hamburgers, chips, and two cold bottles of VB.

I will remember this as the best bottle of beer I have drunk in my whole life. Determined to stretch after each day’s cycle, Stuart went outside and busted into some hamstring stretches. The two beers sat waiting on the table; like an advertisement. Beads of condensation were forming on the necks. I was torn, go outside and stretch, or just pop that top and drink the most hard earned beer of my life. I did both; threw a leg up on the back of the seat , stretched and skulled. A real lady, mum, you’d have been proud.

The signs in the toilet said the water wasn’t fit for drinking and below this there was a sign repeating this in different languages. Under the Australian translation it said “Water’s a bit dodgy. Try the beer instead”. We filled up a couple of bottles to use for coffee in the morning then rode another couple of kilometres until we found some trees, put the tent up behind them and fell into an instant sleep.

We were up and riding by five o’clock the next morning, wanting to take advantage of every hour before the wind got up. 40 kilometeres into the next days ride, we hit the famous 90 mile straight. 146.6kms of absolutely dead straight road. Not so much as a kink, or a even a hint of a bend. It’s the longest stretch of straight road in Australia, some say the world, but a quick look on Google tells of a 280km straight road in Saudi Arabia. We’re in no rush to tick that off our list, this one will do just fine.

It is very straight, yes. But one never actually sees huge sections of it lying out straight in front of you, as there are subtle rises and falls along the whole section. The straightness combined with a headwind played with our minds a bit, and it became impossible to tell if we were going up hills or going along the flat. My mind started to think crazy thoughts. I was imagining riding into the next roadhouse at Caiguna and ordering a coffee, but then bizarrely, I started to worry that it might be given to me lukewarm. I rehearsed what I would say if this was to happen. This is the reality of what goes through one’s mind on the longest stretch of straight road in Australia. It all turned out to be pointless though, as my coffee was piping hot. I imagined how disappointed Tenzin Palmo would be with me.

The toilets at Caiguna had no signs warning against drinking the water, so we filled our bottles up and rode on for another few kilometers looking for some trees to hide the tent in. We cooked our dinner under the huge, star filled sky. The Southern Cross was framed perfectly between the branches of two trees. Once darkness falls in the outback, there are no cars on the roads only roadtrains and kangaroos, (hence the lack of cars). It was a strange feeling, like a funny section of the trip and of life; just us and the late night road train truckers in this enormous emptiness. Their lights would briefly light up the darkness, then they’d be gone.

We began riding the next day an hour before daylight. Cycling in the dark, we felt like early concert goers, slipping into our front row seats to wait for the magnificent Nullarbor sunrises. Which were positively Homeric. On our own personal Odyssey, we would watch Dawn stretch her rosy tipped fingers across the sky; the wheat coloured grasses would sparkle, glow then ignite as the flaming oranges and pinks exploded above us from the East.

We were brought quickly back to earth 40kms later at the Cocklebiddy Roadhouse. Unaware that the coffee was self serve, we asked innocently if we could have an extra shot of coffee in our cups. The snarling woman behind the counter barked “It’s self service! You can put 20 teaspoons of coffee in for all I care”. I am easily rattled by rudeness, and was really shocked. This no doubt contributed to our indecision about what we wanted to order from the menu, so we paid for our coffees and told the lady we would decide what we wanted in a few minutes. Next door, we made the mistake of pouring our coffees into takeaway cups instead of the ceramic mugs. We sat down and looked at the menu, not sure if we would treat ourselves to one of the more expensive dine in options or get takeways at the counter next door. Yes, perhaps it was an obvious question, but I was tired, and I asked what the difference was between the bacon and egg sandwich to-go, and the bacon and eggs on the restaurant menu, besides the eight dollars. Be aware, we were just two broke strawberry pickers, and roadhouses are really expensive. We just wanted to be informed so we could spend wisely. “You get TWO eggs, and TWO bits of bacon and BESIDES, you’re eatin’ in the RESTAURANT!” she thundered in response. At that I had to physically leave. 

The lone diner came out of the restaurant and asked about our trip. As I was answering, Stuart emerged from the restaurant as he’d been asked to leave because he was drinking from a takeaway cup. This man fished about in his bag for two oranges and two passionfruit, saying that we’d need these a lot more than he would.

I flat out refused to spend any of our money at Cocklebiddy, but Stuart convinced me that we would be cutting off our sunburnt noses to spite our prematurely aging faces by not buying something to eat there. We still had another 90kms to go that day, and we needed to make our own food last. Stuart braved the tempest indoors to go and order from the takeaway counter while I finished my coffee outside like a moody five year old beside the sign that said “Cocklebiddy Roadhouse, Good Old Fashioned Country Charm”.

We got our first Nullarbor flat tyre later that day, and stopped off in a layby to change it. A caravan pulled in to have their lunch, and a woman came over and gave us two cold cans of coke.

A few hours later we reached the Madura Pass. We climbed to the viewpoint and saw below us the Roe Plains; a sand coloured earth covered in small trees. The simplicity of it, the endless stretch of it, was astonishing.

Below the pass was the Madura Roadhouse, and the barmaid there redeemed all Austalian Roadhouse workers for the time being. We were running low on lunch things for the next day, and she organised some slices of ham, cheese and a loaf of frozen bread from their kitchen for us to take away. We stayed for a while and  talked with some New Zealanders who were moving from the Gold Coast to Western Australia.  I realised with embarrassment that I had a huge oil stain on the front of my shorts, where I’d spilt the can of fish I had opened for lunch earlier that day.  

Just before we rode off, we bought a custard pie from the shop, and made spectacles of ourselves in the carpark as we fought over who had the bigger half. A family walked past us, and we quickly pretended to behave and nibbled on our sections of pie.

Leaving Madura was simply stunning, I had one of those moments when you feel truly in love with a landscape. The world just seemed so big and uncluttered just then and I loved it with all of my heart. It was a transforming emptiness. The sunset was as extravagant as the sunrise, and would shoot gorgeous colours over the sky in front of us. We had to keep stopping and turning around, it was changing so fast, and so spectacularly; pinks, purples, reds and oranges were being rolled into a ball then spread across the sky.

Soon we came across a free campsite on the side of the road, quite full with caravans and campervans. We thought we’d treat ourselves to a bit of civilised camping, and make use of the picnic tables. We were blinded by a huge torch as we pulled in, then heard a familiar voice, “Good effort guys, it must have been that custard pie you ate!” It was the family from earlier, out on a nighttime walk to look for rabbits. They had an old 70s style caravan, out of place amongst the super flash and modern caravans that are so common in Australia now that everyone seems to have taken to the road. We loved this family’s DIY holiday – take the kids to the Nullarbor and look for rabbits. They were having the time of their life, we heard them screaming and laughing in the trees as we ate our dinner.

Our days of outfoxing the wind were over the following morning. We were riding by half past five but the wind started to push us back by 9 o’clock. Direct head wind on the Nullarbor Plain, our biggest fear. Not for us the legendary tailwinds we’d heard about, we had picked the wrong time of year to travel east. We were knocked back to about 11kms an hour, with myself unable to keep in Stuart’s slipstream. I was trailing badly. Stuart remembered a friend of ours who was once competing as part of a pair in a mountain bike race. This guy’s friend was exhausted, so they joined themselves together with a bunjy cord. We recreated this with two old inner tubes looped together and I must stress that Stuart wasn’t actually pulling me along, rather the tyres were simply a good reminder of where the slipstream was, giving me the ever so occasional reminder of this if I started to slip behind.

This worked a treat, and also felt so funny that it served as entertainment aswell. That is until we saw another cycle tourist coming towards us, CRINGE!!! It’s very hard to hastily hide the fact that you’re getting towed by two old inner tubes. I may as well have had a BOSCH motor attached. This guy was from England, and was riding from Brisbane to Perth. He said he’d had a hell of a time, headwinds the entire way down the east coast, and had come close to packing it all in. When his laundry powder contaminated his powdered milk he really wanted to give up. He certainly deserved the tailwind he was getting, so we wished him all the best, and carried on our hysterical way.

Not long after that, we heard some beeping, and turned around to see Kaye and Gil. They pulled over in a layby, and made us beautiful sandwiches filled with lettuce, tomatoes and avocados.  They also gave us a gift of ten litres of sweet, clean water; heaven sent. The rest of our groceries were retrieved from their car, quickly packed into our almost empty food panniers, and we were back on our way, with plans to meet up with them in a few days time.

The wind was unadulteratedly horrendous the rest of the way to Mundrabilla. We made it to the roadhouse on a slow puncture, and decided that we were in no rush to move on. We had our staple of burgers and chips, served by a young backpacker from Edinburgh who gave us extra chips. Och aye!  We sat outside after eating and fixed the puncture while listening to the road train drivers pass the time. One of them obviously thought the conversation was lacking in energy, so threw in an explosive conversational gambit, “Why is it that in the used car section of the paper, it’s always Fords that are for sale?” Then he sat back to watch the fireworks. Ford v Holden is the NZ and Australian equivalent of Celtic and Rangers, though the history is not so old, or bloody. Your allegiance is usually dictated by birth and it is common to wear t-shirts to show where your loyalty lies.  I’m not even into cars, yet if asked, I know I’m on team Ford.  First On Race Day!

We waited as long as we could, but knew we had to get back into the wind at some point, so we left the friendliest Roadhouse on the Nullarbor and continued east. We’d hoped to make it to Eucla that night, but admitted defeat at half past eight, with twelve kms to go. We were struggling to find anywhere to put the tent up. We found a carpark, but the human excrement beside the rubbish bin gave us a bad feeling about the place and provoked the question “Why? Why? Why?  With all this space around, did you do that in a carpark?”. We carried on, finding an old road, cycled up it a bit and found some grass. The wind was howling, I made the quickest chilli known to man while Stuart wrestled with the tent, and then we fell asleep.

The alarm went off at 4:15, and I woke up feeling awful. I told Stuart that if this was a work day, I would actually have to call in sick. But you can’t  do that in a windswept campsite just off the Eyre Highway.

We packed up, and rode 8kms an hour into the unrelenting headwind, reaching Eucla an hour and a half later, it was gruesome. While waiting for our coffees, we read the weather forecast which was pinned to the wall. 35km/hr headwinds for that day, dropping to 25km/hr the following day. That was all we needed to know. We decided to check into the campsite, and take a day off. If I was famous, the red tops would have said I had checked into the Eucla Roadhouse suffering from ‘exhaustion’, and I would have been bundled into my tent with huge sunglasses on and a head scarf. “No photos. No photos, please!” Our big push to make it across the Nullarbor in seven days was over, it was going to have to be eight. We drank our double shot coffees, put the tent up , and were asleep within minutes. It was 8am. We woke up at midday and I still felt like I’d been run over by a truck. 900kms in five days is our best effort yet, but my body was yelling out for a break.

A leisurely day of laundry and hanging around the windy and dusty campsite followed, waiting for an acceptable time to go and drink beer in the bar. We filled in some time by walking to the petrol station with the gas bottle for our stove. We filled it up, and when I went to pay the grand total of one dollar to the lady behind the counter, I thought I’d try a wee joke. “When you go over your records later tonight, it will look like the world’s tiniest motorcar came in here to fill up”. Her mouth pursed up like a fist, she took my dollar and silently dropped it into the till.  I put Australian Roadhouse workers on the list with Customs and Immigration officials as the occupations that you aren’t supposed to be humorous with.

The wind was screaming through the campsite when we woke up at 4:15, so we adjusted the alarm to seven and carried on sleeping. The wind was still up when we rode off at eight, but our rest day had worked. We felt fit and positive as we rode into it.

I was at the point where I was starting to get nervous about going into the roadhouses, like a schoolchild going to see the headmaster. The South Australian border roadhouse did not disappoint. We ordered bacon and egg sandwiches, and Stuart had the gall to change his mind from BBQ sauce to Tomato sauce after the lady had already written the order down on her pad. “Too late. I’ve already written it.” There was a huge sigh as she changed her grip on the pen so she could carve the letters T O M over the B B Q. That was Stuart told.

Australian wildlife is unique, as we all know. But we saw something that day that literally stopped us in our tracks. Crossing the road, was a line of furry, grey caterpillars, hundreds of them. All marching single file across the highway. We stopped and watched them, utterly absorbed. Then in the distance, heard a road train coming. “Oh god, I can’t watch” I said to Stuart. We got off the road, and watched horrified as the wind from the train blew into oblivion the hundreds of caterpillars that had managed to survive the eighteen wheels. Within a minute though, the surviving few had reassembled the line, and were continuing the march. It was a galvanising moment for the Nullarbor cyclists, perhaps not unlike Robert the Bruce’s experience with the spider. We reformed our little line and carried on crossing our big road.

We were excited about seeing the roadtrains on the Nullarbor, these three trailer trucks are synonymous with the Australian Outback. A nice feeling of camaraderie built up between us, often they’d give us a few honk honnnnks as they went past. We were warned very early on that there was no messing with these big trucks. The main danger is the back trailer swinging and hitting you as the truck pulls back in after overtaking. So the onus is on the cyclist to make it as easy as possible for the truck driver. We’d pull completely over to the shoulder, and the train if it could, would usually drive right over onto the other side of the road. Of course if two trains are passing each other at the same time as us we’d get completely off the road.

A car did a U turn in front of us later that day and two women jumped out and ran towards us with their camera.  They asked if they could take our photo, fascinated that we were cycling across the Nullarbor.  They asked us all about our trip, and kept saying it was epic.  I then asked them about themselves; they were from Medicins sans Frontieres, Doctors without Borders, and were on a break from work.  I’ve always had a profound respect and admiration for this organisation, but this has become more personal since our time in Bosnia.  One evening, Jasna and I looked through her photo album, and I saw her smiling face looking out from almost 20 years ago, surrounded by MSF volunteers who were looking after her during her pregnancy.  I told these women about Ammar, Jasna’s son; multilingual, kind, disarmingly clever and one of the funniest people I have met in my life.  He is one of the beautiful results of their brave work, and I thanked them.  

The Nullarbor felt even more special after meeting the doctors; I imagined how necessary that space and silence must be after some of the places they’ve seen.

At about eleven o’clock the next morning, we rolled into the most feared Roadhouse of all, The Nullarbor Roadhouse.  We walked in, and asked for two coffees. This was greeted with an annoyed sigh from the man behind the counter, a backward glance at the coffee machine, then a look at his watch. “We haven’t started doing coffees yet”. I told him I’d been riding for six hours, and he couldn’t say no to coffee, and apart from that, it was eleven in the morning and they had a big sign outside advertising coffee (admittedly most of this was said in my head, in John Wayne’s voice, but I did get my point across). He acquiesced, then made a big deal about how we were taking too long to decide what we wanted to eat. He rudely told us to pay for the coffees and come back when we’d made up our minds about the food. We decided (unsurprisingly) on hamburgers (with the lot). These arrived without the lot “Do ya want us to sort it out or do ya just want ya four bucks back?” We opted for the money, wanting to get this stop over and done with as quick as possible.

We still needed water, and more food to take on our bikes, but now it was Stuart’s turn to be physically incapable of going back in and spending money. We were just so tired of the rudeness.  I went back in and bought ten litres for twelve dollars, which didn’t seem too bad. The man had gone on a break, and had been replaced by a cheerful lady, envious that we “could eat so much junk and still stay so skinny!” I told her she wouldn’t covet our early starts, late finishes and digging holes for a toilet, after which she suddenly seemed happy enough with her curves.

We stopped a little earlier that night, as we saw a nice clearing to the side of the road.  It was still daylight, so we didn’t have the same rush to put up the tent as we normally did.  We made coffee and as we were drinking it, Stuart broke up with me.  I looked at him, and said “But you’re the best person I know”, and then I started to cry.  He made the decision, but I completely understood and agreed with his reasons, which will only ever be understood by us.  The one thing I will say, is that it was not the trip.  We were not under any stress, we weren’t emotionally exhausted, we were not two tired kids who just needed a break, some time out.  This trip had bolstered, confirmed what I already knew about the fearless, free spirit that I had first fallen in love with.  He rode back through seven angry and barking Kyrgyz dogs, to walk me, immobile with fear, through.  He froze while putting the tent up in the Montenegrin storm, as I shook in the survival bag.  He was my best friend, my navigator.

The most honest feeling of sadness tore through me that afternoon.  It was violent, efficient, like a bad weather system moving through; ripping out fenceposts, uprooting trees, destroying buildings.  I was so grateful to be where we were.  There were no walls, noone else around that we had to fake it to – just the blue sky and red dirt of Yalata.  

With half of Australia left to cycle, we had no choice but to carry on riding.  But there was also nothing else we would rather have done.  As we pulled out onto the road the next day, a road train passed me, way too close.  I watched from 100 metres back as the truck got closer to Stuart, who wasn’t turning around.  I didn’t know if he could hear the truck.  The driver started honking his horn at him, and forced him off the road.  This was too much for me, the world had suddenly become hostile.  Stuart and I were a unit, we’d looked after each other for so long, and I saw that now, I wasn’t going to be there to look after him.  I cried all the way to Nundroo.  

The roadhouse appeared in view just on lunchtime, bizarrely, and we were pleased to find another Scottish backpacker behind the counter.  She was funny and nice, it was a relief to not have to battle with scowls as we spent our money.  It was another windy day, and a customer was telling her how his fuel conversion was a horror show as he drove into the wind with his 4×4 and his caravan.  I went up and paid for lunch, and told her that we also had the same problems, trying to work out how many kilometres we could get to the pie.

In movies, girls who get broken up with go one of two ways.  There are the Bridget Joneses, eating tubs of Haagen Dazs in their pyjamas and watching sad movies all weekend.  Or the girls who can’t eat at all, stomach in knots, growing thinner (that’ll show him!), with each day that passes.  Not I.  I was in the unique position of still needing to ride 100+ kms a day, so had to keep shovelling those pies in.  Wiping away tears and snot while determinedly squirting that last bit of tomato sauce onto your mince pie is not the last image one wants their ex boyfriend to have of them.  Bits of Crunchie bar congealing into the sunblock at the corners of my mouth, as I say again, “We need to keep trying”.  Have I done the right thing he may ask himself months from now, ah…yes.

The road completely changed from Nundroo on. It was getting more populated, farms were starting to appear and there were more cars on the road. We missed the earlier camaraderie of the Nullarbor. If you’re properly on it, you’re on a big trip; whether you’re a trucker, a caravanner or a cyclist, you’re in it for the long haul. Everyone waves at everyone, it’s like being on a really long and really dry North Uist. 

On the Saturday that we rode from Nundroo to Penong, our second to last day of the Nullarbor, there were a lot more roadtrains, coming at us from both directions, often passing at the same time. There is no shoulder on the South Australian side of the border, the road goes straight onto gravel, so having to move off at speed was almost as dangerous as staying on the road. We had a tailwind that afternoon, but the amount of trucks made the going really tough. We got to Penong well before dark, but decided to stop there as we really wanted to get off the road.

The caravan park was unattended, but there was a note on the door with the owner’s mobile number and a cordless phone left on the table. We phoned him, and a minute later he came back from the pub and checked us in. Our kind of town! He told us that Wednesdays and Saturdays were the busiest for road trains on that stretch, and we should have a better run of it the next day.

The tailwind was waiting for us the following morning, and we flew off and had arrived in Ceduna by midday. We had finished the Nullarbor. Ceduna is famous for oysters, and a lot of people we’d met had told us to celebrate the crossing with a cold pint and a bucket of oysters. Unfortunately for us it was spawning season; the oyster bar was shut, and the only pub that was open was too fancy looking for a girl with stubborn sardine oil stains on the front of her shorts. So we bought a six pack and a bottle of wine instead.

Not a good move. My fragile state did not accommodate a hangover, and the next day’s riding to Smokey Bay in a headwind left me crying once again, unable to put the energy into riding and even living my life. Oh, the evils of drink!  It was like a huge balloon had been popped and that day I just wanted to finish.

We’d texted our friends Kaye and Gil the night before, so knew they were at Smokey Bay. The caravan park was fully booked when we arrived, but Kaye had kindly been up to the office and told them we were coming and made sure the owners would find a space for us. It was great to see them again, giving a feeling of continuity to our ride across Australia.

They invited us for dinner that night, and just to make sure there would definitely be enough to eat, gave us a bucket and some crab nets and sent us down to the wharf to go crabbing. We loved this. Our bright yellow bucket, the deep, blue sea and a wind so strong that we needed to tie everything to the hand rails.  Life in big, bright blocks of primary colour. It was a thrill to pull up the pots to see if we’d caught anything, and even more fun to let undersize crabs go.  We’d watch them swim away, all double jointed with their claws and long legs. We ended up catching three blue crabs. The catch limit per person is 40, but we were more than happy with our modest haul. These went with the six that Gil had already caught, and the non spawning oysters that they had somehow managed to find. It was a gorgeous seafood feast complemented with glasses of cold white wine. It was fun to tell them our Nullarbor stories, and to compare our Roadhouse experiences. Kaye was always concerned about my lack of creature comforts on the road, and that night she lent me her  Lavender Body Butter to put on after my shower. They treated us like family.

We went swimming and fishing the next day and avoided our bikes completely. It was our first day off in eleven days, and they were the biggest days we’d had on the trip. We cooked in the kitchen that night and spoke with some of the other guests. One couple told us they’d seen some cyclists on the Nullarbor a few days ago, and that their friend had given them two cans of coke. “That was us!” we told them. Kaye and Gil had us over for apple pie that night, and gave us advice on how to avoid the busy roads leading up to Adelaide.

We left Smokey Bay early the next day, stopping for lunch at another beautiful spot, Streakey Bay. It was ferociously hot, and there was a mean headwind, so we took five hours off and went swimming and sunbathing and ate cakes from the bakery. We camped that night next to Murphy’s Haystacks, 1500 million year old rock formations, sitting proud in a field. We arrived at sunset, and were the only people there.

The following morning we stopped off at Port Kenny, a faded town of peeling paint and closed shops.  It looked like it had once enjoyed happier days. The man at the caravan park recommended that we take a detour to Mount Camel, a beach off the main road, as that was Stuart’s best bet for catching a ‘salmon’…

The Australian Fishing News.

Although I caught a few fish at Emu Point in Albany, there was nothing worthy of a photo, mainly because I felt there was better to come. One other luxury I now had was the endless array of glossy fishing magazines I had access to. An article caught my eye which was raving about the soft bait fishing potential for bream in a south coast town called Walpole.

This, by Australian standards, was just round the corner from the Stawberry farm. Even though it was over 160kms away. Cycling there for a cast was out the question in our day and a half off a week. Hiring a car would eat to much into our hard earned cash, so hitching was the only option.

I have hitched in remote parts of Australia before, to get to fishing destinations. Looking back, it was about nine years ago on Cape York in far north Queensland. I had joined this small group of fly fisherman from Sydney to fish the Pennyfarther, just north of Weipa. It was just for a couple of days fishing, but I was so taken by the place I was determined to get back. I ended up getting a lift to a junction where not one car was heading to the dead end destination I was going to. 11 hours later, a Thursday Islander who saw me on the side of the road earlier in the day took pity on me. An hour and a half later he dropped me off at my destination along a four wheel drive track in the pitch black. The only the lights I saw were the reflection of the cars headlights in the eyes of the many crocodiles that were resting in the saltwater lagoon.

Hitching to Walpole, I was hoping would not be as extreme. Although, hitching in Austrailia should never be taken lightly. It was the height of summer and there were hundreds of kilometers between towns or even farm houses.

I set off after work at midday on Saturday. My first lift, believe it or not was on a push bike. Heather with her rugby player thighs and her stamina only to be matched by a race horse gave me a lift 5kms to the end of the road with me sitting on her tubus rack,(I knew the 80kg max load would come in useful).

The actual hitching was a breeze. Hitching is a great way to get a good cross section of the local population depending on the amount of lifts you get. I ended up with eight rides and a great mix of people, from a car full of Afghani strawberry pickers ‘Assallam aleikum’ I greeted them to their surprise. Someone who was returning to the town of Denmark after a ten day hike in Tasmania. A guy living in the middle of nowhere with a fresh water spring on his property who was going to take over the bottled water market, (“Do they drink bottled water in Scotland?” was the market research question). A European couple touring in a 4X4, a young father and son making honey for a living. The dad told me he cycle toured with his wife for two years in Australia and it was the freest he has ever felt. Then finally, a couple going to help their 85 year old relation on his farm near Walpole.

Reaching Walpole, I had a quick chat to the guy in the tourist information to get the lay of the land.
I then made my way down to the water only to be met by a cold stiff southerly and dirty water, nightmare.
With a heavy heart I started wandering around the coastline in the search of some slightly clearer water. The locals had already told me it would be the same the following day. One thing slightly in my favour was the fact the inlet was so shallow, no deeper than 1.5 meters. Having around 30cm visibility meant if there were fish around they may see the fly as they look skywards.

I found a long jetty, where I met another Scotsman. Only he had been in Oz for over forty years. He was a really nice guy, he even caught a bream on bait just to prove there were fish around. I fished till dark and managed a fish; What a relief. It’s amazing how much satisfaction even a small fish on a tough day can give.

The following day, although the weather was still cold, at least the sun was out. From memorising an aerial shot in the tourist office I made my way to a slight sand spit near a boating channel. Fishing bright pink crazy charlies on an intermediate line, I managed around eight fish; five bream and three herring. A great day and to help round it off, the lifts back to the strawberry farm were frequent, (apart from the first one which involved an hour and a half wait). I even fluked the last lift for the last 60 kms with the strawberry farmer’s wife, who dropped me off outside the tent. He who dares Rodney!

Having caught my Aussie fish in WA and after witnessing first hand the size of the country, it only seems right to try and catch a fish in each state we cycle through, (any excuse to get some more fishing in).

The southern part of Australia unfortunately doesn’t have the exotic species of the tropical north, which are much sought after by the sportfishermen. One of the better sportfish of the south are the Australian salmon (kahawai in New Zealand). They only come inshore at certain times of year and it so happened that we were there at the start of the run.

The numbers were still patchy and I found my self asking random strangers through out the trans continental cycle, “Got any Salmon? Lovely!”, in a cockney accent. Anyone of a similar age may remember the tune that was going through my head at the time.

Eventually, after a number of failed attempts along the way, we were told to have a cast at Camel Beach on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. This was an exposed, fishy looking beach, with a decent swell and deep gutters.

Fly fishing on a surf beach is never ideal, with long casts required into turbulent water; everywhere awash, the flyline round your legs and getting caught in between your toes. The only way to beat the beach was to wade neck deep, bouncing off the bottom to keep your head and fly reel above the water as the swell rolls in. At times even treading water with your feet whilst casting. Knackering.

Heather, mean time was sun bathing and reading on the deserted beach. Only to be dsiturbed to come down and take a few shots of the hard earned salmon that eventually sucumbed to a Lefties Deciver on the faithful Hardy Demon #8. Not the biggest salmon but definitely hard earned.

Victoria was slightly anti climactic as far as the fishing went, and also the only place I know of where you have to pay to fish in the sea. I managed to catch a few very small salmon but the coastline was very exposed with large breakers whereever we had access to the beach, so the fly fishing was limited to cut off lagoons and some poor excuses for streams.

This is the second time I have fished and spent time in Austrailia. It was great to have on the ground experience of just how big the country is with the bikes. It must have one of the most diverse fisheries in the world, all productive and accessible. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon riding straight roads into a strong headwind.  Whereas once I would have enjoyed the stark beauty of this landscape, loved its vastness and the thought of truly experiencing the distance of Australia, now, I just felt beaten by it.  I didn’t recognise my life, I felt sad for my family who I knew would have been planning a party, sad for Stuart, sad for us. We rode past dry fields for hours, nothing was growing.  We rode through small towns that had no water.  Everything kept repeating itself, like a Roadrunner cartoon with the background on permanent loop, just like my crazy thoughts.  The sun had bleached the sky and frayed it around the edges, the wind was pushing against me like mean kids at school.  It felt like too much effort to ride to an unhappy finish.

We had decided to cut across the Eyre Peninsula half way down, and ride inland across to Cowell, and then take a ferry over to Wallaroo. This route would get us to the Great Ocean Road but keep us off the busy highways. We left the coastal road before Elliston and turned onto a quiet gravel road called Rocky Valley Road. The landscape changed instantly, green trees and bushes lined the road and I started to feel better. Later that evening the sun set directly behind us above the road and the moon rose brilliant and silver on the road in front us. We’ve ridden through so many sunsets and beneath so many full moons, but never before had we been on the direct line between the two. It was a magical, frangible moment, we were on a wire connecting two lanterns.

We rode into Lock the next morning, which we decided is quite possibly the friendliest town in Australia. The supermarket had a table and chairs in the middle of it, along with a coffee machine and a pie oven. She of the stained shorts was delighted! Customers pushed their trolleys while balancing their coffee cups, stopping to talk with the shop assistants, talking about partys and how their diets were going.  A lady came up and told us she used to work at a cafe in Tennant Creek, and whenever cyclists would come to buy a meal, she’d give it to them for free. I told her she would still be spoken of with fondness in houses all over the world, and thanked her on behalf of all cycle tourists.  We asked the girl at the checkout if there was a tap in the town where we could fill up our water. A woman shopping overheard and told us she volunteered in the 2^nd hand shop next door, the fantastically named ‘Lock, Stock and Apparel’, and that we could come over in ten minutes to fill up.

She was an English woman in her fifties, and had moved to Australia when she was fifteen. She told me that soon after she arrived she moved to a remote sheep station 800kms north of Adelaide, “I just wanted to see how other people live”. I thanked her for the water, and she told me simply that they’d had rain recently, so it was no problem, and besides, they just love having visitors.  

We arrived in Cowell later that night, to find that a Ute Muster had the town fully booked. The first caravan park turned us away, and we didn’t have high hopes about the other one, 2kms out of town. They had a no vacancy sign up, but we throught we’d try our luck anyway. The owner came out of the full and rowdy kitchen, laughing when she saw us, saying that the other guests had shouted “Oh, come on! You can’t turn them away!”

The newly reinstated ferry took us from Cowell over to Wallaroo the following day. We queued up with an older couple who were touring on their motorbikes. “It’s a great way to travel”, the woman said to Stuart, “You can smell the smells, really get a sense of your, oh…” she suddenly noticed our pushbikes, “I suppose you already know that.”

With the first half of the day spent on the ferry,  then riding into another headwind for the rest of the afternoon, it was easy for the sign advertising the Paskeville Historic Pub to tempt us off the main road for a beer. A country band were tuning their strings, Folsom Prison Blues was first on the playlist, so before we knew it, the beers were in and we’d ordered dinner. Some locals told us that we could put our tent up down by the sports oval.

Our trip was a good topic of conversation, leading onto darker topics, ones that one didn’t really want to get into as night was drawing in. “Are you camping? Haven’t you seen Wolf Creek?” asked Janine, a lovely lady who came to sit with us. No, I replied, I hadn’t seen that delightful Australian melange of the Peter Falconio murder, with a few twists of Ivan Milat thrown in to really hot things up. In Australia, if it’s not the snakes or spiders that get you, it will be a man in a checked shirt and a white ute.

We were reassured that Paskeville was completely safe; the only upset they’d had was the biker shooting in 2008, where a man who’d been shot 15 times staggered into the very bar that we were sitting outside. We felt our mountain bikes heavily loaded with camping equipment, cumbersome water vessels and high vis fabrics weren’t cool enough to warrant any biker attention. We camped safely in the oval that night, with the softest ground we’ve put our tent pegs in yet! Thank you Paskeville!

It was a short wind through the Barossa Valley over the next few days, on some beautiful roads criss crossed with the shadows of a thousand gum trees. This eventually took us to Murray Bridge. We stocked up at the supermarket, and the world’s tiniest and perhaps most elderly security guard came out to chat with us. I said she must have seen a lot with a job like hers. She said, “Yes, I’ve been doing this 26 years, but I still never know where to grab people when they’re naked”. She bid us safe travels, and told us not to ride when it got too hot.

After another few days of riding we crossed the Victorian Border, our last border crossing of the trip. We had a short day that day, stopping off at a small town called Dartmoor, that had a beautiful free campsite and a river. We spent the evening there with a couple who’d just sold their house and business and had taken to the road indefinitely in their bus. They cooked for us that night, gave us wine and whisky, and also tips for spotting koalas in the trees, which they said we’d be bound to see once we hit the Great Ocean Road.

We camped the following night at Yambuk, a charmingly intermittent caravan park that lined the edge of the public road to the beach. We loved how casual it was. That evening as I was chopping vegetables for dinner in the camp kitchen, some men asked about our trip. I answered politely, but was beginning to find these conversations difficult after what had happened, especially when the conversation led to what we would do when the trip was finished. We still answered as if nothing had changed, it was easier.  When the men left, they gave me a gift of a bottle of wine and said “Thank you for answering our stupid questions”. I felt guilty, knowing that I probably hadn’t put as much enthusiasm into my answers as I once would have, and hoped that I hadn’t appeared rude to these men.

Another camper came and asked if we were planning to cycle the Great Ocean Road, I confimed yes and he let out a low whistle while shaking his head. “Be veeeery careful, there are some very tight corners and some veeeery crazy drivers. No, No, you’ll be fine, I’m just saying be careful. That’s all”.

The Great Ocean Road, another iconic Australian Road Trip! It started well, with a kind family coming out of a supermarket with a tub of icecream. They spooned some into plastic cups for us and let us borrow some of their teaspoons “We want to give you a nice memory”, said the grandfather before they drove off waving their spoons.

We hit another headwind as soon as we started, but once we reached the coast, and started catching glimpses of blue sea, crumbling sea stacks, and inaccessible coves we barely noticed it. We shouldn’t have, but that night we took our bikes over a barrier and wheeled them through the scrub and camped right on the edge of Australia. The ocean was crashing over and over again onto the cliffs right below us. We woke up there, on the edge of that beautiful, enormous country, and drank our morning coffee with Australia ending at our feet. We reached the Twelve Apostles, an hour later, just as the sun was rising.

We rode onto the small town of Princetown and had morning tea with a friendly cafe owner. He said it was going to get pretty hilly from there on, but that once we were at the top of Laver’s Hill, the worst of the climbing would be behind us. The hill was fantastic, and we realised it was the first proper hill climbing we’d done since India. The cars were a bit of a menace though, too confident and too fast. At least in India they beep incessantly so you know they’re coming. Yes, I admit it, I prefer Indian drivers!

We got to Lavers Hill and stopped off at a Roadhouse. The man who ran it asked which way we were going, and then said “Cycle safe” while staring deeply into our eyes. “No, I mean it. Be careful.” We had to go back in one more time before we left, and he paused again, and said “Cycle safe guys” with another meaningful look. It was starting to get a little bit too American Werewolf in London for my liking, “Stick to the roads boys, don’t go on the moors.” We hadn’t had this many warnings since we’d voiced our intentions of cyling through Indus Kohistan on the Karakoram Highway.

The downhill from Laver’s Hill was exhilarating, and then it was straight up into another belter of a hill leading up and then down into Apollo Bay. We rode on through the early evening. It was a beautiful time to ride; there were very few cars on the road, so we had the sharp corners to ourselves and could enjoy the curves without the cars. I saw three koalas that afternoon, and I realised how much I’d taken them for granted.  Yes, we all know Australia has them, but I don’t know if I’ve ever really considered how wondrous it is that this country has tiny bears in trees, until I saw them in the wild.To ride along, and notice that the branch that is stretching above you, has a bear crawling along it, is just astonishing.  I stopped, and suddenly noticed another koala halfway down a tree trunk.  When he noticed me watching, he stopped in his slow moving tracks and stared right back.  I then saw another one, wedged between a trunk and a branch.  It was a laugh out loud, hand clapping moment.  Stuart was absolutely devastated when I caught up with him ten minutes later, he was sure I had made it up.  Three!!!

That night the fire service had organised a controlled burn to get rid of the  undergrowth that can cause bushfires. The whole landscape looked like it had been in a fight.  A heavy  block of smoke was pressing down on the ocean like a new bruise, the pinks of the sunset were bleeding out from underneath it. The hills were lit up with small orange fires, the stripped, black trees were scorched and naked. Firemen and women were on silent standby, all lit up in high vis yellow, slowly waving cars past in a single file.

We stayed at a campsite at Wye River that night. It was our last night in the tent, our second to last day of cycling to New Zealand. We cooked pasta on the barbecue tables outside the laundry. There were signs in the bathrooms telling guests what to do if there was a fireball, saying the best thing to do would be to run straight into the sea.

The next day was beautiful, with photogenic views of the Great Ocean Road in each direction. Slowly, slowly a headwind started to build up, and by the time we reached Anglesea it was nasty. We stopped for lunch at a cafe, and my heart broke as I watched Stuart through the window, ordering our lunch, pies again. The lady behind the counter was busy, and he stood there smiling, his usual patient self. 

We carried on into the headwind, and the roads got busier and busier as we neared Geelong. Perhaps it’s the best way to end a year long cycle trip; in the suburbs, uninspired. We met a couple that ended theirs in Kyrgyzstan. It would be heartbrearking to fly away from those mountains, with all those horses, and those beautiful Central Asian faces. We rode into Geelong and found the train station, bought two tickets to Melbourne and wheeled our bikes inside to wait. We ordered coffees and sat on a sofa seat with our bikes parked on the brightly coloured carpet, amongst school kids on their way home and another guy waiting with his surfboard. I burst into tears.

I remembered an Australian guy we’d met in India, just as we’d made it up the steep hill to Macleod Ganj. Though backpacking when we met him, he had done a lot of bike touring. He said that even though he’d been most places, over five years of riding, he still felt jealous when he saw other cycle tourists. Because it’s never enough. In his words, nothing, but nothing beats that feeling of pulling up somewhere on your bike, and looking around at everyone else, and saying “Yeah, well I f*&kin rode here!” Amen to that.

I’d often imagined our last moment, and it certainly didn’t involve crying over my coffee in the Geelong Train Station. But that’s life. And we still f*&kin rode there.

June 16, 2012 | Categories: cycle touring | Tags: australia, cycle touring, fly fishing, nullarbor plain | 25 Comments