Australia’s vast, harsh and dry continent has lured quite a number of adventurous cyclists into taking up the challenge of hundreds upon hundreds of miles of ruler straight road, even at the height of soaring sun and heat … my own plan of a two-week-bike-trip from Adelaide into the heart of the Flinders Ranges, Arkaroola Village, seemed to be no more than an afternoon trip. Nevertheless, it made friends in Europe panic and released looks of utter bewilderment on Australian faces.
In August 1987 I witnessed a Swiss guy by the name of Mark dismounting his push bike in Alice Springs, having just arrived from Darwin, a distance of roughly 1600 km. I never quite managed to find out, whether the Stuart-Highway had revealed to him a never ending chain of mysterious distractions or whether he simply had no concept of hardship, for he had arrived looking as fresh and healthy as anybody just returning from a stroll along Todd-Creek, only half a mile away. This might have been the effect of his training: during the previous two years he had been cycling all the way from Switzerland, through Asia, eventually hopping from island to island in Indonesia and heading for Sydney as his final destination. Maybe he just simply felt the simple and encouraging “pull of the last few miles”. After all, once you have pedalled from the Alps to the Alice, Bondi Beach must be only around the corner – even if it is still another 2000 miles away.
Fifty years before Mark’s journey, in 1937, Sir Hubert Oppermann, the famous Australian cyclist rode from Fremantle to Sydney, with most of the 3500 km being no more than a bush track at he time. He must have enjoyed his journey immensely for he repeated the trip a few years later. Hard to imagine cycle along a road for which even today’s motorists read warnings: “What is most likely to trouble the driver on his haul across the Nullabor Plain is … the mind numbing straightness of the road, the sameness of terrain and
the risk of falling asleep at the wheel.” (Jarratt, P. “Inside Guides”, p. 223).
Compared to such coast-to-coast-crossings through “mind numbing straightness of the road” my own plan of a two-week-bike-trip from Adelaide into the heart of the Flinders Ranges, Arkaroola Village, seemed to be no more than an afternoon trip. Nevertheless, it made friends in Europe panic and released looks of utter bewilderment on Australian faces. The Europeans, I learned, suffered from vivid imagination gone wild: snakes and spiders in their hundreds were suddenly digging trenches along the road from which they would surely fight a coordinated battle against this crazy European. Friends ‘Down Under’ took a more logical point of view: Why bother with a ‘treadly’? After all, the combustion-engine had been invented! Why not take a motor-bike?
Well, I could help neither group. Yes, it was true that nobody knew anybody who had ever cycled from Adelaide to Arkaroola Village in the last fifty years – and hardly anybody had done it before – but no, it was not true that this trip was going to be difficult or even dangerous. By travelling in July, i.e. mid winter, I avoided any problems of heat and availability of drinking water. And South Australia’s cold winter rains could not deter me either. Had I not spent enough years on a bike in Ireland? The actual distance of the journey. allowing for detours along the way, was something of between 700 and 1000 km. Apart from the actual pleasure of such a trip, I was about to embark on a pretty mediocre bike trip. Nevertheless, I was determined to turn it into a bike trip with a difference.
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