Kangaroos!!!: Sort of

June 7, 2015

With such an imposing distance ahead of me I made an early start the next morning, and a cold morning it was too. It seemed I’d accidentally travelled so far south that I’d arrived back into winter. Oops. At least the trail climbed uphill, which kept me warm, and as it passed through the rocky natural landscape of John Forrest National Park I was certainly content. The views down over Perth gave way to forest on all sides and with birdsong the only noise other than the crunch of my tyres on gravel it was a lovely start to the day.

It was a Sunday morning and once the sun rose over the trees it wasn’t long before the trail began to get busier with local cyclists. A lot of them were very friendly and wanted to stop and talk and ask me what I was doing. It was nice that Australians were so nice, but I was constantly aware of the time that was being wasted each time that I stopped, and I had such little time to spare if I was going to make it to Gold Coast. Had I known how remote things were going to get, and how soon, I daresay I wouldn’t have worried so much about that.

After about twenty kilometres my association with the trail came to an end and I took some small roads for a bit, before having to do ten kilometres on a slightly bigger road. It was on this road that I saw a sign for the first time that got me very excited. It looked like this:

And the reason why I got so excited by this sign was that on the 15th of July 2013, on my way out of Paris on the very first day of this absurd journey, I had purchased two water bottles. I’d found them in a shop and when I’d seen them I knew I had to buy them, because they would remind me of where I was going. And for the best part of two years they had done just that, through the highs and the lows, and even though they were by now too filthy to actually risk drinking from, I’d kept them, because I’d also made a promise to these water bottles, and it was a promise that I could finally fulfil:

"We did it water bottles! We made it! Didn't I tell you!?! Didn't I tell you I'd get you here one day?!!!"

I really was so thrilled by the kangaroo sign. In fact I can honestly say that I was more excited by seeing my first kangaroo sign than I was by seeing my first kangaroo, which happened a short time later. However, I should add that the kangaroo was sadly deceased. And FYI, dead kangaroos, by the way, don’t smell all that good.

Then after ten kilometres I came to a right turn onto what I thought, from Rich’s map, was going to be a fairly big road. I was a bit surprised to instead find a dirt road with a washboard surface and no traffic, surrounded by wild scrubland, and no hint that there was any human habitation anywhere nearby. I hadn’t been expecting this. It felt like I was already way out in the Australian outback, and there certainly weren’t any cyclists stopping to talk to me anymore. In fact I didn’t see anyone for the next 60 or 70 kilometres as I made my way south-east towards the town of Beverly. Fortunately, however, the road did become paved soon after the turn, and my belief that I had already reached the remote outback turned out to not quite be true, as fields of wheat and sheep began to appear. I didn’t see any live kangaroos, but I did see lots and lots of green parrot-like birds. They were everywhere, flying between the trees that lined the peaceful road, and the cycling remained really quite lovely as I pushed on towards my goal of 120 kilometres for the day.

At 100 kilometres I reached the town of Beverley, although I still found no people as I cycled into it. It was really just a village, and almost a ghost village at that, though everything still looked so incredibly modern and developed to my eyes. I had to find water, and I ducked into the local watering hole to look for it. A couple of old men, one of them with a great flowing orange beard, sat on stools nursing pints at the bar. The barman said I could fill up my water at a sink out the back, but other than that nobody paid me any attention at all. Things were so different here. I got my water and slipped quietly back out, back to the quiet road, and pedalled another twenty kilometres to the backdrop of a beautiful sunset.

Distance completed: 160km

Distance to go: 4,340km

Days to go: 31

Average distance required: 140km/day

Today's ride: 120 km (75 miles)
Total: 41,045 km (25,489 miles)

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