cycling across australia

4,000km from melbourne to perth in one month.

A dream sparked by Robyn Davidson’s solo quest with camels across the Australian backcountry, only for my expedition I chose a bicycle. Attempting to cycle from Melbourne to Perth in just one month, this voyage was a test of endurance and long days in the saddle. Setting out in the sizzling summer heat, I started with the illustrious Great Ocean Road and eventually crossed one of the planet’s harshest desert environments: the infamous and remote Nullarbor Plain.

This was the route:

The sunburnt desert: a solo bikepacking journey across australia

read the full story here on The Radavist

Crossing any foreign country alone is a daunting quest. In shaky moments I turn to my heroes, the women who boil their fears until they evaporate into courage. Legends like Robyn Davidson, who famously walked her camels across the empty Australian outback to the Indian Ocean and wrote about it in her book “Tracks,” whose pages revealed the mayhem and mystique of solo desert expeditions. Upon reading her account, I envisioned my own voyage across the country. Where Davidson chose camels, I chose a bicycle.

Heatwave induced mirages are nothing outside of the norm in one of Earth’s harshest desert environments. Many times while cycling Australia I caught my thoughts drifting back to Africa, on my first monumental bike voyage from Cairo to Cape Town. The similarities of the two lands were palpable: Australia’s outback terrain akin to sand dunes of the Saharan Desert, and Down Under roadhouses seemed close cousins of remote Sudanese cafeterias. In both places the feeling of complete surrender to mother nature’s extreme weather arsenal was nearly identical, and total. Nevertheless, an unmistakable boundary separated how I approached the two journeys: a traditional touring outfit in Africa versus a lighter bikepacking setup in Australia.

By now it was evident that Australia’s wind patterns were as unpredictable as roadtrains and as baffling as Aussie slang. Speaking of, what exactly are roadtrains? Imagine a freight truck on steroids. Consisting of two, three and sometimes even four trailers, you can hear them miles away, hunting you down. When they zip past, their dangerous wind tunnels suck you in, take your soul, and spit you out on the gravel bank off the tarmac. The sumo wrestlers of overlanding cross-country freight, roadtrains reign control of remote roads, especially on a desolate two-way highway to nothingness. These behemoth machines are the worst nightmare of Nullarbor cyclists. Lucky to avoid any close calls, my eyes stayed glued to my tiny mirror zip tied to my drop bar, and the second I would hear the roaring monster on my tail, I respectfully bailed off the edge of the road and onto the unpredictable gravel. My carefully selected Teravail Cannonball tires were fit for the job, handling rogue waves of thick sand that threatened a garage sale wipeout. Most drivers gave me a wide berth, entering the other lane to the horror of oncoming drivers, but every now and then—especially on the mind-melting and monotonous 90-mile Straight—I would get passed by a dazed truck driver, lazy and unapologetic. My subsequent gesture to these especially mindless drivers happened so often that I dare say I added a new bird to the 828 species in Australia.

read the full story here on The Radavist