The Cycling Adventurer

   Perth-Adelaide 1997

Day 12   

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Football, emus and an open-air lounge-room

I arrived in Norseman about 4.00pm after setting out at 9.00am from Salmon Gums. The run was okay, although suprisingly, there were a few long hills.

My progress was slowed a little more as I stopped and listened on the radio to the Australian Football League's grand final in Melbourne... and rested the muscles in my backside. The chafing is not such a problem now, but my backside got quite sore about lunchtime, and I found that stops every 30 minutes instead of every hour, helped to relieve the pain and allow me to continue.

Last night was a good one in a country pub. The solo musician might just as well have not been there. People came from 35km or more away for the get-together. A couple even came from Albany; they had stopped over on a previous visit and came back because they enjoyed it so much.

The night comprised raffles and plenty of drinking, laughing and relaxation. When I arrived, it was happy hour, which went down very well. I left about 10.15pm and made my way back to the tent very carefully in the dark, negotiating the gravel road into the caravan park without a stumble. The wind had died right away, and that made getting to sleep much easier.

The happy atmosphere last night also had as much to do with the excellent cropping season the farmers are expecting this year.

Rainfall in the area has been above expectations, and despite the heavy falls on the day I rode into Esperance, a little more may not go astray. Some of the farmers predicted a record return on their crops, especially wheat and canola.

Sometime early in the morning, a train went past. I was only 50 metres from the track and I had a rather rude awakening. At first I thought it might have been an earthquake because the ground shook.

The Salmon Gums Hotel.

But the sound of big powerful diesel locomotives and the rhythm of the wheels on the track made sure I identified very quickly what was happening.

I was up at 7.30am and expected to take only an hour to get going. But I am also taking things casually, so by the time I had done all the bits and pieces such as airing my sleeping bag, and having a cup of coffee, I did not leave the caravan park until after 8.30am. Joy at the hotel interrupted her big clean-up after last night, stuck her head out the door, and wished me luck. She said the partying continued on well after midnight.

The ride out of Salmon Gums generally was uphill, but then things settled down, and I was able to average 20km/h for the first hour. I kept a check on the radio for the AFL grand final schedules, but found the action would not start until 12.30pm Western Australian time. I still had a fair bit of pedalling in front of me. But I also had done a lot to get here. My first major milestone came up on the way when I passed 1,000km on the computer!

I also noticed the first major variation in wildlife when an emu crossed the road about 30 metres ahead of me. I had seen a few large carcases on the side of the road that were not the usual kangaroos. I did not look too closely except to note extraordinarily long leg bones. After seeing the emu run across the road, I realised straight away what the roadkill was.

I stopped a little further along the road when 1,000km ticked over on the computer and I set up the camera to take a souvenir photograph using the automatic timer — a task not as easy as it seemed.

My first major milestone, 1000km, which ticked over between Norseman and Salmon Gums.

I kept up a reasonable pace, and eventually moved the average speed up to 17km/h for the day. I tired at one point and sat on the side of the road, had a drink, ate something, and listened to the football. I have found a way of carrying the radio so I have entertainment while I ride. Surprisingly, this arrangement has not interfered much with hearing traffic coming up from behind me. There are two reasons for this: Hearing the traffic from behind when there is a strong head or side wind is almost impossible anyway, and the rear vision mirror is useful if glanced at regularly.

The rest of the day's ride was uneventful. Norseman is like a ghost town; most residents have gone elsewhere for the holiday weekend. The most impressive part of the town is the huge mullock heap on the side of an overlooking hill. The heap has a symmetrial shape, seemingly created by precise engineers, with straight corners and smooth, flat faces. The heap was bigger than any I have seen in other mining towns except perhaps in the copper-mining town of Queenstown on Tasmania's West Coast.

I was worried about my cash supply, which was down to $7.00, and when the first sevice station I encounted was closed, I became very concerned. A visit to the Tourist Information Centre allayed my fears. The woman behind the counter told me the hotel had EFTPOS facilities.The information centre was pleasant, and I gathered up some important information on the Eyre Highway and what I could expect with settlements (roadhouses) and other facilities such as picnic areas and water tanks.

I went to the hotel and bought some beer, and extracted some cash from my account. Then I went across the road to the supermarket for fruit and a variety of other foodstuffs, including a 1.5-litre bottle of mineral water and another 750ml bottle of Powerade. This would bring my total fluid capacity for the Eyre Highway crossing to 6.6 litres. I have bought as much fruit and other food as I can practically pack, but it will not last the nine days I estimate it will take the travel the 1,200km to Adelaide, and I will likely have to put up with junk food from the roadhouses at some stage.

This caravan park costs $10 a night. It is just about full and it has done nothing to change my views about caravan parks in general. At least I ran into Trevor and Bev Nyland, a couple who make their living out of pipe salvage. They have three sons who operate the retail sales part of the business back in Perth, while Trevor and Bev spend at least three months of the year out in the bush recovering plastic pipe from mining operations, as well as working for the Main Roads Department on various contracts.

It was a treat to see a husband and wife who work together in the bush like that and love every minute of it. Trevor has invented his own machine for the back of his truck to recover pipe and wind it up, using the power of the twist in the pipe to achieve a high level of efficiency. Of course, the business sells the pipe it salvages.

The Nylands own 12 aces at Balvidis, a southern suburb of Perth. They have a very simple view of life and they think the same as I do about the unsociable nature of caravan parks. Trevor built a huge fire in the park's barbecue area, which itself resembled a big outdoor lounge room with no roof or front wall, but with the fireplace running the full width at the back. He had collected some mallee roots from a pile nearby and the blaze was a welcomed sight.

We spent about three hours talking about what they did, what I did, and life in general. No-one else appeared interested in joining us. I excused myself and went to bed reasonably early. On the way, I passed three guys who had earlier erected their tents near mine when they arrived on motorcycles. They had been off to the hotel, but also were apparently set for an early bedtime.

The radio tells me that the forecast temperature for tomorrow is 30 deg C, the hottest since I started this odyssey. It suggests that my stamina will be fully tested.

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