DAY FOURTEEN: Into the Nullarbor

Northern Territory to Western Australia

After yesterday's surgery, I took my bike and my reattached hand out of Feeshkogoomba Springs and camped in the desolate wilds of the Australian Outback. It was a fantasmagorical experience. The stars, the moon, the heat, the biting flies, the sand, the disturbing sound of the world's most poisonous snakes slithering around my tent . . . it all amounted to an almost overwhelmingly beautiful evening.

When I woke up, the intense Australian sun was already baking the earth. Of course, when you wake up at high noon the sun is likely to do that this time of year in the southern hemisphere. After cramming my tent, pad, sleeping bag, cooking gear, multiple changes of clothing, bike repair tools, all of the electronic goodies I hadn't discarded in Montana, and three day's worth of food into my pannier, I headed south on the almost unknown Moodolallabuttanrumpa Highway.

If not for the occasional cover of clouds, the Australian sun would have burnt my Minnesota skin like a fiery grill blackens a seasoned catfish.

Far from being a true highway, the Moodolallabuttanrumpa was more of a series of ATV ruts. That's okay. My legs and The Reckless Mr. Bing Bong's tires were up to the challenge. And the best part is that the Moodolallabuttanrumpa "Highway" took me to one of the most sacred Aboriginal sites in all of Australia.

While not quite as sacred as the famous Uluru (Ayers Rock), Uhooaryou is pretty sacred in its own right.

At the junction of Moodolallabuttanrumpa Highway and Doofiblogorama Road, I turned right. I absolutely HAD to see the Nullarbor Plain. Nullarbor means "no trees" in Australian, and you know how I feel about trees. If not, here is my view on trees: In a nutshell, trees are VIEW-BLOCKERS.

There is no blockage of THIS Nullarbor view.

The Nullarbor provided another surrealistic night of camping. Nothing was out there except the flies and bats and spiders and snakes. It was a symphony of nothingness.

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Ron SuchanekMany a good man have been lost (were lost? had been lost? was lost?) on the Moodolallabuttanrumpa. No women have been lost, because they have more sense than to travel in such a place.
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1 year ago