Current Location: Singapore
“You aren’t old until the day that you find more pleasures in the past than in the future�- Nicolai the Danish Cyclist
“By perseverance the snail reached the ark�- Charles Spurgeon
Setting off from Adelaide I felt fit again (and well recovered from my bout of malaria) and ready for Australia’s final challenge: cycling westwards across a vast 2000km plain of bushland to Perth where I could catch a boat to Singapore, and hence re-enter Asia.
Throughout my time in Australia, people had told me eyebrow raising tales of this road to the west known as the Nullarbor Plain. It is famous for being very long, and rather empty (an occasional road house, but otherwise nobody lives there). The early explorers spoke of it in nightmarish terms: most famously Edward John Eyre, the first European to make a successful crossing (in 1841), described the Plain as “a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams�. A more recent traveller was a bit less flamboyant and emphasised its unbearable tedium by
pointing out “there is a reason why the last 3 letters of Nullarbor are BOR�. The name Nullarbor actually means “no trees�, though I was intrigued to discover soon after I set off that there are in fact lots of trees (they are just a bit stubby and thirsty looking).
I was also warned that this was snake territory (and I did spy quite a few of them sunbathing by the road), but that my greatest threat would be the “road trainsâ€? – giant articulated trucks with three trailers moving at high speeds. These are a genuine hazard (and in the past they have unwittingly knocked off foolhardy cyclists), so I soon learnt to use my ears to give me enough warning to swerve onto the dirt roadside and brace myself as the blast of noise and wind thundered past.
As I sweated and pedalled onwards through the empty scrub land I also tried to stay aware of how far to the next road house to replenish my water – approximately every two days. Under the increasingly warm spring sun I needed 8 litres each day for drinking and cooking, which meant that on some days I had to carry an extra 16kg of weight (the spokes of my back wheel certainly did not appreciate this, and were inclined to snap on a frustratingly regular basis).
Riding across such an empty space included boring times and lonely times, frustrating times (when the wind was against me) and exhilarating times (when it blew with me), ponderous times and scary times. But my progress was steady, and despite the monotony I have fond memories. At night, as I camped hidden behind a tree near the road, I sometimes felt a little spooked and uncomfortable to realise that literally no-one in the world knew where I was (though I was greatly comforted to remember Psalm 139!). Probably my most frightening night “on my ownâ€? was when I stumbled into an abandoned homestead down a dirt track about 80 km from the main road (half way down a short cut I was taking). It had been built by hardy settlers in the nineteenth century, but long since abandoned, it could now be used by passing travellers. A fireplace, a rainwater tank and a couple of very mouldy beds – after my sweaty days on the road and dusty nights in the tent, it was pure luxury. My only big scare came as I was preparing to sleep and I found a mysterious scribbled note (from a previous traveller?) advising me that there was a tiger snake living in a hollow in the wall – and thus I
should be careful. Needless to say, the snake did not appear, but I was glad when the morning arrived!
If this all sounds rather melodramatic, my own worries (and illusions of heroism) were dealt a firm blow of perspective when after a few days of riding the Nullarbor I met a a nineteen year old Japanese chap who had just spent the previous 4 months WALKING across the Plain, pushing all of his survival needs before him in a baby buggy! He seemed very cheerful, pointing to his big supply of cookies overflowing out of the pushcart, and explaining in broken English that he even carried a puncture repair kit for if his buggy got a flat.
Other pilgrims of the plain included the “grey nomadsâ€? – retired Australian couples who have decided against the lazy retirement option, and instead set off in a comfy camper van to do a lap of their home continent. I must have been passed by a hundred such couples every day, and they would often stop for a chat and to offer me a drink.
After a couple of weeks of steady progress, and increasingly salt saturated clothes, I had made it across into the lusher western corner of Australian farmland. In that last week of riding I spent some nights staying with farmers (the farmers of Australia had shown me great kindness throughout my journey), and then eventually over the brow of a final cluster of hills and down into the peaceful, wonderful liveability of Perth. I was here looked after by a delightful English family for 2 weeks whilst I awaited my boat to depart.
The boat was neither a yacht, nor a ferry, nor a dive boat (the boats I had hitched on my way to Australia), but rather a giant German owned freighter, piled high with containers destined for Singapore. I had decided to actually book a bed on this freighter as a passenger (through an extremely efficient Swiss shipping specialist travel agent http://www.frachtschiffreisen.ch/eng/default.htm ). This was expensive (roughly double the cost of a flight to Singapore), but I did not want to fly, and I felt I could justify the extra expense as I badly needed to get some momentum into the trip after all of the delays of the previous year (and I had earned a bit of money in Australia too).
The voyage itself was very comfortable (I had a luxurious suite of cabins) and the crew and officers were bemused to have a cyclist on board. We ploughed noisily over smooth seas, survived the melodramatic (but genuine) pirate waters of Indonesia and then landed at the tiny South Eastern country of Singapore (barely the size of England’s smallest county, it is an economic giant – safe, busy and wealthy).
I arrived here 12 days ago, and then a week ago beautiful Christine arrived for a week’s holiday. She left on a flight back to London this morning, andof course I now feel rather sad and am back to my questioning about the point of continuing this journey. But there is plenty to keep me busy, and my panniers are now packed and ready for a ride north to Malaysia tomorrow, the tenth country of the expedition.
As always, many thanks for all of your emails, prayers and kind donations to my chosen charity, Viva Network and their work with children at risk. I was recently reminded of Edmund Burke’s famous saying that “nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little�. Your donations really do make a difference to lives of children who would otherwise have very little hope or future in life, so thank you very much
PSALM 139
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,�
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you…
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I enjoyed so much reading your Nullarbor Plain experience. And I am blessed by the spiritual insights I got from your journey. Take care always Rob and God bless your remaining journey.
Romy (Manila)