Earlier this year I rode my push bike from Lennox Head out to Uluru, via Broken Hill and Port Augusta, in a boomerang-shaped arc across three states. The ride wasn’t for charity, or a race – it was just something I always wanted to do.
I’ve always loved bikes. When I was a kid, I used to fantasise about not stopping – just keeping riding, over the hills, beyond the horizon. At last, here was the opportunity.
For this adventure, my partner Eve carried our vegan food and camping gear in a car, which made things a lot easier, but I pedalled the whole way, averaging 100 kilometres a day. It took a bit over a month. It was often freezing, but we had every type of weather; from frosts to rain to over 30 degrees.
Life is different on a bike. Instead of looking at the country from behind a windscreen, you’re inside the experience, changing the perspective with your legs. Wind, gravity and air pressure become tangible.
You’re very vulnerable on two wheels, and there are reminders with every truck that passes and every dead creature you see. The quality of the road affects how much energy it takes to move, but there’s more to it than that. Subtle changes in the land become visible. History starts to feel more present. Some country feels heavy, like molasses. In other places the bike seems to fly.
Crazy
Doing something like this is a significant physical challenge, but the psychological challenge is greater. A lot of people told me riding to Uluru was a crazy idea. To succeed, you have to believe you can do it. When the whole, epic trip seemed impossible, I broke it into chunks and concentrated on those.
There’s a lot of pain involved with ultra-endurance cycling, but this is balanced by the endorphins and dopamine that the bike delivers. When you’re riding into a gale or up a mountain, water is like nectar and a simple muesli bar becomes something supernatural.
At night I read Patrick White’s Voss, based loosely on the journals of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt. Voss was another person who had trouble defining exactly why he was drawn west. In his case, sacrifice led to a kind of merging with country. I wasn’t heading on a self-destructive mission, but for both of us, the journey was at least as important as the destination.
When you’re riding long kilometres every day, worries about the climate crisis and other intractable problems take a back seat to more short-term concerns. Do I have enough water to get from A to B? Can I climb up this mountain before it gets dark? Will that wind blow me backwards faster than I can ride forwards?
Amazingly, I had no punctures in 3,366 km. There was also much less bike rage out west than in the supposedly enlightened Northern Rivers – road trains went out of their way to look after me, and the grey nomads were careful with their massive caravans.
In the outback, there’s a sense that everyone’s in it together. Strangers offered me water, chocolate chip cookies, honks and waves. On the second-last day, I even got a clap out of a passenger window from someone who had no idea where I’d ridden from.
There’s less rubbish beside the road as you approach the centre, and the graffiti becomes increasingly pointed, and political. Australia is having a texta argument with itself in every roadside stop.
Why?
Uluru is a destination for a lot of people for a lot of reasons, and the first sight of a massive blue cloud mountain turning to orange rock was certainly something to treasure. Up close, it’s sculptural in its visual intensity, and then there’s the spiritual dimension.
Reflections on the road
From the perspective of a push bike, travelling from edge to centre, our ancient island continent feels very damaged, but also very resilient. Sometimes even the bike seemed too fast – fundamentally, this is country that’s meant to be walked.
The Uluru ride has taught me I can always become stronger – the sight of a highway stretching into infinity no longer fills me with trepidation.
Although I trained for this adventure, I don’t have a spectacular level of fitness. The miracle that makes the superhuman possible is the bicycle itself, perhaps the most brilliant of human inventions.
The take home message is that if I can do something like this at the age of 53, then it’s probably not too late to attempt whatever scary, challenging, impossible-sounding thing you’ve been thinking of. It’s mostly a matter of attitude, and having the right people in your corner.
Like the great songwriter Neil Murray told me when I messaged him from the middle of nowhere to thank him for his wonderful music: ‘Keep pedalling and you’ll get to wherever you want to go.’
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