June 12, 2015
Considering I was working in the dark, with minimal training in the arts of sewing and knot-tying, and the tools at my disposal were a dusty cap, a pair of old shorts, some plastic thread and a rusty needle: I think you'll agree that the end result, all things taken fairly into account, is friggin' awesome
With no towns on the route I knew that, unless an exotic dancer should happen to come pedalling the other way, nothing very much was likely to happen on the eleventh. And nothing did happen on the eleventh. The wind was more from the north-east and not as strong, which enabled me to put in a decent shift at least, having realised that Melbourne, whilst being closer than Gold Coast, was still a flippin’ long way away. The road was boring; the farmland now long gone and replaced with scrubland, what they call the bush. And there certainly were lots of bushes, but not a whole lot else. The only previous time I had cycled such a monotonous, long, empty road would be in the Kazakh steppe, but unlike then, this time I vowed that I would absolutely not resort to poetry to keep me amused. Instead I tried spotting kangaroos, and my total count for the journey moved up to four, although sadly for all concerned I’d still yet to see one alive and well. So I just cycled - 13 kilometres per hour, for ten hours, and wham, bam, 130 kilometres was in the can. Oh, God, oops, was that a haiku?
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On the morning of the twelfth I had a final 45 kilometres to cycle to the town of Coolgardie, a 45 kilometres that failed to provide any more excitement than the previous 130 had, at least up until that point when I saw this sign:
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Coolgardie was once a booming gold mine town, but by the time I made it the gold rush appeared very much to be over, and the place was looking rather run down and pretty much deserted except for a couple of drunk aboriginals shouting across the empty main street. On the plus side at least the resource centre was open, and dishing out free wifi, and even better the woman in there was delightfully friendly, greatly interested in my trip, and full of useful advice. Not so useful was the local shop, where the exorbitant prices had me 1) reeling, 2) buying nothing but heavily-reduced seriously-out-of-date milk, and 3) plotting to make a slight detour through the much bigger town of Kalgorlie to stock up with proper supplies for the Nullarbor.
Just out of Coolgardie there was a lay-by with information boards about the gold mining days and, keen to find out more about the history of the area, I stopped to read them. Being on an area known as ‘fly-flat’ this gave me a good opportunity to test out an ingenious contraption that I had the previous night spent two hours creating by torch-light in my tent. Considering I was working in the dark, with minimal training in the arts of sewing and knot-tying, and the tools at my disposal were a dusty cap, a pair of old shorts, some plastic thread and a rusty needle, I think you’ll agree that the end result, all things taken fairly into account, is friggin’ awesome.
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The question now was whether my elaborate headgear, which I’ll admit did resemble a cross between a hockey-mask and a tangerine, would prove effective against the onslaught of flies. However, I would not find out immediately, for no sooner had I put it on than a car pulled into the lay-by and I, reacting in the most sensible way possible, quickly removed the ridiculous item from my head. This decision was vindicated when the man behind the driving wheel spoke to me and revealed he was a police officer, though despite my behaviour, he had not decided to approach me as a suspicious character. Rather he had seen my bicycle and wanted to say hello because he himself had ridden a bike across the Nullarbor, and he’d enjoyed it so much the first time that he did it again. He was a really friendly man, and as he wished me well and drove off I reflected on how, up until this point, everyone that I’d met in Australia had been really very nice.
Unfortunately the road between Coolgardie and Kalgorlie was particularly busy for some unknown reason, my best guess being the last of the gold mining families packing up and leaving Coolgardie once and for all. And there were also ‘road trains’, the Australian term for trucks with more than one trailer. I’d heard much about these things, although until this point I’d not seen any with more than two carriages behind them and I guessed the horror stories were exaggerated. That was until this evening, when I saw a mining road train pulling out ahead of me and the wagons kept on coming, four in all. I stopped to take a photo, and, although an overtaking car rather spoiled it, you may still get the idea:
The truck drivers had mostly been okay so far though. If something was coming the other way, or the road ahead wasn’t clear, I would get off the road onto the dirt so that they could pass, and if the road was clear then more often than not they would move over and give me plenty of space. The odd one or two didn’t, however, and I was constantly checking my mirror. I have to stress that a mirror is absolutely essential whilst cycling across Australia because everything goes fast and nothing slows down, certainly not the road trains, and if stuff is coming both ways you’re going to want to know about it, and get the hell out of the way.
My mirror proved particularly useful a short while later when yet another road train appeared ominously in it. I could see the road ahead was clear, it was a long, straight road, and there was nothing coming the other way for at least a kilometre. I knew the truck driver could see that too, but I still watched the mirror closely in case he was one of the jackasses that wouldn’t give me any space. Turned out he was, and he continued to drive straight for me. I skidded off into the dirt just in time as he careered past. But then, almost immediately, the truck pulled off the road into a long parking lay-by a few hundred metres up the road. I decided to go and say hello. It was a kind of morbid curiosity really. I’d always wondered what kind of a person it was that would drive a large motor vehicle straight at a human being, but they never usually stop for me to find out.
I wheeled into the lay-by and over to the truck driver who was out of his cab to inspect his load. He was at least part aboriginal, kind of fat, kind of ugly, kind of miserable looking and he sneered at me as I approached, in a what-do-you-want kind of way. I decided to approach with good cheer and overwhelming politeness.
“Hello,” I beamed, “I was just wondering if you saw me?”
“Of course I saw you,” he smirked, “you’re bright orange.”
This was, in truth, the words I’d been longing to hear for a long time, the confirmation that all of my bright clothes made me highly visible to drivers was music to my ears, and yet, it did beg the question:
“Why didn’t you move out at all then?”
“What,” he stammered, “and cause a bloody accident?”
He said this, I assure you, with a completely straight face and not even the slightest hint of irony. I was so taken aback that I struggled to find an appropriate response, which gave this vile excuse for a man the opportunity to start f-ing and blinding at me and telling me to f-off. He was quite a bit bigger than me, and seemed to be clenching his fist with a strong urge to punch me, which would have been a wholly unfair thing to do under the circumstances. Shouldn’t I be the one getting angry?
It was clearly time for me to leave, yet I have this unfortunate physiological disorder that makes me not very afraid of anything, and as a consequence, I decided to antagonise the ogre a little longer.
“I had to dive out of the way,” I protested.
“So you should!”
“Ah, come on, I’m a human being. I’ve got a family. I’ve got a little niece, a little nephew, I’d like to see them again.”
I thought this might soften him up a bit, tug at his heart strings.
“Well you shouldn’t be out here, you should protect yourself in a motor vehicle, shouldn’t ya?”
A compelling argument, I had to admit. Nobody has ever got hurt in a motor vehicle.
I thanked him for his advice, and before leaving politely requested that he consider giving cyclists more space in future. In exchange I received a barrage of swear words. I cycled onward and was still in shock from this encounter and trying to work out what could make anyone so full of hate when a car seemed almost to swerve towards me and made an even closer and more dangerous pass. I was done. Time to pull off the road and make camp.
Some Australians, it turns out, just aren’t very nice.
Distance completed: 651km
Distance to go: 3159km
Days to go: 26.5
Average distance required: 119.2km/day
11/06/15 – 132km
12/06/15 – 69km
Today's ride: 201 km (125 miles)
Total: 41,532 km (25,791 miles)
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