Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers”
<Michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Wilted! (Almost) in Western
Australia
G’Day Phreds,
Today I’m here in Carnarvon, Western Australia, a town a good fraction of the
way down the west coast. I have to say I’m quite relieved to have finally made
it here.
Back when I was on the east
coast in Queensland, and was talking to the fellow from Canada who was doing
just Sydney-Cairns, when I mentioned I was heading to Perth, he made the
comment that “Everyone says Cairns to Darwin is the most difficult part.” Well,
I suspected right then that either he was talking to the wrong people, or “Everyone”
had no idea what they were talking about. Just looking at a map it was clear
that Western Australia would be the most demanding section by far. For one
thing, while the Northern Territory was big, WA is twice its size, with even
more mind-numbing space between towns or services. Then there’s the weather. Ah
yes, the weather.
There are six seasons in
northern Australia, as opposed to the four we’re all used to. The three that
are relevant this time of year are “Gurrung”, also
known as the “Build-Up”, which is very hot and dry, and “Gunumeleng”
and “Gudjewg”, collectively known as “The Wet”, which
are hot and, well, wet. None of these are particularly pleasant for travel by
any means, let alone by one’s own power, so I was hoping to slide through to
the more pleasant southwestern coast while the last cool, by Oz standards at least,
days of early spring were still around. Much to my chagrin, the Build-up began
a little early this year. While the locals were happy, as that meant that they
might actually have a wet Wet this year, I did not really
enjoy the subsequent heat.
Here are some examples of
the conditions in these parts:
·
Katherine
(NT) to Kunanurra (WA)
510 kilometer
Services: roadhouse at 200 km,
country store at 280 km
Temperatures: 3 days at 38 °C;
·
Kunanurra to Halls Creek
365 km
Services: Roadhouse at 190 km
Temps: 38 °C
·
Halls
Creek to Fitzroy Crossing
290 km
Services: none
Temps: 39-43 °C
·
Fitzroy
Crossing to Broome
393 km
Services: Roadhouses at 223
and 360 km
Temps: 35-38 °C
·
Broome
to South Hedland
613 km
Services: Roadhouses at 33,
323 and 467 km, 2 campgrounds w/ food 10-20 km
off route
Temps: 35-38 °C
·
Karratha to Carnarvon
632 km
Services: Small Roadhouses at 5, 110, 264
and 491 km
Temps: 28-32 °C
So you can see that this is
some seriously lonely country, and after several weeks in the Outback already,
it was getting increasingly challenging to maintain a good state of mind. The
worst days were on either side of Fitzroy crossing, in the heart of the region
known as The Kimberley, where the thermometer hit 43 °C for a couple of days,
making it the hottest town in Australia at that time. I had to pull out all the
available tricks to keep going under those conditions, like carrying frozen
water bottles when possible, and riding after dark. The latter is something
that I have thought about doing from time to time on previous tours, but never
actually done. Fortunately, even though I didn’t bring any of my night riding
gear along, it was easy to do, given that the road was straight and flat and carried
virtually no other traffic after dark.
I also was lucky that there
were now bridges in WA. In other parts of the Outback, when the highway crossed
a dry creek bed, the road just dipped down such that when there was water
flowing it just ran over top of the road. Here there were small bridges
instead, made from various sized corrugated steel tubes. I took to crawling in
there during the day to rest during the worst part of the heat. There were a
few advantages to doing this. For one it was a few degrees cooler in there,
also it was the only place where shade was assured, and, best of all, when the
tube was fairly small (sometimes I could stand up, while in other cases I had
to hunch over or almost crawl) the infernal flies, which are even more troublesome
when it is really hot, did not seem to want to fly into the dark tube.
The day that was 43 °C was
difficult right from the start. It was hot all the way through the previous
night, and I got very little sleep while lying in a puddle of my own sweat. In
that half-conscious state I drank down a good portion of the water I had been
carrying for the next day. When morning
came I was tired and thirsty before even starting. When the heat hit, I stopped
at the first bridge I found, which happened to be one I could stand up in, to
take a long break, which was not as restful as I had hoped. After a while I
heard a loud popping sound and looked over to see a bush burst into flames at
one end of the tunnel as a brush fire moved through the creek bed. Knowing I
was safe in my temporary steel home, I stayed put and watched as every ten
minutes or so another pile of leaves or a little sapling would go up in smoke.
This had the rather disastrous effect of flushing out ever fly in the general
vicinity, all of which found their way into my tunnel. I have never before seen
more insects in a small space as there were under that bridge. It was like one of
those old ads for insect repellant where a “volunteer” sticks their arm into a
glass box filled with thousands of mosquitoes. My only recourse was to crawl
into my tent while still inside the steel tube.
So, unable to stand that
for very long I was forced back out into the heat again. It was not long before
I became worried about running low on water, and regretted drinking so much
overnight. Just as I was considering abandoning and asking for a lift to town
from a passing truck, I spotted a small pool of water where a particularly
small creek passed under the road. I had to look twice as I could not believe
it the first time. That had to be the only water within a hundred-km radius,
and it was fairly clear, tasted alright, and came complete with small fish and
what appeared to be a 50 cm-long crocodile. After filling up every bottle I
had, nearly 20 liters worth, and chlorinating it all, I slowly continued on,
arriving at Fitzroy Crossing an hour or two after sunset.
All the while I was hoping
that it might rain, because I kept thinking how nice it would be to be cold and
wet again (Hmmm...did I not predict that I would one
day say that?) No luck, of course.
Eventually, a number of
days later, I made it to Broome, the only real town in northwest Australia, on
a Friday at midday, and decided to stay there over Saturday and Sunday. Though all did not work out as well as I’d hoped there.
First of all, as in unloaded the gear I noticed the only non-routine mechanical
failure I’ve had since Cairns. After being so overloaded with water for a few
days, one of the struts on my rear rack (Jandd
Extreme) had snapped. Fortunately, there
was a shop only a few blocks away from where I was staying that could do tig welding, so I had that fixed up in short order. Then I made a big blunder with some
sightseeing that I wanted to do. I had been hoping to visit an Aboriginal
community ever since I arrived in the country and had thought that Beagle Bay
about 130 km up a bad dirt road from Broome would be a good choice. Unlike many
such communities, it is open to outsiders and it is the subject of a song that
I like, so I wanted to see it. There was a tour bus passing through there on
Sunday, so I gave them an outrageous amount of money to drop me off there in
the morning and pick me up upon their return to Broome later that day. However,
the people at the Broome visitor center neglected to tell me that on Friday and
Saturday Beagle Bay was holding a big cultural festival for all the local people,
complete with music and a Coroboree. Had I known that
I would have loved to go up on Saturday to see it, but instead I just sat
around Broome all day. Sunday, when I did make it
there, most of the people had gone off to do other things and so there was
almost no one left there and the whole day was sort of a waste. Drat. This kind
of thing always seems to happen to me on tours and it was particularly
disappointing this time as it was probably my only chance to experience some
real Aboriginal culture.
After Broome the route
turned to the south along the coastal highway, which in reality sees very
little of the actual coast itself. Nevertheless,
I was quite ready to head south and away from the heat. Back on the east coast
in Autumn I was excited to turn north and ride towards warmer temperatures and
longer days, now in Spring on the west coast I was pleased
to be heading south towards cooler temperatures and longer days. Sort of a mirror image.
There were two more of
those long lonely stretches, through the area called The Pilbara,
to get across before arriving here, but with the days now a comfortable 28-32 C
and, even better, the nights pleasantly cool, I was hoping it would not be too
bad. Of course, nothing is ever easy and just as the heat broke the blasted
headwinds kicked in nearly continually and it was a very tiring struggle to
make it to Carnarvon on time. With a little
persistence I did, however.
I have also met fewer other
tourists during this section as I am probably one of the last to make it
through the Kimberley and Pilbara for this year. Some
of the others I met earlier who skipped ahead of me when I went up to Timor are
still further along than me, and I may or may not catch up to them. There was
one fellow from England I met a few days ago going all the way around on a
recumbent trike, but he is now behind me. And, amazingly,
I met a guy with a Scandinavian accent, who is going all the way around with an
overloaded BoB-style trailer, but as he is traveling clockwise
around the continent, he’s currently headed north. He said was having trouble
with the heat and Sun, which is unfortunate because it could not have been
warmer than the low 30’s where he’s been. I hope he knows what he’s getting
himself into, as he is heading straight into the hot and/or wet season. I fear
that he may be in for a world of hurt. Hopefully,
he has the ability to take several weeks off in Broome or maybe Darwin to wait
for better conditions.
With the Stage winding down
after five months in Australia, here are some impressions of touring in the
country:
Food:
Generally pretty good,
though often a little lacking in variety. Chicken and chips has been the
mainstay for me, though, as has been the case for me on my last few tours, I’ve
had some trouble finding something that works well for breakfast. The best has
turned out to be a package of Arnott’s Mint Slice
Biscuits, which the Aussies on the list will know well. Despite my best
efforts, however, I have lost quite a bit of weight so far, most of it during
the first two months when food was the most readily available. When I was at
the airport up in Tari, PNG there was an old scale
sitting in the terminal, and it told me that I weighed 85 kg. While I did not have time to weigh myself
before I left home, I guess that I’d lost 15-20 kg at that point, and maybe a
little more since then. At that rate I will completely disappear within the
year.
In the southeastern part of
the country, I was spending about the same, or perhaps a dollar or two less, on
food than I would on a tour back in the States or Canada. However, as soon as I
ventured into the Outback, my food expenses jumped up by 50-100% over what they
had been. That was partly because I was trying to eat a little more and partly
due to the higher cost of getting food out to the middle of nowhere. Things
have not yet gotten any less expensive.
Accommodations:
I have stayed in hotels 35%
of the nights so far, which is way more than I anticipated. That has been
mostly due to the weather, especially in the early days when it was cold and
wet, and lately when it was just too hot to sleep comfortably outside. Rooms
have ranged from $AUS 50-175 per night, with the more expensive places being
National Park lodges, and a few other places that I stayed at when I was too
hot/tired to look for anything else, and would have agreed to just about any
price. This has put a bit of a strain on my budget as you might expect, but I
believe I will make that up latter on. There are, of course, a large number of
budget ($AUS 10-50/night), hostel-style
places, known here as “Backpackers”, and also cabins or rooms at many
Caravan (RV) Parks, but neither of those appeal to me very much, so I usually
avoid them. One thing I did notice was
that most rooms have really powerful showers, with scalding hot water. I found
that kind of surprising for a country that is so often under drought
conditions, but I have to admit, I did not complain, especially during the cold
early days.
Traffic:
In the more crowded
southeast it was a little hard to figure. Sometimes it was heavy where I didn’t
expect it to be or vice-versa. In the Outback it was generally pleasantly
light, though what traffic there was often was going too fast. The giant “Road
Trains” which are huge trucks with 3 or 4 trailers,
did not turn out to be much more of a problem than ordinary trucks, which was a
relief.
People:
As
expected, universally friendly and helpful. Maybe even a little too much. Aussies are masters of
the fine art of useless Chit-Chat, and I may have put off a few folks now and
then, when I grunted a one-syllable reply from my spot resting in the shade
beneath a tree, to the over-asked question; “How far Ya’
pedaled today?” Ooops. Many here obviously have no experience with being so tired
that opening one’s mouth without stuffing some food in it is an unproductive
waste of energy.
I also noticed right away
that Aussies are giving Americans some stiff competition to become the most
out-of-shape society on the planet. That surprised me a lot, as I always had an
image of them as active, outdoorsy people. I suppose that, like the Americans,
they enjoy the outdoors, as long as there’s a convenient place to park the car
nearby. C’mon mates, get on those pushbikes!
Cities and Towns:
One nice thing about
Australian towns is that most of the mid- to larger-sized ones still have a
central business district, where shops line the street in the way that they
used to back home. Its nice to stroll around places
like that. This is more common in the southeastern states, while in Queensland
the city centers are surrounded by really painful sprawl, and in the outback,
there are few towns at all, so this doesn’t really apply there.
A couple of general
comments:
If I had to look for some
negative factor to my tour here, I suppose it would be that many places are too
similar to my old home in the States, and I usually like to visit places that
are different from home. There are even many of the same fast-food places here.
This is most noticeable on the east coast, however. The Outback is not really
like home, unless home for you happens to be central Nevada.
Also, Australia is almost
as oil-addicted the USA, in some ways more so.
It has been quite amusing listening to people go on in the media about their
“outrage” or “frustration” with the recent rise in petrol prices, as if that
occurrence were not inevitable. (I don’t have any idea how much it actually costs
here, but I gather that everyone thinks it’s a lot.) People here are making all
the usual accusations, and I can only imagine the level of hysteria going on
back home. I suppose we’ll all go down together. ;-)
So that’s about it. I’m in the
home stretch now for Stage 1 of the Tour of Gondwana. There’s just a little way
to go to my final destination near Perth. I should have just barely enough time
to get there when I need to be. However, if the winds continue to blow hard
from the south, as they apparently do all the time this time of year, I may
have to skip the last day or two and catch a bus into the city. That would
stink, but if it’s necessary, then oh well. We shall see shortly.
No worries,
Mike
--
The Tour of
Gondwana
May 02005 -
Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005
To: touring@phred.org
From: “Michael Ayers” <michael@terminalia.org>
Subject: Gondwana - Stage 1 Complete!
G’Day Mates!
154 days and 16,602 km
after leaving Melbourne, Stage 1 of the Tour of Gondwana ended today (a few
days early) upon my arrival in Denham, Shark Bay, Western Australia.
Whew, that was a long ride!
Stopping just shy of my
originally planned end point of Fremantle, the port for Perth, was not my idea,
but was due to factors beyond my control, as you’ll see below. The story is a
good example of something taken from the “And So It Goes” file for this kind of
trip (I should expect more of such occurrences before I’m all done, I suppose.)
Some of you may have
noticed that I seemed to be very concerned with staying on schedule and
covering a lot of distance each day during this Stage. That’s probably true,
and here’s how that came about.
When planning the route for
this Stage, I knew that I would be leaving home around mid-May, with about
17-21 days at sea. I planned on staying in Oz until the middle of November.
That was significantly more time than I needed to get to all the places on
mainland Oz that I wanted to see, so even after adding Tasmania and PNG to the
route, there were still several free days available over the two per week I had
already scheduled. When my departure was moved up to the first week of May, I
added Timor Leste with little effect on the pace.
However, at that time all
the ships on the Fremantle to Singapore run had been taken out of service and
there was nothing available for me at all. I assumed that I would have to start
the ride and hope that something would turn up later on. Then, just a few weeks before I left a new ship the M.V.
Theodor Storm began sailing on a route from
Sydney to Kuala Lumpor and Singapore via Melbourne,
Adelaide, and, yes, Fremantle. Perfect. The catch was that the Theodor Storm was scheduled to call Fremantle
on October 29, two weeks earlier than I had been hoping for. With no other alternative,
I booked, and paid for, passage from Fremantle to Singapore. In one fell swoop, all of the extra days and
ability to travel a little more leisurely vanished. It’s in my nature, however,
that once I add a place to my route I’m extremely reluctant to remove it for
any reason. So I kept all the additional places I added and committed myself to
a more demanding pace. For one thing, I figured that once I was in the Outback,
I would be doing some long days anyway due to the great space between services
(that turned out to be true, of course). On the bright side, all of the days
that I lost from Stage 1 would now be extra days in Stage 2. That’s still the case, and now I can slow
down a lot during the next few months in Southeast Asia. That’s probably for
the best as the interesting sites will be much more frequent up there, and I
can surely use a little more time off for a while.
So far,
so good.
I was going to make it,
too. With just a handful of long, but doable, days to go I was set to arrive in
Fremantle 2.5 days before the sailing date.
Then, moments after I made my last post, in Carnarvon,
I called the port to check if the ship was still on schedule, and learned that
it would not be stopping in Fremantle on this voyage after all. Apparently,
there was no cargo to pick up this time, and picking me up is not a good enough
reason to bring the ship into port. They make a big point when you book a
cruise like this that such occurrences happen from time to time, but, really, these
things are only supposed to happen on other people’s trips. ;-)
So I was left with two
alternatives; 1) finish the ride down to Fremantle as planned, cool my heels
there for a week or so, and then fly to Singapore, or 2) end the ride early and
catch the ship in Adelaide four days earlier.
My first instinct was
option 1 and I made plans to do that, even booking the flight. Then on the next
day, as I was riding south again, into the wind, and across another rather
featureless plain, I began to think, “Hmmm...perhaps I
would rather leave from Adelaide after all”. I really had been looking forward
to another week or two at sea, especially given the beautiful route that the Theodor Storm would be taking. Additionally, the
rest of the way to Perth would be rather “business-like” with fewer interesting
sights and increasing traffic. So I scrambled around to change my plans to
transfer to Adelaide, which included “Going Greyhound” on an overnight ride to
Perth, picking up the package I had sent from home containing my laptop and all
the replacement bike parts for stage 2 (which, hopefully, will clear customs
within the next few hours, or I’ll really be out on a limb), and then taking a
shorter flight to Adelaide which should get me there with just a few hours to
spare. It will be something of a minor miracle if I can pull this off.
The last detail was where
to make my official end point for Stage 1. With the bus schedule as it was, I
had two days left that I could ride, which was not quite enough to get to any
of the larger towns further south. I was at the last of the sites on my must
see list, Shark Bay, the final World Heritage Area on my list of 12 for this
stage, which was just to the west of the main coastal highway. I had originally
planned only to make a quick detour as far as Hamelin Pool to see the Stromatolites there, but with a little more time, I rode
all the way up the peninsula that stretches up the bay. That was quite nice as
there were some beautiful sights, including some nice coastal views (which are
noticeably absent along the “coastal” highway.) The official end point for
Stage 1 then became the small town of Denham, the most westerly town in
Australia, which seemed like a good choice. I still had to turn around and ride
the 130 km back to the main highway in order to catch the bus, however, as a
parting gift from Australia, I was surprisingly treated to some kick-ass
tailwinds, the first I’ve had in like a month. Thanks for that.
However, with all the
confusion of making new transfer plans, and by ending short of the point that I
had been expecting too for the last five months, today does feel somewhat
anticlimactic. I’m sure that feeling will pass in a few days, though. It was a
great tour for me, after all, filled with countless fascinating places, people,
and things.
So that’s it. If all goes
well, very shortly I will be at sea heading for Asia, to arrive in something
like 12 days. I am very excited to get there and ride to all the amazing places
I plan to visit. With luck, the next stage will come off as well as this one
has.
Farewell Oz! Long may your ‘Roos hop freely through the Mulga,
may all your droughts be busted, may the lads bring The Ashes back where they belong,
and may the flies find refuge somewhere other than in your ears!!
No worries,
Mike
--
The Tour of
Gondwana
May 02005 -
Oct 02007
http://www.terminalia.org/tour