Postscript

Travelling 18,000 kms around Australia gives you lots of time to look and think. There is usually a long way between the "sights", but the whole trip was an event in itself. These are a few of the thoughts I had and maybe Alan can add his own.

Firstly uppermost in my thoughts was the predicament that my wife Morag was in, back in Melbourne. She had been diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer before I left and was trying to work out what treatment option to take. Luckily we had arranged to meet in Broome and we discussed what would be best to do about breast removal and reconstruction. The only advice I could give was to minimise the surgery and in the end she made the decision to have a mastectomy. Luckily I was home before she went into hospital and I can say she is making a full recovery.

What was my favourite part of the trip? I would have to say looking over the edge of the Great Australian Bight and the time in Karijini National Park in the Pilbara. The Great Australian Bight was such a surprise as it was only 500m from the Eyre Highway with no sign of it on a casual glance from the bike. The cliffs are 80m high straight down to the Southern Ocean below. Karijini was the first big National Park we visited with gorges, rivers and waterfalls and I suppose the first experience is usually the one that sticks in your mind. Karijini is in the ancient mountains of the Pilbara some 2.5 billion years old and is surrounded by huge iron ore mines at Tom Price and Mt Newman. The gorges and rivers are spectacular for their colour, depth and narrowness. All the other gorges we saw on our travels were really second best.

What was the worst part? I think it was in the Darling Downs area of Queensland where the flat landscape had been taken over by industrial farming and the natural variety we found elsewhere in Australia was hijacked by square kilometres of Sorgum or Maize. Or where the scaring of the countryside by huge opencut coal mines was visible. In other words where the heavy hand of man's interference with nature was most evident. The really worst part was being sprayed by animal excrement every time we passed a livestock truck. This type of animal transport needs to be radically improved to avoid depositing the filth all over the road and other road users.

How did we manage the huge distances we had to cover? There's no doubt you have to "like to ride" as they say in motorcycle circles. That is you have to enjoy the feeling of just covering the ground on two wheels. On motorcycles you get to experience the countryside in a much more visceral way than in a car. You feel the heat or cold, you smell the rain or the road kill or cattle trucks and you see things more clearly on the side of the road like Dingoes, Emus and Wedgetailed Eagles. It was never a chore to pack up and hit the road, even though my backside would start to hurt after 200-300 kms so we stopped every 2 hours to rest and have some refreshment. My favourite piece of road was the 380kms we did between Cape Crawford and Barkly Roadhouse. This was an utterly deserted place apart from a very few cattle stations but the vegetation and landscape along the side of the road changed every few kilometres as the environment changed. The roads were in general straight and flat and the Nullarbor Plain was only one example of similar terrain found during our trip. My tyres are testament to the fact that the bike was vertical most of the time. I wore the front tyre flat as well as the rear!

We met many of our fellow travellers at the network of roadhouses and campsites that service the remoter parts of Australia. The vast majority were "grey nomads" from southern states making a winter pilgrimage to warmer parts of Australia. There were surprisingly few motorcycles on the road but every day in the remote outback we would pass at least two people cycling around Australia; a minimum 6 month commitment. Some were in couples but most were alone and they would have to camp in the bush most nights and so be fully self-sufficient in water and food. We stayed with friends and family in Adelaide, Fremantle, Broome, Cairns, Townsville, Ayr, Chinchilla, Cabarlah and Mt Kiera and this gave us a break from the daily task of looking after ourselves; we thank our hosts for their kind hospitality.

In the far outback of Australia, each town boasts its own peculiar attractions but in the end they seem to be variations on a theme. We could judge which river was more majestic, which gorge was more dramatic and which place had the more interesting history. In the end Australia really has not much to offer in terms of out-and-out must see tourist spots, certainly compared to a country like say Italy. What it has that is unique and on a bigger and grander scale than anywhere else on earth is the sight of nature adapting to the harshest and most challenging conditions of climate and terrain in the world. You see that every kilometre you travel. You have to do"the full lap" to appreciate this spectacle and I think the cyclists have found the best way to do it if you have the time and the leg power. But we learned to appreciate it as well.

Alan's comments:

I agree with Colin's observations etc with these additional ones of my own.

A trip like we have done gives you a sense of perspective when reading anything about the pioneer explorers who have gone before. You can relate to the countryside and conditions they would have encountered albeit from the luxury of the seat of a high-powered motorcycle riding on a ribbon of tar. The incongruous flood warning signs on a dry flat plain nowhere near a river where six months ago they were flooded with water heading for Lake Eyre in central Australia 2000kms away. This is the magic of the Australian bush.