Date:     Sun, 11 Sep 2005

To:         touring@phred.org

From:    “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>

Subject: Gondwana - Never Tired (Ha!) in the Northern Territory

G’Day Phreds,

Today I’m in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, a part of Australia about twice the size of Texas, but with only five or six towns large enough to have full-sized supermarkets, after completing the portion of Stage through the famous Red Center.

It was the size and emptiness of the NT that set the tone for this part of the Tour, however, there were some of the best destinations of the tour so far to be found here as well. This part of the continent is quite flat and though the elevation ranged from sea level to around 800 meters in The Center, the grades were so mild as to be barely noticeable. In fact there were many of those “optical illusion” places where I was sure I was either climbing or descending, when in reality it was flat, or even the opposite was true. The weather has been uniformly sunny with one seven day stretch when, for 24 hours a day, from horizon to horizon, there was not even anything that resembled a cloud in the sky. At the southern end of the section, there were occasionally a few things which resembled clouds floating by, but not a single drop of rain came from them. The temperatures in The Center were a little chilly, which I thought was rather nice, with a high/low of 22/6 ºC. In the last few days, as I approached the Top End, the heat really turned on, with a higher humidity as well, with the hottest day of the tour so far being 39/22 °C. In spite of needing a lot more fluids, that didn’t bother me too much, and the difficulty of each day’s ride was only determined by the great distances between service stops and, more importantly, what the wind decided to do. As is often the case, the wind could not make up its mind what it wanted to do.

The route for this section left Queensland heading due west for a while until reaching the lonely Stuart Highway, the only sealed road running north-south through the interior of the continent. There I turned south heading for the Red Center and passing through Alice Springs, undoubtedly one of the world’s most isolated small cities, on the way to the famous landmark of Uluru. Then, I turned around and headed back to the north, duplicating a 1000-km section of the route along the way. I generally prefer not to ride the same road twice, certainly not for that long a distance, but in this case there was no way to see all the places I was interested in without doing so. Once that was over with, there were a few days of new route heading north, then a diversion to the northeast in order to visit Kakadu National Park and a couple more days to get to Darwin.

I was a little worried that heading south would be tough, since whenever I did so in Queensland there was always a significant headwind. So I planned to ride hard for that section to get to Uluru as quickly as possible, and then, presumably, take it easy when I repeated that section heading north.  First, however, was the section heading west on the Barkly Highway, a quiet path of 460 km with the only service of any kind being one roadhouse midway along that distance. With the normal southeasterly wind still blowing I just let myself go and cruised through to the end in two days, one of which was a new personal record of 240 km.

Then I was pleasantly surprised that the Stuart Highway heading south was much easier than I expected. On the days when the southeasterly wind was blowing, it was not very strong, and I covered some good distances, which was nice as there were only a few scattered roadhouses along the way and not many other reasons to stop (and whenever I did I was immediately besieged by squadrons of those dastardly flies, which forced me to ride on again). Then the wind turned around and blew from the north and pushed me into Alice a little earlier than I expected, which gave me a longer rest break there. Over the prior five days I rode a total of 1,000 km which is quite a switch from the pace I rode at the start of the tour.

The rest of the way to Uluru-Kata Tjuta N.P. was easy as well, and I arrived there with plenty of time to spend two days off the bike, as I had planned. Uluru is the impressive red rock which rises 300 meters above the surrounding plains. It, as well as the nearby Kata Tjuta rocks, has been a sacred site for the local Anangu people for 10,000 years or more. At one point it was renamed “Ayers Rock” by the European settlers after Sir Henry Ayers, a politician from Adelaide who likely never saw the rock. It has since had its proper name restored, and as a potentially very distant relative of Henry, I told everyone I saw that on behalf of my entire clan, the name Uluru should be the correct one. It was a nice place to rest for a while, the only drawback being that the service and accommodation center, Yulara resort, is a little far away from the base of the rock and since I wanted to stay off the bike while there I had to visit the rocks on a commercial tour which, while interesting, was perhaps not as in-depth a visit as it would have been had I gone on my own.

Then came the retrace of the route heading north, and this time the wind was not on my side. There were several days of miserable headwinds, four of which had winds stronger than any I’d ridden into in a few years. I had planned on taking longer to do the northbound section and that’s what happened, but instead of the relaxing slower pace, with more rest and sightseeing, that I had hoped for, it was a tiring struggle for most of the time. I had a second rest day at Alice, and then an unplanned one at the Wauchope Roadhouse, when the wind convinced me to stop riding for the day at 10:30 AM. I was going to rest the next day in Tennant Creek, one of the five or six towns with a supermarket, but it was much better to stop early the day before as the wind settled down on the following day.

After a while I reached the fresh section of the route and there the conditions improved a great deal. I made steady, quick progress to the north, taking a day off at the Mataranka Homestead, which is famous as being the setting of the famous Australian novel We of the Never Never, which, I gather, possesses the same literary stature here as Gone with the Wind does in the U.S., though I don’t think any cities were burnt down in the former. That was a nice place to rest as there were beautiful thermal springs to swim in nearby, and clear rivers on which one may kayak and be entertained by the acrobatics of Rainbow Bee-Eaters, one of the most attractive small birds I’ve seen.

The last destination before Darwin, and one of my favorite so far, was Kakadu. It is a very large national park on the northern coast, with a sort of semi-tropical, semi-arid environment. It was a very long ride to get to the park services and attractions, especially with the recently-returned heat, but it was worth it. Kakadu is famous for two reasons, the estuaries and wetlands that abound with beautiful birds and animals, and several galleries of ancient rock art. The boat cruise along the South Alligator river was outstanding and a lot of fun. It was nice to see some lush greenery again after so long in the arid center and I was really taken aback by the variety and number of birds which were easily seen along the way. As I probably have mentioned before, Australia’s birds have been the most pleasing surprise of the tour so far and that day was the best yet.

However, the rock art was perhaps even more impressive. There are two main sites which outsiders can visit. The first, the Anbangbang gallery, has some interesting paintings several of which are mythological characters.  The second site, Ubirr, is even more exceptional. I originally had not planned on going there, since it meant an 80-km round trip off the main highway. Wow, am I ever glad I changed my mind and rode out there after all. It meant a relatively long day on the bike, and I did not have too much time to linger around the site, but it was enough. The rock outcroppings at Ubirr are literally covered with paintings, thousands of years old, of fish, animals and other characters, many in an “x-ray” style where the bones of the animal are painted as well. Ubirr was a quite powerful, and beautiful, place and anyone with an interest in cultural history would enjoy going there.

After Kakadu there were just two light, but slightly monotonous, days to get here to Darwin, a relatively large city which, in a situation hauntingly similar to recent events, was completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy in 01974. The town, which was named, (actually renamed from its original name, Palmerstown) after a certain Mr. C. Darwin, who once visited Australia on the H.M.S. Beagle, has obviously been rebuilt, however, in the “modern” way, that meant that there was 30 km of really bleak sprawl to ride through to get to the city center. Sigh.

One of the other notable things about the route through the NT, is the larger number of other tourists I met along the Stuart Highway. For all of the tour up until now, I met a relatively few others. There was a couple from Holland riding from Cairns to Brisbane, another Mike, from Calgary, doing the east coast, and a fellow named Mark from London doing a route similar to mine, but without all the detours that I’ve been making. I rode with him for half a day near Bowen, Queensland. I am traveling at a somewhat faster pace than he is so from there I went on ahead. However, he moved ahead when I went up to PNG, and I don’t think he was going to go to Uluru, so he should be fairly far along by now. I hope to catch him later on to see how things went for his tour.

However, on the Stuart Highway, I encountered another rider or two every couple of days. Those included three separate German couples each doing fairly large chunks of Australia, several solo Aussies and one man from Vienna doing the whole Stuart Highway, the latter taking the dusty Oodonadata track route. One young fellow from Paris who is also on a multi-continent tour passed by a few days ago. He has already completed Asia and was just starting out in Australia. It’s a possibility that I could run into him again in South America, or somewhere. That would be cool. Then there is the guy from Colorado who is doing a northerly crossing of Oz on rollerblades, pushing his gear along in one of those three-wheeled baby carriages. Good luck to all of you!

As for my next move, it’s time for my next short trip outside of Australia, and tomorrow I leave for 8 days in Timor Leste. I am really looking forward to the next week for a few reasons. For one, TL is a small island-based country with roads that ring the nation, and that means one thing...beaches!!! I haven’t seen one of those in a while. It’s also a place where the cuisine is a mélange of Mediterranean and Southeast Asian dishes, and that will make a welcome respite from the typical roadhouse fare of recent weeks. And, as far as I can tell, in TL the towns are closer together than, oh, say, 500 km apart. What a luxury that will be!

Ok then, that’s about all for now. I feel good, the bike and the rest of my gear seem to be holding together, so all should be well for the near future, at least.

No worries,

Mike

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The Tour of Gondwana

May 02005 - Oct 02007

http://www.terminalia.org/tour