For anyone travelling through the centre of Australia, Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) will surely be one of the highlights. It is the icon of the Outback. Getting there was a detour which would add a week to my Australia crossing, but after several thousand kilometrers of nothing, a week of cycling to look at a big […]
adventure
Cycling Across Australia 5 – The Red Centre Way
CRAAAACK! Jaimi skidded to a halt in front of me. I swerved, braking hard and narrowly avoided colliding into her. I saw her mudguard mangled into the rear wheel, plastic and metal, buckled and bent. “It’s just your mud guard,” I told her, relieved; had it been the derailleur (the thing that changes the gears) […]
Cycling Across Australia 4: The Storm in the Desert
Hesitant pedal strokes swept me away from the refuge of Alice Springs. Now, the simple comforts people often take for granted would be a struggle. It would be weeks before I slept in a house, or had a shower again. My panniers were crammed with 11 days of basic food. Pasta. Porridge. Tuna. I hoped […]
Cycling Across Australia 3: The Outback Stripped Bare
Summer swept across Australia with gusto, a fiery net ensnaring Jaimi and I, even as we fought to cycle south, further from the equator. Cooler weather remained 200 kilometres to the south, but by the time we got there, it had slipped further out of reach. While the temperature remained constant, we were at least […]
Cycling Across Australia 2 – Finding Beauty in the Nothing
I love the unpredictability of travelling, all the random and serendipitous encounters that surprise you along the way. In Katherine, I met an English Girl, Jaimi. Like me, she had spent the last two years cycling from England, and though similar routes led us to Australia, sometimes only two weeks apart, we had never met […]
Cycling Across Australia 1: Did I bite off too much?
As the plane had descended into Darwin, I had gazed south. Beyond the grey smudge of city, I could see a huge distance – perhaps 40 or 50 kilometres – of nothingness, which stretched right up to the horizon. I pictured this vastness extending over that horizon, then the horizon after that and, indeed, for […]
Bike Touring in Paradise – Thailand’s East Coast
Ask someone in England to describe their vision of paradise. That place exists. It is in Thailand, and it is exactly where I spent a fortnight cycling, from Bangkok to Malaysia.“Hug the east coast, stay off the highways and have fun!” advised my Australian friend, Paul, as he watched me devour my first pizza in […]
The ferry from Singapore to Jakarta – What’s ‘Class F’ really like?
“Come back tomorrow. 4am” the ticket officer repeated for the 7th time. I had travelled in Asia long enough to know there was no way they would be open at 4 in the morning. Once again, I tried to explain that my boat left at 6am, and there was not another for a week. “Yes” […]
On a ferry named PELNI – Leaving Singapore!
In the niche world of ‘cycling around the world’, and overland travel in general, legend tells of a boat from Singapore to Australia, which ferries travellers from one continent to the next. The thing is, beyond speculation or rumour, no-one knows anything about this boat, or anyone who took it. There is certainly no passenger […]
The End of the Road – Reaching Singapore!
This morning I woke up and pointed my bike in the direction of Singapore. Just 70km to go. I allowed a goofy, big grin, that would startle anyone who saw it, and began to pedal. I was going to make it… I was actually going to make it! I smiled again, and then I laughed.Two years ago, […]