East Coast Australia

My favorite book has always been Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. It has been since I was a boy and I

Ingo and a clean-shaven Tom

allow myself to read it again every decade, to reacquaint myself with Doc of course but mainly with Mack and the boys. I never expected to meet these hard drinking philosophers in the flesh but when we pulled into a campsite in Poona, they invited us to share their wine and set the world to rights.

Mack and the boys live in an old Shack called the Palace Flophouse and spend their days seeking enough cash to buy enough whisky or wine to see them through the day. Occasionally they reluctantly resort to working to achieve this. Geoff, Ian and Ronnie appeared to have reached this same level of Nirvana, living in caravans and fishing whenever they could or just walking up the beach with the dog. More happy and generous folks one rarely meets. Thanks guys for a great time and thanks Ian for teaching me how to pump yabbies.

Maybe I should take this opportunity to talk about the people we have encountered in Australia which has been a lot, far more than we met in Europe. A gruff down-to-earthness, particularly in the outbackers, only thinly veils a good sense of humor, and and a genuine kindness. So many people ask us if there is anything we need in way of food or water or fresh fruit and vegetables. So many people here are themselves on the move; the Grey Nomads in their giant off-road caravans and Winnabagoes, the Backpackers in little white vans, the migrating workforces in their Utes with a swag bag strapped on the back.

Riding in the rain

People in the towns we pass through stop to ask us how far we have come and are going. They often tell us of good places to visit or to camp and make us feel welcome. Many people are in no hurry and spend some time talking to us; one guy, Jim, with a vacuum repair shop in Ballina, decided he wanted to oil up all the moving parts on our bikes with a special kind of oil he used for bearings. Martin just out of Broadwater found me in a petrol station looking for a spare tube (I won’t bore you with why we needed one), drove me to the next town where he knew a friend of his would have one, and brought me back again to where we were camped by the river.

We reached the Sunshine coast and spent a great few days with Ingo and Karen. Ingo is some kind of second cousin to Anja, though they had never met. Thanks for everething guys and thanks to Guido for taking us sailing.

The Gold Coast

From here we rode south in the rain through Brisbane and on to the Gold Coast where the sun came out again. Surfers Paradise. Bike repairs. Millionaires Playground. Wild Rocky Headlands. Byron Bay. Rainforest and Rain Rain Rain. An old man in a middle-aged landcruiser stops to ask where we are going and why are we on this backroad. “Heading for Coffs harbor” I reply and he shakes his head at the foolishness of foreigners and informs us that the bridge is 30 feet under water at the Bluff. Amused at our wide-eyed disbelief, he told of how he had seen cows stuck 60 feet up trees along here after the rains receded. The radio later reported the river was 10.6m above normal levels so he was no fibber. I could not see if this guys tongue was in his cheek or not but he proudly told us he had worked at the same bench at the same saw-mill for 50 years and had never travelled more than a hundred miles North or South in his whole life. Some traveller had told him as a boy that there was no more beautiful place on earth than the valley where he lived and he had decided there was therefore little point in him leaving it. Would that we all were so wise. He recounted a day in his youth when he went to Coffs harbor and back in the same day and didn’t get back till after midnight. An experience it seemed had never been repeated. We reached coffs harbor that evening despite detours around the floods.

A car coming the other way pulls up and a woman and her daughter roll down the window to talk to two drowning rats on bicycles. “You should make it to the Highway if you hurry but the water is up over the road already, if you don’t make it through come back and stay with us, we are the blue house at the crossroads back a few miles we’ll dry you out and cook you up some dinner”.

Not Photoshop, honest!!

We made it through to the oxymoronic Pacific highway and draped ourselves in fluorescent roadwork warning flags so we could be seen it the rain by the traffic. Third day of rain, camping in the forest with the leeches and giant spiders. Nambucca heads to Kempsey. We are told the backroads we wanted to ride to Port Maquarie would be under water so we should stick to the highway. Damn highway is dangerous especially in the rain but it seems like we have no other choice. Micky and katriona think we do and pull over in their converted school bus. They are going exactly where we wanted to go that day and we weigh up the options; a day on the highway in the rain, shotblasted by trucks or sitting in a warm bus looking out the window. I am reluctant a little not to cycle every inch of the way to Sydney but find saying yes in such situations leads to interesting situations. Anja needs no convincing. We throw the bikes in the bus and get a ride to Lauriton, perhaps the prettiest place on the coast so far, a small town on a creek between a lake and the sea and lying at the foot of the North brother mountain. We stay for a few days to dry out and be fed and entertained by our new friends.

Mickey and Katriona have been on the move for years in one form of vehicle or another and know all the best free park-ups from Tazmania to the tip of Cape York.  We ride the bikes down a great dirt track and meet them again at Crowdy Head where we camp on a wild peninsular and Anja fishes from the rocks while I drink and chat with Mick.

Old Gibber Road

With reluctance we ride on south because we now have a deadline. We fly from Sydney to Auckland on the 10^th and have some friends to visit on the way. It is not far now but as with the whole of this coast of Australia, there is so much to see.

From Tuncurry to Tea Tardens past the Great lakes is one of the best days rides on our whole trip. If you are ever this way ride the Old Gibber Track to Mungo Bush and camp on the shore of Myall Lake.

From Nelson Bay the road is busy and the rain starts again. David and Sophie meet us in Stockton, wring us out and stick us in the car. After a great meal is Newcastle they take us back to where they live near Scone in the upper Hunter valley. We met these guys in Nepal one day not far from Kathmandu. They were on a 7 month cycle tour in the Himalayan regions and we spent some time there together. Nice to see them again in their native habitat.

It is still raining, unusual apparently for this area in summer but strange weather seems now to be the norm the world over. Tomorrow we will get the train back to Newcastle and ride down to Matcham to see Chris and Rita who we met in Bali. Then we must involve ourselves with airports, passports and bike-boxes. All the stuff we hate. We are glad happy to be going to New Zealand to string out the journey for a few more months because the idea of stopping and returning to Europe is a bit frightening. We have failed to devise a plan for our future and don’t even know which country we should settle in. Sometimes we joke that we should fly to South America and keep on cycling. We laugh but I think we would both like to do this if we could spend a few months earning some money in Australia or NZ. After almost two years on the road, cycle-tramping has become our way of life and it is hard now to imagine not doing it.

Anja studies the menu

The bikes are a bit worn out. The moving parts I mean. We thought everything would make it a few more thousand kms but were wrong. Anja needed a new chainset back on the Gold Coast which cost a small fortune as everything to do with bicycles is here three times the price it is in Europe. I spent the day yesterday in David’s garage doing some long overdue maintenance with good tools and a bike stand which was a pleasure, so we should be set up for New Zealand, but our rims and even our bullet-proof tyres are looking a bit worn out after almost 27 thousand kms.

So, Sydney almost in sight but I feel not the elation of reaching the finish-line of some arduous ordeal, or even of achieving what we set out to do. The all the way overland idea was given way back in Tehran. What we set out to do was to be out and about in the world on our bicycles, heading a little further east each day and seeing what we could see. Always riding into the unknown. This great feeling we achieved way back in Europe, I think before we even got the ferry to France. The Big Tramp. A lifelong dream made real.

We have encountered a number of things on this trip which I never counted on. A too-close proximity to landslides, floods and fires was not something I expected but neither was the amount of people we have met. I have made more friends in the last two years than in the forty that preceded them. Unpleasant encounters with people is what was talked about, worried about I guess, before we left but we can honestly count these on one hand, pleasant encounters are countless.

It is a wondrous planet that we cling to; I would swap it for no other, but from what we have seen the world over, we are not looking after it properly. We need to maintain it more like Saint Exuperie’s Little Prince who regularly cleaned out his tiny planets volcanoes. Individually we are mostly caring souls but en-masse we are a scourge. The world is wide but it is finite. In Asia the crap is thrown all over the carpet, in the West we shove it under but the end result will be the same. The answer:

EVERYONE RIDE A BIKE… 

The Bus

….of course.

CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA

Up Above Down Under


Last year, lest you have forgotten, diligent reader, we spent Christmas somewhere lost in the damp mists of northern India, and Christmas dinner was a damn good meal eaten alone in a typical small town restaurant. We left full but unrestored. 



This year we decided to try and do something a little special, not that we are overly big on this festival but it is a reason to try and make a day stand out from the others. A hard thing to do when so many of our days are outstanding and, with travelling alone in such an unvarying part of the world, difficult to organize. A look on the map showed a National park, The Blackdown Tablelands, a little south of our route and which, with a little planning could coincide with Christmas.



Visiting National Parks by bicycle in the Northern Territories mostly demands at least a few hundred km detour on rough tracks and until now, wanting to keep ahead of the January rains, we had not allowed the time to see any. The Blackdown tablelands designated camp area looked to be about 30kms south of our road and ‘Tablelands’ meant 47000 hectare plateau rising above the plains. Sounded good.

Our Alpine Hut

Reluctantly we left the protection of the Botanical Gardens in Emerald, a park any Capital City would be proud of, and rode a good ride to Blackwater, Queenslands Coal Capital. Here we stocked up on food and serious amounts of water as we were assured that none was available in the park. The bikes were heavily loaded as we pulled out of town hoping to ride the 35kms to the side-road turn off before sundown on the 23rd, zipping up the hill in the morning and having camp set up well before lunchtime on chrisymas eve.

Well, best laid and all that, less than a mile out of Blackwater my freewheel hub decided it had gone far enough and If I was going to ignore its brief but obvious warning groans signifying breaking ratchet teeth, then only I was to blame. When worrying about a slight noise in the first car I ever bought, an older friend at the time had advised that if I was not in a position to do anything about it immediately, it was best to stop worrying and enjoy the ride. Advice I have perhaps taken too much to heart in life.

The Feast

So I had no drive in the back wheel, and a ride back into town revealed no bike shop,( none expected), and practically no-one on the streets to ask for help. I approached all of 7 people, Blackwaters outdoor population, trying to elicit the possible whereabouts of an old bicycle-wheel for parts. I believe most people in Blackwater could fix a 100 ton dump truck before breakfast, but bicycles were pretty much an unheard of machine around these parts.

Back to Anja under the roadside tree. We figured to try and turn the bike into a fixed gear arrangement by locking the cassette with a spare brake cable to the spokes, disconnecting the derailleur and shortening the chain. We were hopeful this would work but the chain kept wandering over the cassette, up and down, no-matter what I tried to do. The sun was setting and we defeatedly pushed back into town. It was lucky we were so close to somewhere with such a breakdown. We always seem to be lucky in this respect.

Strange Land Strange Fella

Figuring to camp in the park, Anja asked a woman in her garden for directions, told of our problem and we found ourselves directed to the Samaritans second hand church shop. Apparently they often had old bikes and might be able to help. They would be closed but they lived right next to the church.

John and Karen were the best kind of Christians. They calmly figured out the best way to help us. Behind the church was the scout-hut and a good place for our tent. We could use the church kitchen and toilets. They had no compatible bike parts but an old mountainbike that had been run over by a car was found under a tree in the yard and a bunch of tools brought out of the garage. Ok, my bike was a nine speed and this one a five speed, the freewheels different, and the best rim the shape of a circular banana but both John and I were confident that something could be done. With the help of a 3 lb hammer I got things straightened out a bit and we were back on the road by 8 am next morning; it looked like Christmas was back on. God bless the Samaritans.



 Headwind, Hot, everything seemingly flat actually uphill. Same old story. By early afternoon we had fought our way to the foot of the plateau. It was bigger and further away than it had looked. Before we even started up the 600m, 6 km climb the whole show ground to a halt. One could not really say that we ever travelled ‘light’, but things had got a bit ridiculous. We had 22 litres of water, a spare wheel and a lot of food, not just the festive fare but enough to reach Rockhampton still some hundreds of miles away. I look back and laugh now but it was serious at the time, we could not even push up the hill let alone ride and we knew that if we found no water on the plateau we would have to come pretty much straight down again.

Laughing Monkey Bird (Kookaburrah)

There were lamb chops, green beans and onions, tins of baked beans and Irish stew, bags of biscuits and a big fruit-cake, large tins of peaches (a far finer invention than sliced bread) and a pot of cream, loaves of bread and jars of peanut-butter, marmite and honey, Kilo’s of hot chocolate and milk powder, (far cheaper to buy in bulk here in Australia). We had a kilo block of cheddar and a box of wine, add to this Anja’s bag of stolen mangoes, 3 litres of Applejuice (on special offer), all the other sundries, staples and snacks I have forgotten and you begin to get the picture. We considered turning around but there was no-where else to go.

We ate the mangoes, cached the spare wheel as we were coming back the same way, and as the water was going down fast anyway we managed to drop a few pounds. After Anja changed into her walking boots it looked like we had a chance of getting to the top. The trees got bigger and the undergrowth thicker and small walleroos bounced between the red-sand boulders. Our minds were diverted by the wonders of the place and we forgot about our troubles. At the top the asphalt road ended and a pea gravel track led on to the camp site but we were done for the day and a storm was brewing anyway.

Walking in a Wonderland

By a lookout post that had a view looking back on the flat expanse of Australia over which we had ridden. The air was dusted with bushfire smoke adding an extra hue to the sunset. Carrying fresh meat in Australia is difficult so we decided to have Christmas dinner then and there. It was a splendid feast but we had to pack up quick as a storm approached.

The only place we could get a tent-peg in the ground was in the bottom of a gully so we put up the inner tent in the ladies toilets. Sounds a bit grim but I must add that these were the cleanest, best designed conveniences in the world. We imagined without difficulty that we were in an alpine hut with two ensuite bathrooms and a bike garage.

Pea-gravel is a simple but apt description of the road material. Imagine riding on a steep track made out of frozen peas. One slips backwards on the uphill sections whether riding or pushing but we made it to the campsite by 9 am and did little but eat and drink for the rest of the day though we made a short walk through the woods in the evening to a cliff-face where the stencils of Aboriginal hands were still bright in red-ochre.

Rainbow Waters

Sitting round our fire in the too brief dusk we were visited by Gary, an Aboriginal with a German father and an unusual name. he was a, well I forget the term he used, but a sort of Native guide and bush-tucker expert though he came from some lands to the south. He talked of plants, of stone-tools and the rainmaker that came down from Arnhem land when he was a boy and understood the beauty of a stone axe. I showed him the stone flake, one of many we found one red-orange evening back in the outback when by chance we must have camped in a quarry that could have been either 100 or 50,000 years old.

On Boxing day we followed the frozen pea road over bare-stone creek beds to Rainbow Waters where a waterfall fell from cold brown pools over sandstone ledges then over the edge of the tableland. To the tribe that gathered fern roots and stringbark on these lands before the cattlemen came, this place represented the source of all life, Moonda Gudda. Understandably so, we sat in a cool and tranquil awe for three early hours until the first of the few and intrepid holiday folk arrived.

Take a Break Mate

As we reclaimed our bikes from the trailhead a pick-up (ute) emptied two tough looking miners who mumbled G’days and I overheard one say to the other, “Jeez Bruce, that’s hell of a bike ride”. They didn’t know the half of it. This isolated world was like Tarzans hidden world on the old Johnny Weismuller Saturday morning show. A forest paradise sitting high and sheer sided above the jungle beneath. We had an unforgetable Christmas.



The Tablelands



Moondda Gudda

This tree grows nowhere else.

Bushwalking

Pea-Gravel Road

A Month Outback

Bush Tucker Time

Not even a road-sign for shade

AUSTRALIA

The see-through towns owned only one heat bent old nag. They were but slivers of ization, middle in a bovine plain. Collections of sheet metal bashed to form houses, water-tanks and wind-vanes and slowly oxidizing museums of cars scattered amongst the weeds. We stopped long enough to scavenge any fallen mangoes, read any information available; “Kayuna, one time home of A.J ‘Banjo’ Patterson of ‘Waltzing Matilda Fame’. Population in 1894 – 184, population in 2004 – 20, projected population for 2014 – 2”, buy a half liter petrol for our stove, fill up with water, pass the time of day with whoever is on the street, often nobody, and move on.


The roadsides are strewn with the plastic peel of high calorie comfort foods and half full bottles of designer drinks in red, green, blue and see through. Four dollar treats we can ill-afford slung from the briefly opened windows of air conditioned cars. Still, we are happy with our campfire dampers, porridge oat biscuits and bore-water. Are we not Anja?...Anja…she is nodding sideways, well, they taste good when we are hungry.

We have various methods of saving water. After dinner conversation may go like this; ‘Shall I wash the plates and pans tonight or lick ‘em?’…”Nah, we washed ‘em last night, jes’ lick ‘em clean, tilt yer hat back first though”. Sometimes we load up with over a week’s food and 26 liters of water, enough for 2 days; we may even get a wash out of this. Tea and the thought of tea keeps us going. One time when we found our first shade of the day mid-afternoon, we drank six cups of weak tea each, pretty much back to back.

Can't see the bush for the Gum trees

Road-Train hurricanes coming head on stop us in our tracks. They are infrequent but I sometimes lose my hat. Should say helmet as it is law outside of the Northern Territories, but who gives a damn out here. I don it in ‘town’ just to show respect for the law.

We will not miss the stench of rotting kangaroo. So many more dead than alive. They come to the roadside ditches where the grass is sweeter and fail to understand either fences, trucks or headlights. By no means the only indigenous species unable to adapt to modern machine-mans ways.

Australians it seems will go to even greater lengths to avoid getting out of their cars than the Americans.

We leave Tennants Creek strengthened after a break and turn into strong to gale-force winds which we fight for a week to Mount Isa. A Swiss grey nomad whom we meet in some shade asks us where we sleep at night. I look left and right and indicate ‘out there’ with my head. “Is it not too dangerous”? She asks, and we reply “but there is no-one out there”. A confused look in her eye indicates that that, for her, is the problem.

There is no-one out there. In 2000kms of outback we saw one woman on a horse and that was only half a mile from a station. As in parts of Asia one knows there are people there, always, though unseen, one knows that here is no-body. Where we camp, say 500 m from the road you could stay for a year and no-one would know you are there. The only company are the gurgley birds in various colours, the screechy birds, the laughing monkey birds (you don’t want them roosting in a tree above your tent telling jokes about you all night), the punk parrots with yellow mohicans and the insects of course. A giant, majestic Kangaroo may visit inquisitively at dusk or an Emu invite himself for breakfast, but the nearest human is sometimes a hundred miles away. We cut but a thin line through a large continent and know there must be people outdoors somewhere doing tough, leathery cowboy things. We just don’t see them.



Dangers there are though , as we have found out. We are not altogether naïve but have made a few errors in this land with wich we are so unfamiliar, and met with unexpected forces.

One day we rode towards smoke on the horizon, clearly a bushfire on the N. side of the road. The wind blew as ever from the SE. As we got slowly nearer the fire was bigger than we thought and was creating its own cumulus clouds and weather system. We managed to get eventually beyond it only to see another bushfire, smaller but nearer the road. It is not unknown for these fires to have 100km fronts and throw balls of fire the size of cars.

Tired and hungry we called a halt, the sun was sinking and we made camp south of the road. If the wind doesn’t change we will be fine, we convinced ourselves, and planned to keep checking throughout the night. As it got dark though we could see the orange of the fire through the trees, a scary and unexpected sight. We knew we should be no-where in this vicinity.

The wind stilled as usual and the glow seemed to dwindle somewhat. I could have sensed a wind change in my sleep had one occurred. By morning the fire was all but out. The trees seem mostly to survive and in this season the grass grows back quick and green. Probably more foreign cyclists come along to replace those singed every season.

Big Sky Country

Not far from Mt Isa is a beautiful creek lined with green grass and gum trees. The water flows slow and brown and the place is too inviting to ride past on an afternoon hot enough to fade your hat. So the billy is on the fire for tea, the tent has been pitched in the shade and the menu being drawn up for dinner when one of us remembers the crocodile advice. Are we back in Salty territory? Damn, we don’t know. Forgot to ask someone. My logic says no, we are 400kms from the gulf of Carpentaria where the river leads, too far. Also we are too high, 300m or so, nothing called a ‘Salty’ would dare to venture so far and high would it? If I were a crock though, I would be happy in this water; deep and dark and slow where the animals come so obviously down to drink. I decide we are ok. And if I am wrong then it’s a big error but having made the choice I will forget it and sleep well. Anja worries more as night draws on (often my role) till I ask if she wants to move away from the river into the long grass with the snakes. We stay where we are and survive but we now casually ask the yokels about the crocodile situation.



Storms and rain are another problem. Lightning apparently starts most of the bushfires and its easy to believe when you have witnessed the storms here. Camping one night in the bush by a dry creek, dinner was disturbed by rain which turned into a thunderstorm lasting most of the night. The clay like earth absorbed no water at all it seemed and the ground was awash and the creek filling up fast. It appeared to be a tossup whether we would drown from flooding, get struck by lightning or burnt in the ensuing bushfire. We were kneeling on our sleeping mats (recommended safety position, though recommended by whom, neither of us could remember) and praying for the storm to let up. There was lightning all around and no time-gap before the thunder. One strike nearly got us I am sure. It was so close we could smell burnt ozone from in the tent. Finally the worst of it moved off across the plain and we could see no fire, (how does a fire spread with so much water around)? Dawn was upon us and we packed up camp only to find the clay had absorbed just enough water to stick to us like glue. The wheels on the bikes clogged up and we had to shove and carry them back to the road. Hard, work and a pair of hours spent cleaning them up a bit. I am thinner than usual these days and covered in mud, Anja said I looked like a tent peg freshly pulled from the ground. I lost my title of ‘Adventure Tom’ backalong with the leech experience; I guess there are worse names than “Mien schmuztige Hering”.

They are making it up!

We see often inch diameter holes in the ground, tunnels with whispy-web coatings. Backpacker eating spiders we reckon. After leaving a camp where there were many of these dwellings I saw on Anjas back pannier a spider. It was large flat and hairy, had Hazchem written all over it and moved in an intelligent way, if that is possible.

I did a great Dads Army ‘Don’t Panic, Don’t Panic’ impression and nearly made Anja fall from her bike. To regain some respect (from the spider at least), I flicked it skillfully off, Sam Gamgee-wise across the road with my bicycle-pump. We were remarking to each other that that was the damn scariest spider either of us had ever seen by a long, long way when the furry fiend ran back super-fast across the road and back onto the bike. For the next five minutes we played hide and seek with the canny beast until finally it was flicked into the grass.

From snakes we have seen very little, though we always stomp about a bit in the bush to let them know we are coming.







With a headwind every day we were getting worn out. An afternoon on the banks of Chinamans Creek by Cloncurry restored a little strength and spirit but by Winton we needed a full day off. There was a muddy waterhole and we spent the day by it, underneath the shade of a coolabar tree, fixing the bikes, eating and drinking tea and watching the birds.

The pond was no more than 50m across, with a big island in it, a few miles out of town. Damn if a pick-up didn’t bring a speedboat to launch and spend an hour racing from one side to the other. They love a bit of water in the outback. Nice to see grown men having fun. I guess!



STORM CHASED



One afternoon the wind blew our way. We were still in the clay-country and needed hard standing for the tent. Truck lay-bys were the answer, we had them marked on the map and they often had a picnic table and some shade. Reaching easily at 3pm one 50km further that we had planned we left at 4pm with 44km to Longreach. As they say, you’ve got to make your hay when the sun decides to shine. Eight kms down the road the wind turned. We fought it for another 3kms and realized we would be fighting for hours instead of easily cruising into town. This was more like sailing than cycling. Down to 9km\h we did what I have never considered before, we turned back and blew home to where we were an hour or so before where we tied our tent to an insubstantial bush and hoped for another change in wind before morning.

Settling for a fickle crosswind, we set off once more and finally sailed into Longreach on a broad-reach. Great cattle town.



We rode out with the wind behind us again. Riding the same speed as a strong wind, all goes quiet, it is like being still, only the billowing of the long-grass gives away the gale.

I was just remarking on how the gods seemed to have let Turner paint the sky this day when they took away his brushes and gave them to Blake. A black storm was closing in on us from behind and to the North. Sir William was doing his best to reach us with thunderbolts and boiling clouds. With no Emus in sight we were the highest thing we could see so we decided to make a run for it. A 30km run as it turned out, we knew there was shelter in 50. As one Blake’s bearded storm gods took a swipe at us with his hand, we were splattered with turpentine rain but the angry snort from his nostrils blew us out of reach, we were hammering along at 35kmh with lightning splitting the skies behind us.

The dead straight road took a slight bend southwards and the storm tumbled on straight east, unable to turn under its own momentum. The angry artist was ordered to pass along his brushes and, though they didn’t let him paint any hats or pipes or anything daft, it seemed they let Magritte have a go. He did us one of his endless blue skies over green grass with evenly spaced cumulus clouds which seem to have had their bottoms cut off with a knife. Clouds that let you see extending far further than the horizon. Chapeau René.

To end the day all the minor battleship artists were allowed to practice their skies. There were four or five storms to watch at one time.



One evening just outside of Jericho we were surrounded by thousands of flying foxes; large fruit bats that came to drink from the Jordan river. They were not the meter wingspan type we had seen in Java, maybe 18 inches from tip to tip but there were more of them. I reckon a flap of bats that big could eat more mangoes than Anja in a sitting.

The morning of the great spider fight we pulled into a lay-by and found the gravel to be moving. Closer inspection revealed it to be the great woodlouse migration. Millions upon millions swarmed through the grass and along the road and looked, from head height like wildebeest from a helicopter. Where were they going and why?





CHRISTMAS



We have battled the wind as far as Emerald where we swim in the brown river that flows around thick tree trunks in the extensive botanical gardens. These Australian towns have the most wonderful parks.

Today we saw crops and fields, a town that is reasonably busy and all of a sudden things have changed.

Now in Queenslands central highlands, we rode over the hazy-blue Drummond Range, part of the Great Dividing Range, and are only a few days from the coast. The weather is noticeably cooler; we are 20 miles south of the tropics and maybe the coast cools things down. Not sure if we want civilization for Christmas, we may head for a national park with a flagon of wine and some lamb chops and spend a few days with the birds and beasties before rolling down (yeah right) to the beach.

Only 2000kms to Sydney and no idea what to do then. Oh, I forgot, we fly (again) to New Zealand on the 10th Feb.



Merry Christmas everybody, I don’t expect you’ll be hearing from us before then, email is not easy at all to find. Have a good day you all. We shall eat well now the shops are closer than 500 miles apart, might even find some mince pies, they like pies the Ozies it seems, though I doubt they will be home made. I won’t miss brussel sprouts but I do like one of Ma’s homemade mince pies at Christmas.

I seen you before mate!

Termite Carnac

AUSTRALIA


“I seen you before mate !”


What in the Dreamtime or something? I’m thinking this is fantastic. The first human contact in Australia real and this guy is the genuine article. Black Fella, Spear Chukka, Aboriginal, take your pick, long graying hair and a beard and at first I think he works for the airport somehow because he has a once fluorescent vest on and we are skirting the runway perimeter. Then I notice the large, boney, bare feet and the raggedy shorts.

“I seen you. You came up there, then you didn’t like ‘dat road much so you came over the grass to ‘dis one. I came along up there and then down there and you came along there and here we are.”

“Here we are. So it seems”

“Where you goin’ mate?”

His accent is Australian but thicker, deeper than I have heard before, like thick Claret against a light Beaujolais Neuveau

“Darwin”.

“Yeh, that’s over that way.”

He points out across the bush

“Which road would I take?”

“Ah, go down this road then down the next road, that might get you there.”

“Thanks a lot, eh… Bye”.

He looks a little disappointed, I’m not sure if it is because I am going or because I want to go to Darwin of all places.

“I guess I might see you sometime in the future then”. He says, and really mulls over the possibility.

“I hope so mate, I really do.”

As my new friend lopes across the road and into the bush, Anja pulls up beside me.

“Who was that, she says.”

“That, I believe, was Stone-Age Man.”

Welcome to Australia.



We had met some “real” Australians in the airport. White guys with big bellies, shorts and vests. As I pulled our bikes off the merry-go-round one specimen asked me if we were some of the crazy people intending to ride through the outback. No, I replied we thought we might just have a spin round the park in Darwin and fly back home.

“Ha Ha. Funny. I drive a road train and keep sucking in cyclists, they keep coming and I pass ‘em and they keep getting sucked in.”

“Yeah, look out for road trains.” Pipes up another chap. “But you are far more likely to die of heat stroke this time of year, that and dehydration”

“No no.” says a third man “ They are far more likely to drown in a flood or get blown away by a cyclone, it’s the wet season.” He turns to us. ” It would be better if you came in July.”

We left these optimists to fading shouts of “Look out for the crocs and the snakes” and headed outside to piece together our bikes and ride into town to stay with Brennan, our Couch Surfing host and his ever-changing family of backpackers.

We planned on a day in Darwin, shopping and getting maps and achieved everything we wanted, got some good advice (finally), only to wake up sick on the leaving day. While everyone was sweating and cursing the heat, I was pulling on jumpers and feeling cold, a real fever. Anja was the same but a day later than me.

After four days we wobbled weakly out of Darwin, struggled 64kms down the road and crawled into the bushes to make an early camp.

We were in a meadow of Magnetic Termite Mounds, over 2m high, 1m wide, 15cm thick and all pointing East to West. They were giant menhirs, aligned uncannily like the stone rows at Carnac, facing perhaps a similar equinox. To imagine that ants and men could build monuments in deference to the same deities. This was already the outback proper and would change little for the next 800kms. We began to notice the only variance in landscape being the size shape and colour of the termite mounds, the amount of bark on the gum trees, and the frequency of the crocodile-creeks, (don’t camp to close – fair dinkum; if one gets you, poke it in the eyes – easier said than done I bet; if you go to get water make sure it’s moving and shallow, they like deep holes – useful info).

A familiar sight

Another hard, slow day brought us to a lay-by where we camped next to a young French couple on tour in a car. In the night a jeep pulled up and a bunch of loud young men spilled out, apparently for a nights reveling. Strange place, the nearest town was a hundred miles away. They spoke a strange language neither of us knew what, then a burst of almost English… “It’s the local fellas again, I said to Anja.”

We had been warned, even by the non-bigoted, to be a little wary of this mob. We were at least partially aware now of some of the social problems affecting the Aboriginals in the Northern Territories and some of the results thereof. I figured the best thing was to go and say hello.

Did I sit barefoot in a circle and hear some tales and wisdom from the ancient culture?…not exactly. I sat booted (they were barefoot) in a circle and discussed, inadequately on my part, the merits of Chelsea over Manchester United. I had sworn before we left but was in the end too lazy, to learn the names of a few English league football players, and a few Cricket names. It seems you can just say ‘Wayne Rooney’ or ‘David Beckham’ (a bit out-dated now) and part good friends with strangers from anywhere in the world.

All the boys seemed related somehow and lived in a community beginning with B somewhere south eastish and indeterminably far. “You should visit our town on the Queen’s birthday, we have a big party, it’s quite famous and one year some tourists came”. I was too embarrassed to let on that I had no idea when the, I should say ‘my’, Queens birthday was but if I find out and am in that neck of the woods at the right time I will surely visit. I am a Republican Anarchist with Communist leanings but can think, now, of no better reason for a party in the middle of the outback, than celebrating an English Monarch’s birthday.

Outback Sunset

The Aboriginals have a particular way of talking. They will look the other way and say something fairly casually and not, in words, outstandingly profound but the way they say it carries a surprising weight. We always feel a little honored when any of them take the time to talk to us. Not that they are busy. Busy seems to be a foolish, modern frivolity they have no time for. Another thing is that they always remember your name. Not in a polished, American salesman-type way, you sometimes don’t remember giving your name but on parting they will use it, like the first guy we met, as if they expect to meet you again sometime.

I sit now in the shade by a swimming-pool in a campsite in Tennants Creek. It took eleven or twelve hard days to get here and the same number of nights ‘crawling into the bushes’ as Anja calls it, (actually she says ‘crowling into ze bashes’ and I have no desire to tweak her pronunciation). We have splashed out on a day off in civilization (little c, says I, the Snooty Pomm).

I hope that this blog may have encouraged one or maybe two souls to venture out on two wheels and make a modest cycle-tour. My attitude is that almost anyone can do it. When gym-fit twenty-somethings descend from their taxi’s, buses and 4x4’s and say to us on our bikes, “blimey, I could never do that” I get a bit annoyed and think, “yes you could but you’re too lazy to want to”. I must however point out that Outback Australia in the summer is perhaps not the time and place to begin cycle-touring. The going can be at times a little strenous.

We're no longer afraid of the long straight road

I figured Australia is flat right? Wrong. It’s all uphill. The roads are good and fast are they not? No, they are good but sharp gravel sprinkled on tar makes loud and slow going. I counted on a constant headwind so at least got one thing right. Oh yeah! I almost forgot.. It’s hot.

So we battled for days and days against illness, relentless heat, slow roads and headwind. Riding 10kms then hiding in what shade we could find until we worked up enough courage for another stint. Until now there have been trees but as they were all designed by Dr Zeus the shade they offer is scant at best. ‘Kein A1 shatten’! remarks Anja disappointedly. You can sit in the ‘shade’ with your hat on and somehow your face is still in the sun. Sometimes we pray for our normally beloved orb to sink through its self made, orange horizon-soup to go and bother you guys in the West. The only other fleeting shadow is cast occasionally by a circling fleet of raptors overhead. They sometimes follow us for miles, searching for a sign of weakness. “Keep your shades on Anja, don’t let them see the fatigue in our eyes!” Flies, undeterred by our paltry speed, wander across our savannah dry faces to drink from our billabong eyes. Balls of fur bounce away through the undergrowth and giant lizards hot foot it across the heat-haze highway. The Northern Territories, Top End.

Some days we spend 7 hard hours in the saddle and average 15 kmh. The last day into Tennants Creek the wind veered around, blew from almost behind us and we cruised easily into town averaging 22.5kmh on the clock. Now that is more like it, though with no wind to cool us down it is even hotter. On a cloudy afternoon the thermometer may drop to a cool 40 c in the shade.

We constantly raise hot water-bottles to our cracking lips but can’t seem to ever quench our thirst. Only the thought of lunchtime tea keeps us going at all. Some say you can’t drink the bore-water (boring water we call it). It can be a bit brackish but mostly it’s ok. Can’t afford to be fussy. There are petrol stations every 100kms or so but with a loaf of Mothers Pride costing over 5$ we can’t shop here. We have stocked up on 8 days worth of provisions, we hope, and set out tomorrow for Mt Isa 600 odd kms away with little in between.

So, well, this is the hardest cycling on the trip so far. It’s 45 degrees in the shade if you find any. I once wet my shirt in a creek (deep and still but I was quick) and put it back on. The water was warm but suddenly I was freezing cold, man, this lasted a minuit and a half and then I was dry again. The effect of rapid evaporation at work I guess. An Aboriginal guy we have befriended in TC told me not to do it or I’ll get sick. Well that’s just spoilt my only fun.

This Chap keeps following us!

There was heavy rain around Darwin but we left it behind in Katherine about 700 kms back. Apparently we will find it again in Queensland. El Nino or La Nina (I forget) is playing silly buggers again this year so they are reckoning on more flooding in the East. We will deal with that if and when we encounter it. One hot sweaty night (can one die from dehydration while sleeping?), I was still a little hallucogenic from the fever, fire-flies were putting on a fire show to rival any beach-hippiechick and lightening was constant and all around. We heard a rustling in the trees, louder and nearer it came and then it swept through the tent, a cool strong wind, a draught from the wings of an Angel. We basked a while in its breath and then came the rain. Before long I was outside in my altogether scrabbling in the mud with our faithful little trowel, digging a trench round the tent to divert the worst of the groundwater. As a child I had ‘The Ladybird Book of Camping’ with a cartoon picture on the cover of a happy chap eating his dinner as a torrent was diverted around his camp by carefully excavated trenchwork. This, back then, was my idea of heaven. I guess that night , just south of Katherine, I achieved in a way a long forgotten ambition. The picture though, of me at work, is not one for the cover of a children’s how-to book.

Most nights though are fantastic, the sunset and birdsong are particular to Australia. We could be no-where else. Giant Parrots squawk and pass in frantic clouds, followed by smaller, multi-coloured ‘keets and ‘toos. Spoonybilled storkybirds hoover up frogs from grassy floodwaters and unseen hundreds of greenybeaks chirp and hoot in the gum trees,(one day we might find a bird book). My favorite though are the ‘Naughty-Birds’, Anja calls them ‘Nasty-Birds’ but I like the little fellas. They are cocky and a little like jackdaws but with more colourful and expressive gurgly-chirp voices. They have a magpie’s strut, hang around in sixes or sevens and often pay us a lunchtime visit. They like cheese.

Rarely have we slept so far from other humans. There is often no-one for 60 miles or more in any direction. The stars are indescribable and we think we have finally picked out the Southern Cross. Orion is the only familiar form we can see though I can’t understand what he is doing down here. He lays upside-down, low in the East. The cool hour in the morning is best for cycling, but also best to eat our porridge or camp-flapjacks, drink a mug of coffee and watch the day begin.

Should we have backed out of the outback? Possibly. I ride ‘point’ all the time and just seem to lose more and more weight. Steak and eggs last night and the same tonight (I hope). We can’t seem to drink enough for a healthy coloured urine. Most people we meet tell us we are crazy. The only people outside here are the Aboriginals sitting in the shade in town. This may sound a little weird, even offend some people, but so far, Australia seems to us to be very much an indoor culture. A similar phenomenon seems to exist to that which I noticed years ago in the Southern USA; people have air-conditioned houses, shops and businesses, shuttle between them in air conditioned 4x4’s, and never acclimatize to the heat. I went 12 days without going inside a building; in Tennants Creek I did the shopping, 40 minutes in a frigid, AC. emporium and when I came out it felt 20 degrees hotter than before, I couldn’t believe how Anja could bare to sit outside. There must be some real tough guys working outside at the cattle-stations, doing jobs one can’t do from a pick-up. We just have not seen them. Most Australians seem overweight or at-least unfit (damn, I am going to be unpopular), and struggle to walk from their vehicles across the car-park to the supermarket. The minority, let’s say 10%, look like they could run two marathons back to back before lunch without working up a sweat (given the right synthetic energy supplements and sports drinks of course). It’s all or nothing it seems. Please forgive my frankness any Auzie reading this, you must understand we spent 15 months in Asia and have undergone a kind of culture-shock.

The people we have met have all been friendly and interesting whether oldly native or new. The Northern Territories must be a pretty hard place to live. There seems to either be too little water or too much and there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of soil. No mountains to erode, never any ice to do the eroding, no forests as such to hold what there is. It seems any soil that may form is washed away each year and this has gone on repeatedly for millennia, eons even. When the Stuart Highway drives through a shallow cutting, the clean-cut sections show a basic stratification; cracked red rock with a few millimeters of red gravel on top. The green must somehow cling to this. There is a lot of green right now but I don’t think it lasts even half the year. The trees must have roots that penetrate rocky fissures in search of moisture. Life here looks so thin and fragile, it is only a skim on the surface of what would otherwise look, I fear, very much like Mars.

Bali, Indonesia

COLLECTING BIKE BOXES

We have spent a week on the island of Bali, an oasis of temples, stone and wood carvings, flowers and decoration in the middle of Islam’s architectural wasteland.

All our gear including the bikes has been scrubbed with a toothbrush in lieu of Australian regulations. I hope we did a good enough job.

Our Air Asia flight leaves tomorrow morning and all going well we should tough down in Darwin early afternoon. We have arranged to stay with a cyclist chap who is a member of Warm Showers, a couch surfing organization for cycle tourists. Then it is a spin across the outback and a roll down the coast to Sydney.

We are nearly there.

Lombok, Gili Inseln, Indonesien

Du faules Schwein

Da wabern wir also mit den wenigen Unterbrechungen von essen, lesen und schlafen auf der warmen Wasseroberflaeche herum. Unter, neben, ueber uns: smartiebunte Fische, Korallen (tot oder lebendig (viele sogar das)) Moraenen, Schildkroeten, viel, viel Blau und andere absonderliche und unbekannte Lebensformen. So geht das nun schon seit Tagen. Ich kann nicht genug davon bekommen, ein faules Schwein zu sein und Tom ist kurz vorm Inselkoller.

Von Java und unserem besher letzten Vulkan Ijen sind wir zum Faehrhafen nach Bali buchstaeblich runtergerollt und schifften uns auf Bali ein. Wir spurteten in 3 Tagen an der nordlichen Inselseite entlang, um schnell nach Lombok zu kommen. Von Lombok nahmen wir wieder eine kleine Faehre bis zu den Gili Inseln, auf denen es keine Autos und Mopeds gibt. Das erschien nach Java-Bali-Lombok sehr verheissungsvoll. Ausserdem wollte ich unbedingt mal wieder schnorcheln. Und mich ausruhen vor den zu erwarteten Strapazen Australiens. 

UNSER AUSBLICK

Wir haben sogar schon einen Ausflug auf die andere Inselseite gemacht (ca. 1,5 km entfernt) um dort die Unterwasserwelt zu bestaunen. Das sieht nicht so anders aus als auf dieser Inselseite:  Blau soweit das Auge reicht, knabbernde und scheissende Fischchen, Schildkroeten auf deren Panzer sich das Licht bricht. Tief durchatmende Moraenen in Weiss mit schwarzem Muster, Schwarz mit weissen Puenktchen und einige in zurueckhaltendem Braunton schauen aus ihren Verstecken raus. Hier ein Lionfish (wie ist gleich der deutsche Name??!!) und hier eine rosa, laengliche und gutaussehende Qualle auf dem Weg, unvorsichtigen Touristen eins ueberzubraten. Geschickt umschwimmen wir diese gemeine Kreatur. Tom versucht mit seinen neu erworbenen Freitaucherkenntnissen den Grund des Meeres zu erreichen (2,50m). (Tom sagt an dieser Stelle ich bin gemein und ungerecht, und er wird sich in seinem naechsten Bericht an mir raechen). Es waren 5m und er ohne Flossen! Ich hoffe immer, Tom bekommt kein Blackout, obwohl er mir kurz erklaert hat, was dann zu tun waere: Maske runter, Mund ueber Wasse halten (unser beider idealer Weise) auf die Wangen pusten und leicht! ohrfeigen. Dann sollte das Bewusstsein wieder auftauchen. Ich bin also informiert!

Der Einsiedlerkrebs oder Eine gute Tat

DACHGARTENKREBS

Zwischen den Besuchen der Wassertiere, scharren wir am Strand im Korallenkies. Irgendetwas Interressantes gibt es dort immer zu finden, wie Millionen anderer Strandbesucher bestaetigen werden, denn jeder tut gewissenhaft das gleiche: im Sand scharren. Leider ist selten etwas Essbares dabei. Aber wir versuchen zwanghaft unseren Shivaaugenvorrat (Schneckentueren) wieder aufzufuellen, den wir grad nach Hause versendet haben. (3kg!!!!!!). Schuld daran ist eigentlich meine Schwester, die irgendwann mal erwaehnte, diese waeren sehr wertvoll. Dass hat sich unausloeschlich in mein Hirn gebrannt (obwohl ich mich hin und wieder frage: wie koennen die hier eine Silberkette mit einem Schivaaugenanhaenger von 2cm Durchmesser fuer 12 Euro anbieten)? So robben wir also mit dem Gesicht Richtung Sand ueber den Strand. Und da entdecken wir sie: Einsiedlerkrebse. Aber den armen Kreaturen fehlt das Haeuschen. Sie kruemmen sich und warden fast rot, so als haette man sie beim Nacktbaden erwischt. Schnell werden wir ihnen ein kleines Zuhause suchen. Aehm hier wird doch irgendwo..vielleicht da drueben, nein hier auch nicht…Der Strand ist abgesucht. Kein Schneckenhaus zu finden. Da! Ach, schon besetzt. Ja, da faellt es mir wieder ein:  Sorongbedeckte hellhaeutige Frauen laufen mit Plastiktueten bewaffnet auf und ab und sammeln ein, was der Strand an Erinnerungen ans Paradies feilbietet.

Es dauert bestimmt 10 Minuten bis wir ein passendes, abgeknabbertes Schneckenhaus finden. Es wird dankbar entgegengenommen. Mit schlechtem Gewissen denke ich an meine Paradieserinnerungen, die daheim im Regal verstauben.

Drum liebe Leser, last das verdammte Schneckenhaus am Strand liegen, klar!

Abhaengigkeiten

Seit  China befinden wir uns im Mangoparadies. Taeglich werden Mangoigel geschnitzt und sorgfaeltigst abgeknabbert und dabei die unterschiedlichen Sorten diskutiert. Ich frage mich ersthaft, ob ich je wieder in einem Land mehr als eine Woche (ueber)leben kann, wo es keine anstaendigen Mangos gibt. Hier auf der Insel werde ich bereits auf eine harte Probe gestellt: ich konnte gerade mal 2 ueberteuerte  Exemplare erstehen. Doch da sehe ich ploetzlich Spiderman im Wasser (rote Badekappe, rotes Lycrashirt) und ich bin kurzfristig von meinem Verlangen abgelenkt….

Wir, die Touristen

wollen keine Armbaender und Sarongs vom fliegenden Haendler kaufen. Wollen eine Suesswasserdusche (das Wasser wird per Boot hierher transportiert. Wollen Mangos. Wollen keinen Muell am Strand. Wollen die Schidkroeten retten.....wieso steht dahinten im Wasser ein Schnorchler bauchnabeltief im 5 m tiefen Wasser (genau, dort wo Tom immer seine Freitauchuebungen macht), gruebel, gruebel. Ach ja, es gibt Korallen und der kluge Schnorchler hat Gummischuhe an, damit er sich beim Rein- und Rauslaufen nicht die Fuesse zerschneidet. Praktisch, so kann er auch in 5m Wassertiefe eine Verschnaufspause einlegen. Und so sehen wir teaglich 20 Schnorchler (es ist Nebensaisaon, kaum jemand hier) uebers Riff latschen. Boote schmeissen den Anker und erledigen den Rest. Ich glaube das Pardies muss bald umziehen, damit wir  folgen koennen.

Aber auch Tom und ich haben den naechsten Flug bis Darwin gebucht, was nicht unbedingt zur Verbesserung der Welt beitraegt und jetzt muss ich dass mal erwaehnen: 

Olaf, ich ziehe den Hut vor Dir,  weil du aus moralischen Gruenden nicht fliegst!