The Cycling Adventurer

   Perth-Adelaide 1997

Day 17   

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Madura appears from the sea plain as an oasis

Ahhhh, this is the life! Forgive the constant company of the Madura diesel generator in the background, I am laid back in the tent, flap and mosquito net open, and looking out on a nice fire where my second course of dinner is waiting.

Today was one of contrasts. Compare now to this morning when I was so glad to get out of Cocklebiddy.

Cocklebiddy did nothing to endear itself to me. I had to get up just before midnight to rebuild the tent after a gust came through and broke a second brass ferule at the top of the frame. It was probably my own fault for having placed the tent not far enough into the lee of the shrubbery in the first place. I had to pull the tent and groundsheet with all my gear inside around the bush by about 45 degrees for adequate protection. I had to take down all the framework as well as the fly to drag it in to the new position. The wonder gaffer tape was brought into action to fortify the problem area. I stripped away the fixed part of the ferule with my pair of pliers and moved the remaining piece to cover the joint, then bound that with tape.

Having pitched the tent so many times already on this trip, the task of re-erecting it by torchlight was not difficult. I lost a tent peg, but eventually found it. I did, however, sleep soundly after the incident. Remarkably, everything inside remained in the same position when I dragged the tent around the shrubbery.

I was a later riser this morning, at least by the clock. In fact, because I had put my watch forward yesterday morning my departure time of 9.00am was really a more respectable 8.15am on the old time.

I had a chat to the duty manager at the service station. He spent 26 years driving trucks in Adelaide and had set out on a trip around Australia with his wife after "retiring". He did not get far. He picked up a job at one of the roadhouses near the South Australian border and moved "just down the road" when another was offered by a short-staffed Cocklebiddy. The job was supposed to last only a couple of weeks, but the money was good and the couple have stayed now for four months.

Cocklebiddy, despite its shortcomings, does have one thing going for it. Unlimited pure, fresh water. The duty manager solved the puzzle. The owners, who also have interests in roadhouses from Ceduna to Norseman and seven others on the Alice Springs run, spent $38,000 installing a desalination unit. It draws on water that flows through the limestone from the ocean. Filters cost $3,000 each and can be cleaned three times before they need replacement.

The duty manager said a desalination plant had been tried at Caiguna, but the excess salt in the water there could not be filtered out and Caiguna returned to using rainwater reserves. I must say that the water from the single tap in the caravan park, a popular place early in the morning among the carvanners, was particularly sweet. The cost of installing and operating the desalinator, run by power from the diesel generator, adds credence to notion of just how valuable water is out here.

The duty manager also gave me an insight into the transport industry along the Eyre Highway. He said some trips cost the drivers money. A driver can get $8,000 for a full load from Melbourne or Sydney to Perth, but the round can cost around $3,000 in fuel alone, taking into account repairs, debt, maintenance or the bane of all drivers, a blown tyre. Some operators take a second driver with them to keep the vehicle moving through compulsory rest periods. The strategy cuts the margins further. While a lot of freight goes into Perth from the Eastern States, not much comes back the other way, and drivers offer down to $500 a load out of Perth. Often, however, the trailers are empty, and I have seen quite a few heading east with a second trailer mounted on the first.

Another cost risk comprise the fines for breaking regulations which in turn can be frustrating, judging from the conversation I overhead between the Kenworth drivers at Caiguna the other night. Things such as load limits, widths and heights and therefore the need for escorts, speed restrictions on nominated routes, and even bans from some roads, all seem to combine to make a truckie's life quite complicated. I was almost starting to feel sympathetic... a feeling that did not last very long once I got back on the road this morning.

Cocklebiddy's location in the middle of nowhere also seems to draw comments from tourists who complain about the long distances they have to travel, and the cost of fuel at $1.01 a litre. "I am a friendly sort of person," the duty manager said. "But the manager, he just tells them if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. What do you do if you have only a quarter of a tank of fuel?"

Get a bike!

I can understand people's boredom because of the distance, especially if they have come from the city and don't appreciate Australia's countryside or the vastness of the continent. To them, a look at the map suggests they can get across Australia in a day's drive, coast to coast. The reality is much different, and because they are travelling much faster than I, the landscape tends to blur into one big procession of green, grey and red with a strip of bitumen in between. They miss nuances of landscape, wildlife and even the traffic on the road that I can see every minute I am riding. Yes, it can get boring, but no less so than sitting in a car seat for 10 or 12 hours, doing nothing other than listening to a music tape or CD... or sleeping.

The wind when I left Cocklebiddy was sufficiently behind me to keep me buzzing along at an average of 18km/h. My first really serious situation with traffic on the trip came about half way to Madura when a road train came around a corner behind another, then pulled out to pass. I sensed the driver hesitated when he saw me, then accelerated again to complete his manoeuvre. I was already well to the left of the lane on the shoulder, but went right off on to the verge when I saw what the driver was up to. The verge was covered in tall weeds that made staying upright and negotiating them a major task. The road train passed me about 1.5 metres away.

Other trucks were following and saw what happened and when I broke free from the weeds, and returned to the road shoulder, I was very, very angry. I made sure they knew how I felt and mouthed some very strong language and gave them the one-finger salute. In a split second, the ratbag renegade had destroyed my respect for the drivers, and I didn't care who among their ranks knew how I felt.

Then, lo and behold, after 30 minutes more of riding, I came across a pair of policemen stopping traffic to check, as they told me later in Madura, for "licences, weapons and fugitives". I thought back to what Col Cooney told me yesterday about the CB conversation on the $20 bet and another cyclist. The transport industry will continue to have blood on its hands after accidents caused by renegades unless it weeds them out by closing ranks and applying peer pressure.

After the incident, I took a long time to start acknowledging drivers in both directions, and I noted a new level of CB activity when Perth-bound trucks passed me. The lesson, of course, is not to trust anyone on the road. I relieved the boredom further by updating escape routes off the road every 50 or so metres.

With the cold wind and this incident fresh in my mind, I was less than happy. The uphills seemed to be sharper the closer I travelled to Madura. I stopped every 30km, instead of the usual hourly intervals, and that helped to keep up the average speed. I would have stopped at less frequent intervals if the weather had been warmer and my fluid loss had been greater. Even so, I still felt the fluid loss through my back, and I had precautionary drinks whenever I stopped.

My backside is troubling me again, but not as much as yesterday. I wore a pair of underpants today to try to provide additional padding. Unfortunately, I suffer from boil-like eruptions in the lymph glands occasionally, and one is emerging on the inside of my left thigh, up in the groin. It is becoming painful because it is right where I contact the nose of the seat.

I am continuing to apply antiseptic cream on my backside to try to help with the healing process. I have also put the cream on some minor hand injuries; the big chainring on the bike "bit" my left little finger last night when I pulled the nearby tent peg out of the ground. I also got a splinter in my right middle finger while I gathered firewood tonight, and I did some minor surgery with a needle sterilised in an open flame, and my tweezers to remove it. My legs just above the knees are still sore, and I still have great difficulty standing up from a kneeling position.

Madura Pass, though, dissolved my anger at the roadtrain incident. The feeling that I had climbed again with no real downhill respite was justified. Madura Pass is 117 metres above sea level and overlooks a sea plain. The view from the top shows the Eyre Highway curling away into the distance between be well-forested plains, and the Hampton Tablelands that rise sharply to the north. It is a magnificent scene, although the ocean cannot be seen from the pass.

I almost rode past the lookout when I noticed the information board. The board said that in the Miocene geological age, the ocean was above the point where I stood, then had receded and eroded the mountains to form the sea plain and the steep sides to the Hampton Tablelands. The sea continued to recede further to its present level. The sea plain is a habitat for the myall tree (Acacia papyrocarpa), a hardwood with excellent properties for turned items. The myall is subject to conservation measures managed by the Nullarbor Land Conservation District Committee.

The Madura Oasis Motel is, as its middle name implies, an oasis, especially so after what now seem to be the junky roadhouses so far. This motel looks clean, appears to be well managed, and has a caravan park with camping sites complete with trees for wind protection. The only offsetting features are the constant noise from the generator, and the relatively tatty condition of the ablutions block. The service station manager seemed to be happy, helpful and enthusiastic.

When I arrived, the only other occupants of the caravan park were the Robertson couple, who are spending their time travelling Australia in a converted tour bus. Hitched behind the bus is a trailer built originally to transport speedway racing cars, but it now contains a late-model Toyota LandCruiser. The couple made their fortune in giftware, and now seek out the best fishing grounds. "You've got to do something, haven't you?" Darryl said.

I had seen their rig in a caravan park at Esperance, and because of the sponsorship signage on the trailer, I thought they had been in town for a speedway meeting. As it transpires, they started heading east, but the bus engine blew about 20km after Madura. The service station guy helped to return the bus to Madura, and to make repairs. However, according to Darryl, the fishing off the nearby coast had been disappointing.

I arrived in Madura about 2.45pm, and I had a lazy afternoon as a result. I slowly pitched the tent, gathered some firewood from the nearby bushland, then crashed on my sleeping bag from 4.30pm to 7.00pm. I then had a long, hot shower to revitalise my legs, lit a fire, and settled back for dinner, a few beers and to write up the diary.

The caravan park filled up quickly while I napped, and when I woke up, all the powered sites were occupied. One vanner had a petrol generator to provide his power, yet another nuisance in the unfriendly world of caravan parks. Will these people stop at nothing to "modernise" the bush? Another resident expressed his bitter disappointment that he could not get any television reception out here. It says much for his wife's company. Anyway, I can still get radio reception once darkness falls, so I am happy listening to that, and to write. I have written more in the past 2½ weeks than at any time in my life. I just hope it all reads well enough to interest others.

Tomorrow is a fairly long run of about 115km. I am not doing this journey to set records, but I do need to keep an eye on the dates. The next stop is Mundrabilla.

I met a fellow cyclist, an Australian-Japanese, Paul, from Sydney, at the Madura Oasis. He was having a hard time against the constant headwinds. He filled me in on what to expect along the coastal plain, then on to Adelaide. He recommended a backpacker hostel in Adelaide that serves apple pie and ice cream each night as part of the tariff, and he gave me a card with the address. It sounds like it is worth keeping in mind. I told Paul what he could expect between Madura, Norseman and Esperance. He intended to travel to Albany. He was very much a camp-out person, and preferred to press on and find a site on the side of the road rather than stay in a caravan park. He said there were a few other cyclists behind him. I warned him of the double-g seeds, although he seemed to be well equipped with Kevlar-walled tyres, but no liners. Compared with his, my bike still appears to be in showroom condition, even if my panniers have faded. I still think I am very well organised with my gear and weight distribution. I suppose it is a case of each to his or her own. Paul also complained of a sore backside, a legacy of pressing into the seat to gain more leverage on the pedals against the headwinds. He did not seem perturbed about the cold affecting his energy levels.

When I think about it, being lower and closer to the coast may mean the wind is warmer. I will see tomorrow. That's another bonus tonight; there is no wind, and I don't have to worry about the tent collapsing under strong gusts. I have a hip-hole tonight, something I lost last night when I moved the tent.

I am feeling suitably tired and will have a coffee before retiring. As I said, it has been a day of contrasts, and it is ending better than it started.

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