Esperance to Perth: Melbourne to Perth Complete!

So far my journey has mainly taken me across arid, largely flat, featureless terrain on land - with the exception of the Flinders Ranges - but from Esperance to Perth the climate and the surroundings changed markedly.  Almost immediately as I left Esperance the roads became a lot more up and down, testing the legs in a different way.

I left the last update with some pictures of the gorgeous Esperance coastline, but in the next two days, the heavens opened and the winds blew.  Fortunately, I was settled in a hostel doing some work and only got a little wet when I went out to play some squash.

Squash clubs were few and far between in the first 3000Km or so, I only managed to play twice in that time; once in Mildura and once in Port Augusta.  In the South-West corner of Australia, however, they started to become much more prevalent as I hit some slightly bigger towns.  It is still clear, though, that squash is a bit of a dying sport here, especially in rural Australia.  There aren't many players and the facilities don't look like they have changed in 20 or 30 years, and many gyms around were obviously squash courts in the past.

As I set-off out of Esperance to Albany late afternoon, I looked a bit stuck for a campsite on the first night until I came across a rest area that was meant to be closed.  Far from closed though, it was actually brand new and offered a very convenient place to camp for the night.  Wild camping anywhere outside the rest areas in Western Australia has proved a bit tricky at times, with either fences or dense undergrowth in the way.

From then on I tried to plan to stop for the night at rest stops on the 500Km to Albany, my next major town.  Nothing much to note on the way except for the prevalence of mice around my tent at night (something I have never experienced in Australia before) and meeting a couple of cyclists along the way; one Englishman, currently living in Vancouver, and one Canadian.  I have met maybe 8 or 9 cyclists now since Melbourne, with the UK leading the way in numbers, but more interesting than that is the average age.  I have met a few young ones, but the majority have been older, I'd say 50+, perhaps not what you'd expect, but bicycle touring certainly isn't purely a young man's game.

I feel like my life has a beautiful simplicity to it on tour; I go from point A to point B, then I find the highest spot of point B, run up it, and look at the splendor of the place.  It keeps me fit anyway.  I have been trying on every day-off riding to do some different exercise.  Gyms have been difficult to come by, but running, a bit of circuit training in the park, some bodyweight exercises, and some squash are all stopping me getting too stuck into cycling mode.

Meeting People

This tour has stood out so far from the others in terms of meeting people.  I have really enjoyed my other tours, but I have been a bit of a loner on them.  I have obviously met people at certain times on all of them and had interesting conversations and experiences, but this time I have gone out of my way to illicit some social interaction.  Part of the reason for this is the length of time I am away, 10 months in all in Australia and New Zealand.  The result of this has been pretty awesome.

I have met some amazing people through warmshowers.com, and playing squash has also been a really good idea.  Playing in rural towns has not provided very stiff competition (although it got steadily better on the way to Perth), but I have really enjoyed the social aspect of it anyway.  It is surprisingly easy to organise games too, even if I call at the last minute.  I think the combination of what I am doing on the bike makes people curious and my standard also helps.

Since Albany, the South-West of Australia has been much more populated and this has given me the chance to meet lots of people, something I was craving after some very long stretches devoid of very much human contact.  I found on the long stretches of nothing I did talk people's heads off when I found them, which is bizarre because I am not someone who gets lonely at all, it is not a sensation I ever feel, but I do enjoy conversation.  I am human after all.

From Albany to Perth, I stayed with 5 warmshowers hosts, who were all amazingly welcoming and easy to get along with.  I guess this is the advantage of having shared interests and something in common.  On occasion I have been tempted to use couchsurfing, as this site has a wider network of people and there is always someone in pretty much every town who can host you, but I haven't yet, I feel uncomfortable I guess not "knowing" or understanding these people in the same way.

My first hosts were Janey and Ruedi and they lived in a beautiful house in the hills outside Albany.  I stayed for one night, but would love to have stayed for longer. Unfortunately, I had work to do and I couldn't get a 4G signal in their house.  They had done some interesting tours themselves and we had a good chat over a delicious dinner.

Janey and Ruedi's beautiful house in the hills outside Albany.

The Story of My First Broken Spoke

My first encounter with the idea of bicycle touring was with Mark Beaumont's documentary, "The Man Who Cycled the World".  On that journey, he had a lot of problems with broken spokes, so naturally this was a concern for me, and I have always been a little paranoid about it because even if you can fix them, it is a time consuming pain in the neck to do it, as you have to true the rest of the spokes after replacing one.  Up until about a week ago, however, I had never broken one on any of my tours.

The Gloucester tree in Pemberton, which you can climb using the thin metal rods drilled into the trunk.

So I did eventually break a spoke, about 50Km from Pemberton, and although I can fix them, the spoke was on the gearing side on the back wheel, and for all of you here that aren't cyclists, this meant I would have had to remove the whole rear mechanism to be able to remove the broken spoke and put the new one in.  You need a special piece of equipment to do this called a chain whip and I don't have one, and the removal of the cassette makes a tricky, time consuming process doubly difficult.

A lady freaked out and froze about 20 steps up, which was perhaps understandable.

If you break a spoke, this puts pressure on all the other spokes when you are riding and if you continue to ride this makes the possibility of other spokes breaking pretty much a guarantee and will eventually lead to you permanently buckling your wheel, so you should stop riding right away.  This was a problem for me, as I was in the middle of nowhere (surprise surprise).  A lovely couple came to my aid, luckily, and gave me a lift into the nearest town.  There were no bike shops there, but I could hop on a bus to one, the nearest bike shop was in Bunbury.  This made for a change in my planned route, and meant I missed the far South West corner, and took me on a more direct route to Perth.  With the bus trip and the lift to Pemberton, this also meant about 150Km that I didn't ride.  All this meant that I was forced to slow down on the way into Perth, but to be honest, this wasn't such a bad thing.

Top of the tree.  There are some big trees in the South West forests of Australia.

When I got off the bus in Bunbury it became clear that the bus station was much further out of town than I had imagined.  Without the ability to ride my bike, that meant 5Km of pushing.  I got about 1Km in and while I was passing a hardware shop, a guy with a South African accent stopped me and asked me what my problem was.  I told him and he kindly offered to chuck my bike in the back of his car and take me to a bike shop in town that a friend of his owned.  While in the car he asked me where I was staying.  I had arranged a warmshowers host for a couple of nights, but on this day I was going to stay at a hostel.  Seeing as I hadn't booked anything, however, he offered to take me in for the night.  As it turned out, he was a warmshowers host himself, but he had made his account inactive because he was traveling around a lot for work, an incredible coincidence as Bunbury is not that small a town.  He had a cool job as an emergency response medic, the perfect man to bump into in a crisis, I reckon.

He picked-up another South African on the ride into town (there were loads of Saffers in Bunbury) and he oddly enough worked in South Korea (where I lived on and off for 4 years or so) in the ship building industry on Geoje Island, coincidentally the place of my first ever bicycle tour with my buddy Thaddeus.  I had a terrible bike that was uncomfortable with a seat I couldn't adjust and that was permanently sticking up at a funny angle, meaning I was absolutely exhausted and fed up after a day and a half of riding.  I was inexperienced at the time even with camping, so I remember having the worst night ever with a camping hammock with no trees to tie it to and no bedding, and so I had to lie on a wooden seating platform on a beach with mosquitoes biting me all night.  I am a little better organised these days.

Pete and Heidi in Bunbury.

Anyway, Jim invited me into his home, cooked me dinner, took me to his gym for a workout, and generally was just a absolute legend.  He had an amazing array of bicycles in his garage and we shared stories and chatted-away for hours.  The next day I had a similarly wonderful experience with my warmshowers hosts, Pete and Heidi, who took great care of me and who I felt genuinely at home with.  They were a lovely couple who seemed to have a shared love of the outdoors, and again, were amazingly easy to get along with.

Pete and Heidi's strikingly beautiful cat, and along with their black cat, the only cats i have ever not really been allergic to.

After a few days in Bunbury waiting for my bike to be fixed and serviced, I made my way to Mandurah and Pete and Heidi cycled with me for about 20Km or so, guiding me along the bike paths out of town.  I said farewell and headed into an increasingly stiff wind for quite a hard 105Km.

Thrombolites at Lake Clifton.

Along the way I hit the first of a series of sites featuring some of the oldest lifeforms on earth Thrombolites and Stromatolites.  The latter is the world's oldest known life form, producing oxygen from photosynthesis than led to the first life on land on planet earth, without them we would all probably not be here.  I will be meeting these ancient forms of bacteria later on the tour, but the thrombolites are almost equally as ancient with similar methods of growth and survival.  They lay down calcium carbonate during the process of photosynthesis, which creates these rock-like structures.

Jenny and the shadow is Will.

I had another warmshowers host in Mandurah, and again, they were fantastic.  I stopped for a couple of days again, mainly for work and luckily so, as on the second day the weather was windy and rainy.  My hosts Will and Jenny had done some pretty amazing trips by bicycle, motorbike, and combi (like a campervan) in Australia, but also in other parts of the world too and have an excellent blog about it.  They were certainly very can-do, industrious people; they did an amazing job renovating their house (I stayed in an immaculate separate little room and bathroom behind their house), grew and made some of their own food, made videos of their trips, and had some great traveling gear.  Like Pete and Heidi, they cycled with me for about 20Km on the morning I left, and were a pleasure to stay with.

Shortly after Will and Jenny left, I was joined by a fellow Brit who had been living in Australia for about 8 years, riding from his house to the next town, Rockingham for a bit of exercise and a coffee.  He guided me in and we had a good chat on the way.  He then insisted he buy me a coffee and a cake at his favourite coffee shop.  Nice guy, but terrible at sticking to his diet of no sugar; one day in and we both had the biggest double chocolate muffins I had ever seen with butter just to make sure we were eating enough calories for the ride.

Looking out on the Indian Ocean.

A great morning, but a shocking afternoon as I realised I hadn't charged my power bank and so therefore almost ran out of power for my laptop while teaching.  I rushed to a campsite between classes to charge it only to discover that the campsite didn't accept tents, only caravans.  Fortunately, I managed to persuade the owner to let me use her laundry room to plug in all my stuff and teach some classes.  I managed to get everything sorted with just one minute to spare, but there was a fair amount of stress involved.

Rockingham proved a difficult place to find a campsite as after I had finished teaching their was no where else to go that was close.  I managed to find an old abandoned foreshore park to pitch my tent, right in front of the ocean.  A lucky break as I thought free camping would be impossible there.

I arranged another warmshowers host in Fremantle (West of the city of Perth), a nice Italian couple, Mario and Gloria, and their children.  Mario had lived in Italy on the shores of lake Garda and Salomon (huge outdoor clothing and equipment brand) asked whether they could rent the shop he owned, as lake Garda is a great outdoor sporting venue in Northern Italy.  Well, that pretty much set him up for life, so he moved to Australia with his family and has been traveling and living a pretty sweet life ever since.  They, as a couple, looked extremely healthy for it too.  As usual with the warmshowers community, they were super hosts.

It was very windy as I entered Perth (against me, as usual).  Great for kite surfing.

While I was in Fremantle and waiting for my wife to arrived in a couple of days, I found a squash club and manage to arrange to play 2 days in a row, something I have not done for a very long time.  The body held-up well though, and I felt like my game started to get back to some fluency.  I managed to scrape home 3 wins in 3 games, so that means I am still unbeaten on the tour.  I hear Broome and Cairns could also provide me with some stiff competition, and I will arrive in both places without having played very much.

On the way into Perth.

The next thing on the agenda was to meet my wife in Perth for a few days, she had done all the organising of accommodation in the middle of the city, so I had to cycle about 30Km along the foreshore into Perth to meet her.

Dolphins right in the middle of the city.

I was quite impressed with how good the bike paths were and how clean the city is in Perth, both on the streets and in the water.  Perhaps this contributed to me seeing a few dolphins swimming right under a bridge in the middle of the city near Elizabeth Quay.  I have seen bottle nosed dolphins so many times on this trip already and it never gets boring, but it is quite extraordinary to see them right in the heart of a city.

I'll leave this update with a short summary of the tour so far, as the first major milestone is complete, and I'll pick up from Perth next time.  I'm looking forward to going up the West coast in the next stage of the trip.

Total distance: About 4500Km

Daily Expenses, e.g. food, accommodation, bike repairs and parts: $1580 after 63 days.

Special expenses: $650 ($500 for Great White Shark dive and $150 for bike service).

Total expenses: $2230

Earnings from online work: $1570

Sum cost of the trip so far = $660

Aussie Tour Update: Port Lincoln to Esperance Via the Nullarbor Crossing (April 1st to 21st)

I left-off last time checking-in with my warmshowers hosts Peter and Lana in Port Lincoln, so first a few words about these lovely people.  I arrived smelly and horrible, and they were extremely hospitable.  Just so you get an idea what kind of people they were and how I might relate to them, when I arrived Peter had just been running, Lana was cycling, and their son Martin was sea kayaking around an island 4Km offshore.

They were wonderful hosts, providing a very comfortable area to relax and recharge the batteries.  They had done a few tours in Europe and were just generally very active people, always on the go.  We had a lot in common and chatted a lot.

I rather liked Port Lincoln, I think it was my favourite town so far; big enough so that you'd have everything you need, but small enough so that most people knew each other and there was a real community feeling about the place.  Added to this, there was real adventure on their doorstep.

Port Lincoln is a town often bypassed by most bicycle tourers in this region of Australia.  Many cyclists in these parts are taking on the challenge of Perth to Adelaide, Sydney, or Melbourne, or the other way around, so the 900Km or so detour down and up the Eyre Peninsula is not most people's cup of tea, especially after tackling the Nullarbor (most people go from West to East).

I, on the other hand, have a bit more time than most, and there is something a bit special about Port Lincoln that caught my eye.  Port Lincoln is the only place in Australia - and one of only 3 places in the world, I think - where you can dive with Great White sharks.  If you've ever watched a nature documentary about these impressive monsters, it is very likely they filmed it in the Neptune Islands, a 3-hour boat journey from Port Lincoln.

Arriving in early April was not really the best time of year to see them, so I was a bit worried I wouldn't see any.  Sightings in March were sparse, 50/50 between no sighting at all and just one shark.  I was set to dive on the 2nd, and encouragingly they had seen 3 sharks on the 31st of March, and then 2 the day before.  Historically, shark sightings start to pick up at the beginning of April, so I had some hope.  Peter ran the 4 Km with me from their house early in the morning for the start of the trip, with the boat disembarking at 6.30am.

The day before, they had seen 2 sharks, but they did have to wait 5 hours for them, and then rush people into the water at the end of the day to get a look.  We, however, were extremely lucky.  We waited 30 minutes, and after that the sharks hung-around all day, meaning we all got 2 dives in the cage of about 40 minutes each time.  This was much longer than I could have hoped for, and we got a much clearer look at the sharks than I expected also.  There were 4 different sharks in all, recognisable by size, markings near their nose and chunks out of fins. It was an incredible experience.

A word of warning though, this trip is not for the faint-hearted, and it is not because of the sharks.  The 3-hour trip out to the Neptune Islands was choppy, and I just about avoided seasickness with careful taking of medication, some others weren't so lucky.  I was later informed that this was a pretty calm day and that many times more than half the boat are vomiting.

The experience in the cage also takes some getting used to.  The Neptune Islands provide some shelter, but not much, the water is still a little rough, so you rattle-around in that cage, which not only creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, it probably causes even more potent motion sickness than sitting on the boat.  Many of us were quite happy to be out of the water before we threw-up in our regulators.

That being said, no one wanted to get out of the water before their time was due, because although slightly disconcerting in the cage, the sharks were magnificent.  It was a real privilege to be confronted with these rather iconic predators of the deep, you couldn't take your eyes off them.

At one point, one of the sharks nearly got the bait (they shouldn't eat it, it is a lure to get them close), so it was pulled-in fast by the crew, causing the shark to speed-up and crash into the cage right in front of me.  The chap standing next to me in the picture got amazing footage of this on his Gopro, so I am hoping he shares it.  The sharks nose went right into the cage.  Strangely, though, it wasn't scary, it was just exhilarating.

Despite some sickness going around the boat, the crew and everyone on board were in great spirits and the atmosphere was brilliant.  Rarely have I been on a tour of somewhere where no one annoyed me, they were all very likeable, friendly people.  It was a fantastic day all round doing something I have always wanted to do, a real tick-off the bucket list.

Back to reality, I made I fond farewell to Peter, Lana, and Martin and headed back up the Eyre Peninsula, this time on the West coast.  I had 405Km to do over 3 and a half days to make it to Ceduna for a couple of days rest and some work.  The distance was not marked by many towns and the big distances without much chance to get supplies was good preparation for the real test to come, the Nullarbor and the over 1200Km from Ceduna to Norseman, which I had to do in 9 days.

I wild-camped this section every day and made some interesting discoveries when it came to food to eat.  It seems that ginger biscuits broken-up into cold porridge (oatmeal for you Yanks), peanuts and sultanas is a real winner.  It not only sweetens things nicely, making it quite tasty, it improves the texture as well.  And also, Mexican, Indian curry, and Thai curry tins of tuna in wraps with peanuts and a bit of chopped carrot again are very tasty, and healthy.

These signs are always a welcome sight.

I had noticed my bike was giving me some trouble on this section, occasionally the chain would be very noisy, even going so far as to seem like it was grinding some of the time, so I was a bit concerned.  I figured-out what it was.  Earlier on in the tour, I had done some dirt roads and I had forgotten my chain lube so I had to buy some.  I haven't passed-through many towns with bike shops, however, and the only thing available was from a toy shop.  This lube washed the chain but also made it slightly sticky at the same time.  As the kilometres passed by, this attracted so much dirt and grime it had made the chain run very badly.  I stopped at a rest area, water-down the lube and had a big clean-up, which did the trick nicely.

A chap with a caravan pulled-in at the same time and I asked him whether I could wash my hands in his sink, as they were filthy.  He kindly let me in and also made me a coffee and we had a nice chat about stuff and his Italian greyhound, who was very nice and also a bit quirky.  It turns out he squats like he's pooing when he wees - often weeing on his leg in the process - and cocks his leg when he poos.  I noticed the odd way he peed, and then the old man told me about his number 2's, and sure enough 5 minutes later he demonstrated the latter.  We had a good laugh, strange dog.

Ceduna foreshore as the light fades.

As you might be able to tell, sometimes you have slow days in Australia where there are long distances of grind and the landscape hardly changes, and there are few people.  Nowhere is this more starkly demonstrated than on the long trip across the Nullarbor between Ceduna and Norseman.  This was probably the biggest physical and mental challenge of the trip, and bizarrely, it is a challenge a number of other cyclists try every year.  Why?  There is nothing there after all.  The reason?  It is difficult, that's it, and for some unknown reason, this has some appeal to me as well.

Well, if it was difficult I was looking for, that was certainly what I was going to get.  The prevailing wind in April is a south-easterly (although this only blows about a third of the time, wind direction is changeable this time of year), which would have been great for me.  However, after a few hours on the first day, I was never to see it again as it was replaced by westerlies and south-westerlies, not so good for me.  I endured 7 days in a row of this.  At this time of year, the winds are not as bad as they can be, but they were still pretty exhausting to cycle into, and on 2 days in particular, pretty impossible.

Sunset over the Great Australian Bight.

I had to sit-out a whole afternoon on one day early on as the winds turned north-west and brought with them temperatures over 40 degrees.  There was just no point cycling into that, in fact, it would have been flat-out dangerous.  On other days I struggled through, often starting at 5am to avoid the worst of the winds.

On one day, I started to get seriously concerned about whether I'd arrive on schedule in Norseman for my scheduled work online, especially as the forecast for the next couple of days was grim, with strong westerlies all day on both days.  With this in mind, I decided to cycle on into the night; there were no cars or trucks, and the wind had completely died after sunset.  I had intended to go on another 30Km, but I was rolling and with music in my ear and the milky way in full view in front of me, I was buzzing (the night sky in Australia is truly wonderful, especially when you are in the wide expanses of nothing).  I managed to go until midnight adding another 91Km, taking the daily total to 211Km, a new personal best for one day of cycling, and all without a breath of a tailwind (and in fact quite a bit of headwind during the day).

It turned-out to be a wise move to put in these extra kilometres as the winds came in force in the following days, just as forecast, and it was brutal.  I managed to eek out at least some distance on these days, but waking-up every day to forecasts of strong headwinds was starting to get me seriously down.  It was soul-destroying stuff, and I cursed the gods more than once as it appeared the world was plotting against me.

It was inevitable that there would be a Japanese guy doing this insanity as well.

Energy to keep going came from different sources, often gallons of refill instant coffee and milo from roadhouses, but the kindness of strangers in caravans gave me an important boost on more than one occasion.  On one of the windy days, a dust storm blew-through briefly with a squally shower.  Luckily, I was near a roadside rest stop and shelter, but seeing as the dust and rain was driving-through horizontally, it wasn't doing much good.  A very sweet older couple arrived at the same time, though, and they invited me in for a coffee, a banana sandwich and some more little snacks.  I can't tell you how much better I felt for that, and this sort of thing happened on a number of occasions.  I had originally thought that it was the coffee that gave me a boost, but as time went on, and on some occasions just water was given to me when I really needed it, I thought that it might actually be the feel-good, morale-boosting feeling itself of good-hearted people inviting me in and having a chat that helped drive me forward.

I was struggling the rest of the time though, really badly.  The conditions were taking their toll.  Not much shelter, so many bushflies (if I could kill every last one of these damn things, I would), march flies that were biting, and an unrelenting wind.  I was scraping-through, and then I wondered how the Korean cycle tourer I met back in Ceduna was getting on.

I saw this guy - who didn't want to be photographed - just before I left and he had the most extraordinary set-up I have ever seen (see picture below).  At the time, I really admired him for such a can-do, brave, inventive, and adventurous spirit, but as I made my way across the Nullarbor, I started to have my doubts about whether his ambition was a little too foolhardy.

Absolutely insane, but he had already done almost halfway around Australia, his mission was Cairns to Cairns, clockwise.

His suitcase, that he was trailing behind him, was only attached by string, and with the high winds in this part of Australia, I worried whether he could pedal in a straight line, and this was backed-up by stories from people I met who had past him on the road.  Apparently he was swaying around everywhere and he'd also hurt his ankle somewhere along the way.  The risk to his own safety seemed too high, but not only that, to other road users as well.  I began to think that it was all even a little irresponsible.

About half-way through the trip, I was passed by an ambulance, fire truck and police car at high speed.  I assumed there had been an accident further up the road and I wasn't wrong.  Some poor chap towing a trailer had crashed off the road and had been killed.  A police officer stopped me on the road and asked me if I had noticed anyone driving erratically earlier in the day and took my details just in case.  There seemed to be no other cars involved, but the driver looked like he had taken a sharp turn to the left while braking, as that's where the skid-marks were going.  His car and trailer were in a terrible state just off the road.  Perhaps he tried to avoid a kangaroo, as I did see one hit on the same stretch of road.

With all the big road trains around, though, a cyclist wobbling around all over the road is not the safest thing in the world, and especially with this incident fresh in my mind, I began to think this Korean chap might get stopped by the police at some stage (he wasn't involved in the incident, he was a few days behind me).

Back to my problems then, and true exhaustion was beginning to take hold, especially with all the wild camping also.  Still, there wasn't that much traffic, and the roads were pretty straight and flat (usually great for distance cycling, but not in headwinds).  As if to reinforce just how boring the road was, a highlight was "The 90 Mile Straight", the longest absolutely straight road in Australia.  It was at this point of the journey that I started to feel genuinely fatigued, having periods of light-headedness, and even sleepiness on the bike.  Everything was hurting also, legs, hands, feet, butt, and even my eyes from being dried-out by the winds.

Shortly after the end of the 90-mile straight, I met a German cyclist, who was the worst person to meet on low spirits.  I was told to, "Relax and enjoy the ride.  Don't worry about headwinds, they just give you a nice cool breeze.  I met a monk in......blah, blah, blah, who saved my life......blah, blah, blah."  I could have clobbered the guy.  Here he is, 200Km or so into the ordeal, all in strong tailwinds, telling me, over 1000Km in, how I should be feeling.  I said to him, "We'll see if you are smiling in 1000Km time and after a week of headwinds."  I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible.  I have always hated people who give you advice without you asking for it, and being overly cheerful coupled with a lack of understanding didn't help either.  Turns out the lady who runs the campsite at Norseman met him too (he stayed there for 8 days, recovering from coming from Perth, what a lightweight), and she didn't like him much either, haha.

The Nullarbor crossing, as hard as it was, is something I am very glad I did.  "Why on earth would you do such a thing?", many people asked me this on the way.  It isn't for fun, that's for sure.  No part of that was fun, and I wasn't happy for ten days, I can assure you.  I had no good answer for the questions, but perhaps because I have been listening to Jordan Peterson a lot recently, I started to say, "Pick up the heaviest load you can and carry it, it makes life meaningful".  I think this is right.

This truck was carrying a huge load that took up the whole road and was escorted by two police cars.

Difficult things, a struggle, a fight, taking responsibility for something make life worth living.  I think most people do this by having children, and I have thought long and hard about having children, as it is something rather expected of you, yet I have always hated children, especially the young ones.  I understand they bring a lot of joy, but I think the real reason for having them is the struggle, the huge responsibility on you to raise them well and the heroic effort this entails.  I admire people for having them, but they aren't for me.  I need to find other ways of making life meaningful.

To be honest, on this trip so far, every time I have seen a young child they have ruined the atmosphere; they whinge, they moan, they cry, they scream and when they are happy they are just as noisy and irritating.  I fantasize about tripping them up when they are happily running along laughing and playing or pushing them over. I know, I'm horrible, but I don't actually do it!  I am actually rather protective and on edge if I see young children in danger, I think this is a deep paternal instinct that most men have, perhaps.  I'm the kind of guy that wishes a kid walking with an ice cream drops it on the ground and starts crying, while at the same time would actually give them mine if it did in fact happen.

My responsibility on this trip is for ultimately for myself, to live, and survive with very little and to cover the distance; this is incredibly engaging and there is not a moment of boredom in my day, even on the longest roads with nothing to see.  There really was nothing to see for hours and hours of cycling on the Nullarbor, but I can assure you that I wasn't bored for one second.  Even I find this phenomenon extremely bizarre sometimes.

A very unspectacular ending of the road from hell. 

When I finally finished this epic and painful ordeal, I was met with nothing but a bland sign for the town of Norseman.  So tired I was at the time, I couldn't even be bothered to wheel my bike next to it for a photo, I just lent it next to a sign closer to the road.  I stayed in Norseman for a couple of days to work and recover before moving on to Esperance.

I had a little over 200Km to Esperance, which I had to do in a couple of days to make my scheduled work.  Looking ahead at the weather, it didn't look great in Esperance after my date of arrival, but it looked very nice on the day.  With this in mind, I aimed to get there a bit early and fit in a scenic bike ride along the coast before settling-in to my accommodation.

I didn't really mean to go so far on the first day.  I wanted to leave myself about 50Km to Esperance, but ended-up leaving under 20Km, doing a whopping 170Km on that day.  I did about 30Km extra because I couldn't find anywhere to camp; everywhere turned into farmland, fenced-off close to the road, so I had to ride on into the night before I luckily found a quiet little nature reserve to sneakily pitch my tent.

The effort was worth it, however, as I was greeted in Esperance the next day with clear blue skies and bright sunshine, perfect weather to appreciate some of the most pristine beaches and turquoise-blue waters I have ever seen.  I was a nice change of scenery from, well, no scenery for the last 1000Km or so.

There were lots of surfers out on the water, very brave considering there has been a recent speight of shark attacks in this part of Australia, which forced the cancellation of a world surfing competition a bit further down the coast.  However, the waters here looked pretty shallow and a bit calmer, suited more for beginners.

So onto Perth next, following the coastline first West and then North.  This is probably going to be the most populated region I cycle through, but even then there still aren't an awful lot of people out here, but I will enjoy the regular towns though after this arduous part of the trip.

The Journey So Far

Just over 3000Km so far then, although it is probably a couple of hundred more than this this with all the side trips.  Looking forward now to the long journey through Western Australia.

Australia Tour Update 1: March 8th to April 1st

I am about 3-4 weeks in, and so far, so good, although there has been the odd day of suffering, but that is to be expected.

I set-off from Swan Hill after getting out of Melbourne by train.  I was basically following the Murray river for the first week from East to West, and the main highlight of this first week was the excellent free camping beside the river at numerous locations.  Almost as soon as I left the Murray, free camping has become far less comfortable.

The first few days from Swan Hill to Mildura were made difficult because of the heat.  It was over 30 degrees each day and just after leaving Mildura the mercury shot-up to 37 C.  On that day, I did not plan to cycle much, but at least make it to a free camping spot a little outside of town where I knew I could get a 4G signal , so I could do some work online.  I had spent money on a campsite for the previous two days, and I thought I'd test how working and free camping would work-out.

Some great free-camping along the Murray river.

Well, that was a bit of a nightmare afternoon for a combination of reasons.  I managed to complete the classes, but the stress levels were high.  I started teaching inside the tent, and as uncomfortable as it was, it was doable.  However, as the sun got higher in the sky, the shade of the trees disappeared and it turned into a bit of a sweat-fest.  The more concerning aspect of the heat, however, was the soaring temperature of my computer, which I could have almost cooked my lunch on.  Compounding my problems were ants and flies, meaning that I couldn't open the tent doors and get some breeze blowing through.

Looks nice, but the combination of heat, flies, and ants really made it quite uncomfortable.

All this meant that I had to get out of the tent, but there were very few comfortable places to sit down and the combination of wind and water-skiers made things a little more noisy than ideal sometimes for teaching English.  Going outside did, however, cool the computer down.  It was desperately uncomfortable though because as well as the problem of where to sit, ants, flies, and the sun were all ganging-up on me to make things as difficult as possible.

This was the first of two and a half very testing days, one off the bike, and the rest on it.

The decision to go to a known free-camping area set in motion a disastrous change of route.  I was now out of town to the north of Mildura instead of the south.  I would have had a simple A-road journey of about 140Km to Renmark if I had gone on my intended route, but now I had chosen a more backcountry road.  I knew there might be some areas of unsealed road, but with some good experiences of unsealed roads in Australia on previous tours, it didn't bother me that much.  Indeed, the route looked more interesting and adventurous.

Well, it certainly was adventurous.  Unbeknownst to me, I was entering an area known as the Mallee Wilderness, a particularly barren and isolated area, not very much touched by man, and the state of the roads showed this up nicely.

This bit of random information I found at the end of the road from hell pretty much sums the place up.

I had 150Km to get to Renmark on this route and 110Km of them were on the worst roads I have ever encountered.  If they weren't bumpy, corrugated, or pot-holed, the surface had broken-up so much that in many areas the road simply turned into sand.  I don't know if you have ever tried riding a bike through sand, but suffice to say it is pretty impossible.  Add another 25Kg to your bike and even pushing it while walking becomes crazily difficult.

All this meant that the trip from Renmark was extended by about 8 - 10 hours.  This obviously made me worry a little about water.  Luckily, though, there was at least one pleasant stretch in the middle around Lake Victoria, where the road was sealed for about 10Km and I could fill-up with water.

An oasis in the wilderness, Lake Victoria in the middle of nowhere.

The rest of the way was truly hellish, though, and would without doubt be standing clear at the top of the worst days and a half on a bike I have ever had and, come to think of it, worst days of my life period.  It really was that bad, if you could have followed me with a tape recorder, you might never see me in the same light again, such was the sheer range and rate of shouting and swearing that was going on.  Fortuunately, it was only the kangaroos that had to cover their ears.  Once I had finished, I wished I had taken some pictures of the road, but taking snaps wasn't on my mind at the time.

I'd never want to repeat that day, but strangely enough, I am glad I did it.  When you do something like that, which is truly difficult, truly a test of character, you feel almost invincible for coming through it.  You strut around with the confidence that not even the worst of the Australian outback can get the better of you, and that can be one of the most forbidding environments around.  Many people can't understand why I'd cycle through such a place, but understand that the harshness of the outback is a large part of it's appeal.  Add to that, there was a lot of wildlife on that road, kangaroos and emus everywhere.

To add another nail in the coffin, once the road turned back to bitumen and I could ride fast enough to notice the wind, it was quite severely in my face for the last 15Km into Renmark.  Once I arrived, I ate, ate, and then ate some more, sat down in a nice park and relaxed for a few hours, pulled-out about 10 thorns from my tyres (called Bindis apparently), and repaired a puncture from one of them.

As I sat down, I noticed a sweet little dog sitting about 100 metres away, kind of next to someone, but not really.  After a while it ran over to me and sat by my leg.  He had a collar on, but had no tag and seemed to want some attention.  I asked people around, but they said it wasn't theirs.  With no tag, I called the council, but after a short time he chased a couple of dogs and then ran-off down the street, crossing a busy main road in the process.  Some trampish-looking man said he had seen him doing this all day, and it was lucky he wasn't killed.

I tried to get the dog back but he had gone, sprinting a long way down the road.  I had to inform the council he now wasn't in the park, but heading towards the river.  Ten minutes later, though, and guess who appeared by my leg again!?  I was pretty happy, and this time hooked him up to one of my bungee cords and waited for someone from the council to arrive.  He was apparently reunited with his owner the next day.  As a bit of a dog lover, I was pretty happy with it all.

My office for the afternoon.

Anyway, back to business, and it was now time to make my way towards the Flinders Ranges, with part of the route being very familiar to me.  The route from Morgan to Peterborough was the same as on my Darwin to Melbourne tour 2 years ago just in the reverse direction.  I only repeat two sections on this trip, this one in South Australia, and Katherine to Mataranka in the Northern Territory, which is a few months away.

Everything looked very different at this time of year.  I had gone through this area before in the middle of Winter, and things were much greener.  I stayed in Peterborough in a very nice chap's house I connected with through warmshowers.org.  This was my first time using this website, which lets people make contact with others who are interested in letting cycle tourers stay in their houses, free of charge.  Many even cook meals for their guests, as mine did too (a really fantastic curry, most definitely my best meal of the tour to date).

Sunrise in Peterborough

Chris (yes, his name was also, Chris) was a super-host, even though he was out most of the time working, however he was very easy to get along with and he provided a comfortable, inexpensive place for me to stay for a few days while I worked and rested.

Working while on tour has been a success so far, and in the first three weeks I have managed to cover the expenses of the trip with the work I've done.  I have been using the 4G signal on my phone and hooking it up to the computer.  I have found that the wifi I have been getting in various places is simply not reliable enough for teaching.  Finally, it seems, Telstra is of some use.  Useless in almost every other regard, I can't fault their coverage in Australia and the internet speed.

Another major plus on this tour so far is my new tent.  For such a long trip, and the inevitability of a huge amount of camping, I thought it essential that I was a little more comfortable than on previous tours.  I was worried about the extra weight, but that doesn't seem to be too much of a problem, but the extra room in the tent is absolute bliss and has actually made camping a bit more of a pleasure, rather than just a place to fall asleep every night.

The view at castle point in Hawker after a morning run.

On to the first highlight stop of the tour then, the Flinders Ranges.  After a couple of days working in Hawker, I had a 3-day loop back to Hawker through the iconic hills and mountains, working in some hiking as well.

Over the 2-3 days, I had about 180Km of cycling to do, and I ended-up doing quite an arduous hike up to Mary's Peak, the highest in the Flinders Ranges At about 1150m.  The circuit round, starting from Wilpena visitor's centre, was about 22Km in total, and I did feel it in the hot weather.

At the top of St Mary's peak with the crocodile's back of the ranges disappearing into the distance.

I actually wasn't supposed to go to the top of this peak out of respect for the aboriginal community of the area, but I consider this a silly rule, so I didn't respect it.  I was especially against doing what I was told because of the way I was told not to go by a park official at the visitors centre.  I didn't know about the rule, and just said, "I'm planning to go to Mary's Peak", to which I got the reply of, "No, you aren't".  I had assumed at the time, that the trail was closed, but later found out that it was out of respect.  Well, no one is telling me where I can and can't go, and certainly not in that tone of voice.

The same bloke also gave me some rather unfortunate advice about the state of the bike trail from Wilpena.  The trail was only for mountain bikes, so I had to walk it through most of the way, costing valuable time and energy.  It was, however, super-easy to find a camp spot.

The Mawson Trail was a bit rough for my bike, but it was a bit of an adventure, and nice camping.

The hike was stunning, especially the view from the top, so I was glad I broke the rules, you could see right down the crocodile's back of the Flinders Ranges.  I passed a couple in their late forties who seemed to be struggling with the heat and difficulty of the trail, and from where they were, I couldn't imagine them getting back before dark.  Indeed, that particular trail is closed in the summer months.  Despite it being early Autumn temperatures still rose to over 35 degrees for the few days I was there.

I, half-reluctantly, chose to do some of the back roads around the park and loop back down the Flinders Ranges Way and back to Hawker.  I was a little apprehensive after my trials and tribulations on the dirt tracks earlier on the tour on the way to Renmark.  Bumpy in places, the roads weren't nearly as bad and gave a real feeling of getting away from it all and being lost in the wilderness.

Despite being in the Australian wilderness, I did manage to meet a bloke from Colchester (my hometown in the UK), who was doing a bikepacking tour from Perth to Sydney, going on all the back roads and dirt tracks.

Typically, the first cyclist I meet actually lived in Colchester.

Bikepacking differs from what I am doing, in that it is more a mountain bike set-up designed for backcountry bike trails and it something very appealing to me.  You pack a little lighter and not with panniers, but lots of different little bags and attachments to the bike.  One for the future, I reckon, I'd definitely be interested in doing it.  I'd need a new bike and some different kit though.

I left the ranges the same way I came in, but the weather, the lack of shelter, and the flies were starting to drive me crazy.  I thought I'd take it easy on the penultimate day there and find a nice shaded area and rest for a few hours in the heat of the middle of the day.  However, there was nowhere to get myself out of the sun.  It was so frustrating and when you get tired and frustrated in Australia that's when the flies seem to be at their worst; they land on you once, then again, and again, and again.

Look closely.  Under almost every tree that could offer shade sat a bunch of kangaroos.

The Flinders Ranges had more kangaroos, wallabies, and emus than I had ever seen anywhere else, amazing for such a harsh landscape and climate.  I started to admire their ability to survive while I suffered-away in the heat with limited supplies of water.  The kangaroos would either be bouncing along the side of the road, often quite close to me while riding, or chilling-out under trees.  When you looked closely into the distance, you could see just how many of them were around just sitting under trees in the middle of the day.

Another problem I had was that because of the high temperatures and lack of shade I was getting through a lot of water.  I also lost a bottle because I filled-up at a rainwater collection spot only to discover the water was putrid, which stained my bottle with the most vomit-inducing odour imaginable.  All this meant that after I stopped to camp, about 25 Km from Hawker, I ran out of water and then just had to cycle into town in the middle of the night as sleep was impossible.  When you get truly dehydrated you fantasize about drinking, jumping into swimming pools, singing in the rain, and all that, it's quite something.

After a day's rest in Hawker and some work I was back on the road again, this time heading south towards Port Lincoln.  This was a stretch of the tour I wasn't looking forward to much because of the high chance of headwinds and the mostly uneventful roads with few attractions.  I met another cyclist, this time a girl from Slovenia, who was travelling from Perth to Sydney.  Her tribulations with the wind had been much greater than mine, though, as she crossed the Nullarbor from the wrong direction at this time of year, and bore the full force of the notorious winds in this area of Australia.

Natalie from Slovenia, had already crossed the Nullarbor into the wind most of the time.  Top effort, that is not for the faint-hearted, even with the wind.

I managed to get in a workout in a gym and a game of squash in Port Augusta - my second game of the tour, I also managed one in Mildura.  After 80Km of riding in the morning, I hit the weights and then a few games of squash.  It was nice to get the body doing something else except cycling.  I was obviously pretty slow on court, but I haven't dropped a game yet.  This may change in Perth where I will face stiffer competition, I'm sure.

After Port Augusta it was as I feared, a bit of a slog into the wind, but the wind didn't blow too badly, and I got most the distance I needed to cover daily done very early in the morning, before it got too strong.

View from the lookout in Whyalla.

I had a difficult day coming into Whyalla, an industrial town on the coast of the Eyre Peninsula.  I was a bit tired and fed-up, but I thought I'd struggle-up to a lookout and eat some lunch.  Whilst looking out over the marina, I noticed a fishing boat returning, and following were a number of dolphins.  I jumped on the bike to see if I could get a closer view, and sure enough they came right up to the jetty and hung around waiting for some fish and eyeing us up at the same time.  I have never seen dolphins up so close, it was amazing.  It was pretty awesome to actually look into their eyes and it made me look at them slightly differently, it really seemed like there was a lot going on inside their heads.  There were 8 dolphins in all, 4 mums and 4 calves; the mothers were the only ones to eye us up and stick their heads out of the water.

Mum and calf.  The calves almost seemed like little toys, very cute.

It really was a huge lift, as I am very much a nature person, unlike my dad (private joke).  I had a bit more of a rest afterwards and I was motivated and raring to go later in the day.

One of the fishermen kindly gave me a fish to feed one of the dolphins; she was very gentle.

The next few days were just a grind into the wind and wild camping, which was a bit easier than I had imagined, but it still drains you after a few days.  I was dirty, tired, and in need of a rest.  Fortunately, Port Lincoln came just in time and I settled-down with my new warmshowers hosts, Peter and Lana, which is where I will pick up from next time.