Cycle complete!
It is often said that its the people you meet that make journeys worthwhile. For me its been no different. Ive met some amazing, kindhearted people in the past few weeks and their generosity and friendship are some of the things I will have memories of for years down the line. Whether it was bumping into Jet, a dutch cyclist at an ATM in a remote town in Western Australia, or staying with my scottish cousin Adam in Perth, or hanging out with Rob and Christine in the quant village where they live outside of Hong Kong (Rob, who wrote the Cycling Home From Siberia book), or being shown around Hong Kong by Zhen and Poppy, all have been wonderful experiences that have shown me just how loving and kind humankind can be. And long may it continue! "The sort of place one gets into in bad dreams" is how famous Aussie explorer John Eyre described the Nullarbor Desert back in the 1800's. Since then little has changed except for the increase in traffic that now crosses it heading from coast to coast. Mainly this comes in the form of Road Trains (2/3 carriage trucks) and Campervans along with the odd cyclist thrown in for good measure!
I have to fully agree with Eyre's description of the place. It really is a place you just wouldn't want to be in with the vastness of it all and the heat too, but still that makes it all the more attractive for those of us who want to try something different and adventurous! The Nullarbor is latin for "treeless plain" and Although empty for a good part of it, a lot of the 1200kms is made up of bushes and small gum trees. Interspersed over this distance are Petrol stations offering seriously overpriced fuel, water, a cafe and basic accomodation. Sometimes the distances between petrol stations is 80kms, other times its 180km, so you really want to be prepared to stock up on 2 days supply of food and water when on a bike. As for the scenery itself a lot of it is pretty monotonous. Scrub, dirt, sand, road train, oh a kangaroo! straight road, more straight road, signpost, you get the idea! The sole thing I remember as being pretty cool were "The Bunda Cliffs". These were essentially like the aussie version of "the cliffs of Moher" so were quite impressive. One of the best things about the Nullarbor had to be the people I met along the way. If it wasn't for them it would have made the whole journey a lot more difficult. Often when I'd stop at a petrol station someone would come up to me (and always with a huge grin on their face) ask me where I was heading and was I mad? I got asked the latter question so often I began to wonder was I mad for crossing Australia in the first place! Even on the road for the most part I was constantly waved at, beeped at (in support I hope) and on 2 occassions was handed bottles of water out the car window while on the bike. It was a bit like the guys in the Tour de France except without the skintight Lycra! At rest areas too I met some interesting people and on one occasion I ended up chatting to the creators of the Famous Ned Kelly Pie. This couple in their late 30's had called me over for a chat and a drink around the bonfire they'd set up to hear what I was up to. They were a lively, cheerful crew who had some pretty interesting stories to tell. After a while the conversation led on to food of course and I mentioned how much I enjoyed eating pies, at which they revealed they were the owners of 7 bakeries and also the creator of the Ned Kelly Pie. They were from his hometown in Victoria and so thought of a way to attract business in the form of this new pie. They had to admit that there was nothing particularly special about it, however it always attracted people to buy it because of the name. And it worked! people would buy it even though it was just a pretty ordinary steak and egg pie,just through re-branding. Cycling in the Nullarbor I'll be honest wasn't easy. It was often very hot, boring, long distances between places and worst of all was the way that I was ALWAYS at the mercy of the wind. The Nullarbor was so flat and open that the wind was always blowing a gale in one direction or the other. The direction it blew would be the main determinant in how many miles I would do that day. I had initially planned to take 12 days to cross the Nullarbor aiming to cover 100 kms a day. However a combination of good winds (4 of 7 days) and having nothing else to do or see, meant that I got through it in 7. It wasn't often I bumped into other cyclists along the way but I did end up meeting 3. When the wind was behind me and I bumped into other cyclists I really did feel sorry that they were cycling into the headwind. It wasn't easy especially when you watched your speedometer hover around a painstakingly slow 10km/hr, compared to flying along at 25km/hr with a tailwind. To give you an idea of what a day on the bike is like here is a rough outline of my average day below: Wake up: 4am Eat cold oats: 4:10am Pack up and start cycling: 4:30am Sunrise: About 5am Stop for 5 minute break: 6:30am Stop for lunch: 8:30am (Usually peanut butter sandwiches) Stop for dinner: 11am (Rice, Tuna, and Chicken powdered soup for flavouring) Read or sleep till 3pm (If very hot) Continue cycling till 5:30/6pm and pitch tent Eat more Sandwiches and maybe some nuts: 6:30pm Go to Sleep: 7pm And then do it all over again! It was Wednesday when I felt the pain gradually envelop my left achilles heel. Every rotation a constant reminder of the injury I had picked up. Yet I was only 200kms into the 500km cycle between the towns of Port Augusta and Ceduna. I came up with a temporary solution in stuffing tissue and bandages into my heel. This raised the achilles and the pain gradually subsided, but still lingered, never quite gone.
It was Friday when I got into Ceduna and immediately went to the library to find WiFi so I could ring my friend Sean (a doctor in Adelaide). After explaining it to him he suggested I get it checked out. it.could possibly be torn but more probable was it being tendinitis. On a side note Im one of those guys who never goes to the doctor unless it is pretty serious. In this instance I felt I could possibly man up and press on. But after listening to the rather awful implications of what a torn achilles can be like I decided Sean was right and so headed to the local doctor. About 4pm I entered the doctors clinic which was part of the tiny 12 bed hospital. I asked to see the doctor but given that she was booked up for the next 7 days I was told that instead I could get assessed by a nurse in the A+E dept, if you could call it that! I got seen pretty quick and they then called over the student doctor on duty, Alex, to assess me. As a bit of background remember that I had been cycling for the past 5 days in the hot sun, sleeping in a tent and to boot I had not showered in those 5 days also. Therefore hygienically I fell well below the average patient! I pitied poor Alex as I peeled back my sock and he went in for a closer look. After getting an ultrasound on it He confirmed that it was tendinitis but he was quite concerned that it might be infected also. Therefore they would need to run some blood tests. Now for those who know me I'm a disaster when it comes to talking about blood or getting it removed from me or anything to do with it whatsoever. I felt pretty nervous given the fact I'd fainted the last time I'd blood taken from me, but amazingly they got 25mls out of me no bother! The main contributing factor to this I feel may have been the fact that one of the nurses stood by to ask me all about my cycle so far, thus distracting me from the needle and the blood! The funniest moment of the day came in this sequence of events as the doctor was finding a vein to put the needle in. Finding one was no bother but cleaning the area around it was another thing entirely. Usually it only takes 1 alcohol wipe to clean the area where the needle would be inserted. But he had to ask the nurse to get him several more given the state of my hygiene! In the meantime I apologized for my lack of cleanliness and we both got a good laugh when he jokingly responded saying that he could tell I was 5 days without a shower! In the end it took all of 4 wipes to remove the dirt and grime I had accumulated! Soon after I was wheeled down to my room where the nurse had already propped up my bike against the wall. It was rather funny to have this overloaded dirty bike encamped in the spick-and-span room but seemed like this was the safest place for it. It wasn't long before the nurse grabbed me some sandwiches and a mug of tea, which I downed pretty quickly in any case. She must have recognised my veracious appetite and so brought me another sandwich and a whole pile of biscuits which I gratefully accepted. I was told that the blood results would take till the following afternoon to be analyzed so I settled in for the night watching a movie on the small TV opposite my bed. After watching one of the older James Bond movies I turned out the light and remarked to myself this hospital business wasn't so bad. I mean comfy bed, TV, food, beautiful view of the sea, ice for my heel, I couldn't want much more! Well the following morning after receiving breakfast in bed I realized just how difficult it is to lay up for a day. I hadn't done so little exercise or moving since my last stint in hospital all of 8 years ago. The height of my exercise was the 20 steps it took to walk to the tea room and back, which I went to at least 15 times that day! This resulted in my only other bit of exercise which was regular visits to the bathroom which amounted to about 8 steps! There's only so much TV one can watch (Aussie daytime TV is brutal!) that I was bored out of my head by 11am. I also didn't have any phone coverage or Internet so was unable to talk to friends back home which made my stay rather lonely and isolating. By 5pm the doctor came in with the blood results. Good news was that there was no infection and so it was just tendinitis. Although they would have liked me to rest up for 3 weeks for it to heal properly, they also acknowledged that I was on a bit of schedule, and so asked me to stay in at least another night to rest it and keep it iced. To be honest I was kind of glad to stay in as there was a strong gale outside and besides it would have got dark in 2 hours anyhow. So stay I did, and in the morning (after breakfast of course) I headed off to ride the Nullarbor Desert where one of my greatest challenges would await me. This is certainly not my most glamorous looking photo but upon my arrival into Norseman I went into the public toilets and looked at a mirror for the first time in ages. I couldn't believe how rough I looked so I took a picture to capture the moment. As you can imagine I enjoyed one LONG shower after!
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The AuthorName: Daniel Ross Top Tips:
1. Constantly challenge yourself. 2. If you never try you'll never know what's possible. Archives
October 2016
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