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Two significant steps towards home: the Nullarbor Plain and the boat to Singapore

Saturday, November 18th, 2006

To return to my homepage, please go to: www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

HOT OFF THE PRESS: Alastair Humphreys (the friend who I cycled through Siberia with) has just published a book about his ride through Africa in 2001-2002 – the first leg of his epic “round the world by bike” expedition. It is a brilliantly written account of the ups and downs of life on the road. Ranulph Fiennes (aka: Guiness Book of Records ‘world’s greatest living explorer’) has written the foreword for the book in which he describes Al’s journey as “probably the first great adventure of the new millenium” !!
The best way to order a copy (for yoursef or as a good Christmas present for someone) is at:
www.alastairhumphreys.com


My Current Location meanwhile, is: 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

Before the Nullarbor - coffee in Adelaide

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 trains” – 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.

_black snake.JPG

_road train.jpg

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).

_dirt track1.jpg

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 own” 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!

_road hazards.JPG

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.

_japanese walker 2.jpg

Other pilgrims of the plain included the “grey nomads” –
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.

_bunda cliffs.jpg

_Australia puncture.jpg

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).

_on freighter.jpg

_lowering bike.JPG

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, and
of 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.

_singapore sky.JPG

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
(to support Viva Network please visit
www.justgiving.com/cyclinghomefromsiberia).

Please stay in touch and God bless, I should be home in a year or so now!

Rob

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

www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

Farthest South: On from Sydney, holiday in New York, unexpected illness

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

To return to my homepage please go to www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com

Current Location: Hamilton (a country town between Melbourne and Adelaide)
Nights spent in hospital in Melbourne: 3

_Australian camping.jpg

“I told him where I was staying and he asked after Tim. I said I thought Tim was a man who had reached his limit and needed a rest. ‘Ah’, he replied solemnly, as if I had hit on a notion of key importance. Then he lit a cigarette, and a coil of smoke spiralled upwards before his face. ‘If a man does not reach his limit,’ he pronounced, a flicker of enquiry surfacing into his eyes as if released from great depth, ‘how can he discover the way to go beyond it?’ “-Jason Elliott, An Unexpected Light

“… who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” – Jesus

In May, I hurried on south to Sydney, pedalling the hours away, often from dawn until darkness. I had prior arrangements to visit schools along the way (to give assemblies about the expedition) though I came to realise that I had often been wildly over-optimistic in estimating how long it would take me to get from one appointment to the next, resulting in some very late night rides under the moon, and all too brief slumbers in my tent. Pressing on through sheep filled valleys and deeply wooded hillsides, I was at last sucked down a speedy motorway to the Sydney Harbour waterfront. The white floodlit shells of the Opera House gaped towards the sky, the water rippled affection and confidence to the night, and the bridge towered majestic and crownlike above us. Arrival in iconic cities by bicycle (after many months of sweating and trouble) is always a surreal yet satisfying moment – I briefly enjoy the wonder of seeing a famed landmark under its own stars, and breathe a sigh of relief at having got this little bit further on down the road.

I had been looking forward to Sydney as a symbolic half way point for the trip, though it turned out there was little time for thinking and reflection. Each day I bustled around the city – speaking at schools and rotary clubs to earn money for the ride home or raise funds for Viva Network, and I felt priveleged to meet or stay with a great variety of inspiring people (including old school friend, Nige Swain, who I had not seen for almost 10 years).

_sydney arrival.jpg

From Sydney, I also took a complete break from the expedition. Not to go home (as this would have disrupted my momentum to the extent that I think the cycling could not have continued), but rather to fly to Manhattan. Christine (the beautiful girl who I had met a year previously in Hong Kong) was now working there as a corporate lawyer, and she had already come to see me twice (in the Philippines, then Brisbane), so I decided that taking a holiday to see her in the Big Apple made a lot of sense at this point. It was great to see Christine again (and in such an extraordinary place as New York) but after 3 weeks, as she flew back to London to resume work there, I was flying back to Sydney and preparing for the next stage of “Cycling Home From Siberia”… (Just for the record, I AM still trying to complete my route overland/without flying the route itself… this plane journey was a holiday away from the expedition, not a part of it!)

A few days later I left Sydney in the rain and cycled initially towards the Great Dividing Range and the little-known capital of Australia. Canberra seemed a very serene and sensible sort of place with wide roads, noble buildings and sculpted stretches of water – all nestled within a cluster of scrubby hills. A brief rest and stay with some kind hosts there and I was off again, hammering the wheels through icey winds, rolling forests and coastal valleys – steering for Melbourne and another busy schedule of schools.

Shortly after arrival, however, I was to have an unexpected experience whilst in this atmospheric and likeable city. During my first week in Melbourne I started to develop a bit of a headache. Being the sort of person who normally shrugs off most kinds of illnesses by just ignoring them, I just pressed on with my speaking engagements, hoping it woud go away. After a few more days the headache was getting worse and I was feeling a bit fluey. Then came the day that I had to run to a school as I was late, and I arrived there feeling very strange, but still started to give my presentation … however, with a few minutes left of the assembly, I had to bolt out of the room to be sick! I realised that it was time to take to bed and try and shake this illness off (whatever it was). But then things got worse… a cycle of fevers ranging from violent frozen shivering (despite manifold duvets) to ridiculously sweaty. I staggered down the road to the local GP, who confidently told me it was the flu, and that I should just stay in bed. Then, thanks to some excellent advice from a doctor friend in Hong Kong (Aric) I was persuaded to go to hospital for a tropical diseases checkup. After a blood test in the nearest casualty ward, I was told it was actually malaria – apparently hiding in my liver since Papua New Guinea, where I had been bitten by lots of mosquitoes. Three days in hospital with a drip in my arm, and an assortment of pills, and I was on the road to health. However, because of all this, I was not strong enough to cycle for a while (I had lost 8% of my body weight) and so had to cancel my intended ride around Tasmania (how our well laid plans can crumble into dust!). I spent a week recuperating in Melbourne, and then took another holiday, leaving the bike in Australia and flying over to see old school friend, Jim Dick the carpenter, in New Zealand. Back in Melbourne, and feeling much better, I was then ready to set off on the bike again.

As I thought about it during my recovery, the malaria episode was perhaps not such a bad thing. It forced me to stop and reassess my goals and priorities and reflect on what I am hoping to get from the homeward leg of the journey. I have battled several times with the idea of whether I should keep going on this ride (there is after all, still a long way home), but I have concluded that the road that remains has many lessons left to teach. “Missing home” is not a good reason to quit, and I know that it is when the going gets tough, that continuing is more worthwhile than ever. I was alarmed the other day to realise how much of my time of late has been spent feeling “worried, flurried and hurried”, so I am making a conscious effort to stop worrying and just accept things as they happen. Recently, reading some extraordinary travel books about war weary refugees in Afghanistan and desperate early settlers in Australia, I feel pangs of perspective as to how privileged I actually am.

It is time to start feeling excited about the ride again – I have turned a corner on the map, and finally, genuinely, I am heading for home – something I am reminded of each evening as I now ride west and into the setting sun. A couple of days ago, on ‘The Great Ocean Road’ of Victoria, I also reached the most southerly point of the journey, went for a quick swim in the cold, clean sea, and then turned the bike northwards for Adelaide.

I am not sure what will happen along the way in the remainder of this journey, but I believe that this final year (or so) of the trip is surely worthwhile. I have earnt enough money to complete the ride, I am still young enough to enjoy the adventure, and opportunities like this do not come along very often… as Kent Nerbur advised his son: “Live, if only for a short time, the life of a traveller. You will meet people you could not invent, you will see things you could not imagine”.

Once again, many thanks for your emails, prayers and kind donations to the work of Viva Network and their work with over 1.2 million children at risk in 48 countries around the world.

Please stay in touch, God bless,

Rob
www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com
(To support Viva Network and their heroic work for children at risk around the world, please visit www.justgiving.com/cyclinghomefromsiberia – THANKYOU!)

And finally… 2 great quotes:

(this one is an interesting comment by Steinbeck about Americans):
“We all have that heritage, no matter what old land our fathers left. All colours and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It’s a breed ? selected out by accident. And so we’re over brave and over fearful ? we’re kind and cruel as children. We’re overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We’re over sentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic ? and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old land they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. Can it be that our critics have not the key to the language of our culture? That’s what we are, Cal ? all of us. You aren’t very different.”
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden

(this one, a traveller’s reflections in Afghanistan):
“And there it was again, that feeling that the journey was becoming more than the sum of its parts, more like a clandestine sculpting at work within me, which in the visible world I was merely acting out, to reveal – what? The shape of a character I knew only dimly from a life whose roots were growing more tenuous by the minute. How precious and remote the world of home now seemed! In ordinary life you know yourself from your surroundings, which become the measure and the mirror of your thoughts and actions. Remove the familiar and you are left with a stranger, the disembodied voice of one’s own self which, robbed of its usual habits, seems barely recognisable. It is all the stronger in an alien culture, and more so when the destination is uncertain. At first this process brings with it a kind of exhilaration, a feeling of liberty at having broken from the enclosures of everyday constraints and conventions: this is the obvious if unconcious lure of travel. But once it has run its early course a deeper feeling more like anguish begins to surface, until the foreigness of your surroundings becomes too much to bear. I had never felt it so strongly before, and wondered: when does it start, this divorce from oneself, and what is its remedy?”
-Jason Elliott, An Unexpected Light

Voyage to a wealthy land, a cyclone and a haircut

Friday, May 5th, 2006
To return to my homepage please go to www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com Cyclone Larry 1.jpg Cyclone Larry had gusts of 290 km per hour Km cycled: 17,900 Current Location: Byron Bay, Australia "There is no easy walk to freedom ... [Continue reading this entry]