Cycling Round the World

Yo guys,

Umm yeah, Brisbane. In years from now they’ll make a movie staring the son of Kurt Russell where he has to get into Brisbane on a bicycle and out again in 24 hours before being killed by someone in a V8 ute with “Black Beauty” written on the back. I haven’t decided yet if Brisbane is the worst city I’ve ever cycled through. It’s in competition with Athens but I don’t know, the Greeks are chaotic by nature. Athens is an expression of their culture so I can kind of forgive them. Plus in Athens I didn’t get the impression the car drivers were trying to kill me. More they were trying to kill everyone and I was in the cross fire.

Brisbane felt personal. It felt personal on a number of levels. There’s a cycling magazine in England called Cycling Plus and they have a feature where people send in the most stupid cycle lane design they encounter on their travels. It seems the people who designed Brisbane’s cycle lanes read this, maybe missed the point of English humour and thought it was how cycle lanes should be. After being “politely” instructed by numerous car drivers that maybe I’d be better off on the cycle lanes/pavements I thought I’d give it a go. So it was cycle lanes that just end with you on the wrong side of the barrier, cycle lanes that end up on roads where cyclists aren’t even allowed so you have to track back miles, cycle lanes constantly interrupted by traffic lights where you have to dismount from the bike and walk across the road.

Then there’s the drivers. Obviously taking their lead from the council they’ve also developed a pathological hatred of cyclists. Kids lean out of cars and try and scare you into falling under the wheels of following trucks. People beep violently if you’ve had the temerity to get in their way. There’s also a clever little cyclist killing trick of making the far left lane for left turning traffic only except when it isn’t but which is kept a secret. So you stay in the left lane only to find out it’s a left turning lane and so every car behind now wants you hung, drawn and quartered or you get in the second lane to find out the left lane is actually a straight on lane and so find yourself in the middle of the road with a bunch of V8 utes screaming up your inside. Hours of fun. I say hours literally because Brisbane a big city. Everyone wants a couple of acres so it sprawls for miles. Hopefully you’re getting the impression I wasn’t keen on Brisbane. I’d rather tackle Bangkok blindfolded than cycle through Brisbane again.

One more thing happened to me in Brisbane that really sealed my dislike for the place. The newspaper had asked me for a Christmas photo of me in a Santa hat. I cycled past a fancy dress shop, popped in and explained I was cycling round the world to raise money for cancer and would they mind letting me use one of their Santa hats for 3 seconds just to get a photo. The guy behind the counter said yeah and charged me 17 dollars for the privilege. Thank you Brisbane.

Eventually I escaped Brisbane and headed south for the 1000km journey down to Sydney. Brisbane left me feeling pretty down but the beauty of this journey is that there’s always something positive around the corner to lift you. Leaving Brisbane involved a great little climb over Mount Tamborie. The locals had all warned me about tackling this climb. Trucks avoid it I was told, 90 degree climbs and plenty of hairpins as a bonus. I was considering chickening out and going the long way round but I thought I’d try out one of the lessons I’d learnt that hills are relative. If people live on a flat then every hill becomes a 90 degree climb. Turns out this maxim holds true and the hill was maybe a 7 km 1 in 10. Just perfect and when I got to the top my mood was lifted by fantastic panoramic views of the entire Gold Coast.

I headed out towards Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. Surfers Paradise looks to be a complete misnomer. The place should be renamed to Paris Hilton’s Paradise as it’s just blingtastic and oozes nouveau riche. Massive houses and gold Mercs are two a penny and as with many of these places, not really suited to a dirty touring cyclist. I kept heading south trying to find the point where the madness of development and bling stopped so I could find a place to camp for the night.

Eventually I found my way across the Queensland border and into New South Wales. An instant and welcome change was that signs started to appear warning car drivers to be careful about cyclists. As soon as you cross the border the hard shoulder of the Pacific Highway becomes a 10 foot wide cycle lane which is a complete contrast to the “NO CYCLISTS” signs you’re faced with north of the border. This also has an effect on the way car drivers treat you. Now you belong on the highway and the drivers respond accordingly.

I started meandering along the coast line, kicking in to the small towns if I felt like a break from the highway or saw a famous name I recognised. I cycled through Tweed Heads and Byron Bay my idea of what Oz beach life would be like. Byron Bay was important from a personal perspective because it’s the most easterly point on mainland Australia and meant that from now on I’d be heading in a westerly direction and away from the cursed wind that’d been torturing me every day for 3 weeks. Instantly my mood lifted. Riding the bike became a pleasure again instead of a constant grind into a vicious headwind.

It’s amazing how giddy a tailwind makes you. Next thing I’m riding along thinking that maybe, just maybe I’ll do more than the 16,000 miles I’d set out to do at the start of this. This got me thinking about taking a different route through North America. My original idea was to head straight across the southern states from San Diego to Florida but I’m now considering heading up the West Coast of America into Canada and then heading East and running parallel to the border until I reach my goal of 16,000 miles and then decide if it’s time to come home yet or stick a loop in. As always we’ll see.

I’d been doing some calculations on my mileage and it was looking like I’d be halfway round the world on Christmas Day. I didn’t need to do anything special for this to happen, just keep putting in my usual daily miles. I knew Christmas day was going to be tough for me and thought it an amazing coincidence that I’d pass the halfway mark on the day I’d most need something positive to focus on.

I met a guy in a rest area just south of Coff’s Harbour. He was sitting in his car doing massive bongs and invited me over to join him. I declined his offer of the bong explaining that if there’s anything that’ll stop me doing any miles, it’s doing bongs in a rest area. He was a cool guy though and offered me a place to stay when I got down to Sydney. He also recommended a place to stop for Christmas Day. A place called South West Rocks which he explained had a great little campsite in the national park for a few dollars a night.

On Christmas Eve I headed for South West Rocks not really having any idea how far it was but kind of hoping it wouldn’t take me over the 8000 mile halfway mark. As luck would have it I reached the campsite on 7998 miles. In the morning I woke up and headed out of the campsite and noticed a sign saying it was 2 kms to the South West Rocks lighthouse. It felt like fate that my half way mark would be exactly at a lighthouse which would have served so many travelers throughout the years. I headed up the hill and exactly at the top and I mean exactly to perfection, I crossed the half way mark in front of the lighthouse.

I took some pictures, hassled some kangaroos and sat contemplating how I felt. I know it’s just a number but being half way is significant. I remember when I was a third of the way and it was somewhere in the outback. It was 43C and I remember thinking that even with all the miles I’d traveled, all the difficulties I’d had in the outback, I still had to do it again, twice over. Half way felt different. What lay ahead was the same as what lay behind and I’d conquered what lay behind. Also it felt like I was now heading home.

As expected I spent Christmas Day on the bike. It wasn’t too bad though as I had a lot of calls from people wishing me well and the customary drunken call from all my mates drinking the Black Horse dry while singing Christmas songs. Santa brought me all that a long distance cyclist could wish for on Christmas Day. I even had a monster tailwind. Other good news was that we’d made the front page of the local newspaper which was a great little piece with plenty of mentions about Macmillan and quotes from friends. The link below is for the article on the Brighouse Echo website.

http://www.brighousetoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=986&ArticleID=1940807

From South West Rocks I had another 300 miles or so to Sydney and with the tailwind it was easy cycling all the way although I started to encounter my first serious hills for a long, long time. As I approached Sydney I decided to stop off at an internet cafe and do some research about the best way to enter the city on a bicycle. I found a website by some Aussies who’d done the run from Brisbane to Sydney which had some good details about the best way to get in there. I cycled to the ferry near Woy Woy and then across Broken Bay to Palm Beach, then a short ride to Manly before catching the final ferry which brings you into the terminal between the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I don’t know why but coming into Sydney on the ferry was emotional for me. I guess Sydney is special from an English perspective because it’s one of the most famous cities that’s on the other side of the world from England. It’s also a fantastic looking city and I was arriving at sunset with the sun dropping down behind the skyline and the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge starting to light up. I guess the ferry also gave me more time to reflect what had gone before and what was needed to get me to this point. I took all the clichÈd tourist pictures, sat around and watched the city go by. After a few hours I decided to head out of the city and made the wise choice to train it a few kms out of the centre to Sutherland and make camp for the night near the National Park. I left Sydney feeling much more positive about the city than I had Brisbane and I think it’s a lesson learnt that I don’t always have to try and tackle big cities on the bike.

My original intention was to spend New Year in Sydney but as with everything I cycled too fast and arrived too early. I hit Sydney on the 28th and spending 4 nights in a big city at that time of year would be both expensive and impractical. The other issue was that my flight for New Zealand is booked for the 13th of January and it’s 1000 kms to Melbourne and allowing for hangovers, I’d have realistically left Sydney on the 3rd which would have meant 1000 kms in 10 days. Granted I’ve done that a fair few times but there’d be no allowances for any breakdowns. The bikes done a lot of miles now and while it’s been fantastic I can sense a few things aren’t 100% so I figured getting as close to Melbourne before taking by foot off the gas would be the best option. The other thing is that I knew nothing about the terrain which lay ahead and if the hills I’d encountered north of Sydney were to continue then 1000 kms in 10 days would be a tough call. So I left Sydney and headed for Melbourne and the final part of my journey through Australia.

Catch you all later,

Lot of love,

Craig. XXX

Hey Shelias and Bruces,

Well I’m in my first city since Singapore which in all honesty feels like a lifetime ago. I’d forgotten how unwelcoming and difficult city riding is for a guy on a 50kg bike. I’d been in Brisbane maybe 30 min before someone told me to “f**k off and ride on the pavement”. It’s strange but you can sense when you approach a city. You go from being the all conquering hero of the outback into an obstacle costing people their precious 30 seconds. Suddenly signs start appearing telling you when and where you can’t ride but they offer no alternatives. Just “NO CYCLISTS” plastered everywhere. People stop talking to you and questioning where you’ve been. Ah well, quick internet break and I’m out of here.

What’s happened since I left Mackay? Surprisingly little. As the population density increases so the opportunities to meet people seem to decrease. One of the great mysteries of modern life. More people, less contact. The day I left Mackay the weather took a turn for the worse and so after 50 miles of riding I decided to find cover and rest for the night. I found the only dry spot for miles under a bridge. People ask me how I can sleep under a road bridge with the cars and trucks passing overhead but I guess the sounds of trucks and cars are pretty much a constant in my life now.

3 days riding got me to the town of Rockhampton, back over the Tropic of Capricorn and into the sub-tropics. It was a tough ride as I had my usual South Easter blowing 30 knots right in my face. I did some calculations the other day and since I left Cape Tribulation 21 days ago I’ve had a headwind everyday except for a 4 hour break I got a few days ago. It’s my fault as I’d checked the prevailing wind directions before I cycled Oz but then changed my route and didn’t recheck. I should have headed down to Adelaide from Alice Springs and then headed North up the East Coast. A positive was when I met a Swiss professional cyclist coming the other way and he said he doubted he’d have the motivation to face that wind everyday. I felt pretty honoured to be complimented on my motivation by a guy who cycles for a living.

From Rockhampton I headed to Bundaberg. I decided to take a different route and leave the highway as I knew the route would have more hills and when I’m getting hammered by a headwind I find the hills tend to negate the effect to some degree. I pulled off for the night into a small town called Rosedale looking for some water and a place to camp for the night. While there I got talking to the a couple of locals. A bloke on a motorbike explained he had 100 acres of land just a few kms out of town and I was welcome to set up camp there. He introduced himself as Bill and I followed him out of town and onto his land. He’d bought 100 acres of bush land with no buildings and lived there on his own in an assortment of shacks and caravans. After cooking me a much welcomed meal we sat talking over a bottle of wine and his story was one that’s become a familiar one to me now and always seems to start with a woman. If I had a fiver for every eccentric who’s story starts with a woman I’d be able to cycle round the world indefinitely. Why is it that women just get some crisps, dips, a bottle of wine and hire out Bridgette Jones yet men feel the need to withdraw from society or get pulled round Oz by a pair of camels? Actually I think I know that answer to that question.

I headed south out of Bundaberg and got my 4 hours of tailwind. I’d forgotten what tailwind felt and how much of an impact it has on my mood. Sometimes when I’ve been up against a headwind for a few hours I’ll turn back on myself and cycle the other way just to feel a tailwind for a few metres. Sad I know. I guess every silver lining has a cloud though and in this particular case it was literal. As I climbed up a hill towards the town of Tiaro I noticed what looked to be some pretty ominous dark clouds ahead. I figured that with the wind behind me I’d be able to stay in front of the storm but man was I wrong. As you enter Tiaro from the north there’s a sizeable mountain beyond the town and in the space of a few seconds the mountain just disappeared and I was looking at storm clouds which normally appear in Hollywood blockbuster movies. I took shelter in a servo and a few minutes later the storm hit town and after taking out the power managed to provide one of natures more awesome displays. I haven’t seen anything like it since I lived in South Africa and it was pretty exciting with winds that took trees down and hailstones the size of golf balls. Of course all the Aussies told me that was NOTHING and normally they have hailstones the size of New York but I was impressed. I left town after the storm had cleared only to get 20 kms before getting hammered by another storm. I’ve never cycled in anything like it and the weather was severe enough that I had people stopping and offering help. Luckily I knew there was a rest area a few kms up the road so I battled through and arrived at the rest stop to a rousing cheer from the people who’d gathered in their cars for protection from the storm.

I arrived in Brisbane last night and camped in a place called Nudgee Beach just to the NE of the city. My intention now is to leave the city and begin the 1000kms or so south to Sydney. Based on my average mileage I should hit Sydney around the 29th/30th December. I have no idea where this puts me for Christmas day but I’m not sure how relevant it is. I have a feeling this will be the time of my journey when being alone has the most impact on me. Christmas is a time for family and friends and so I reckon my chances of meeting people are seriously reduced and with this in mind it’s probably better that I spend the time on the bike. It’s not a big deal as I knew this would be the case and it’s a fair trade for all the wonderful experiences I’ve had so far. On a positive note I expect to be exactly half way round the world on Christmas day. I’m quite curious how it’ll feel as from that moment I’m technically on my way home.

For New Year I may spend a few days in Sydney and check out their world famous celebrations. It depends on the time really. My visa runs out January 13th and I plan to fly from Melbourne which is another 1000kms from Sydney. This equates to about 10 days riding time so I’d need to leave Sydney pretty much on New Years Day or maybe the day after. I’m now flying to Christchurch instead of Auckland as these were the only flights I could get. Not sure what this does to my route plans but it won’t be the first time my route plans have changed nor the last I suspect.

I’m expecting to spend 3 months in NZ but as with everything so far, we’ll have to see. I’m going to see if I can take a little of the pressure off myself in NZ. I set myself a pretty difficult target for Oz of 5000 miles and based on my current progress, my round the world would take just over 10 months. Since I started I’ve wanted to do it in less than a year. Round the world on a bike in under a year has a nice ring to it don’t you think? This means I could take longer on the second half of my journey and still make it under a year. I don’t know. Sometimes I think I just love to keep moving and so I’ll keep this pace going. If I get home and I want to start moving again then I know the answer.

Anyways guys and gals best go and see if I can get the hell out of this city. If I don’t get to fire off another email before Christmas have yourselves a merry one and have a few drinks for me.

Lot of love as always,

Craig.

XXX

Hey peeps,

btw I haven’t mentioned donations and the like since I’ve started but if any of you know of anyone who’s enjoying the emails or even anyone who’s interested in donating but just hasn’t got round to it, I’d appreciate it if you’d give them a gentle nudge. If anyone is doubting the difficulty of what I’m doing, send them a map of Central Australia and a weather report of the temperatures out there. Plus it’s Christmas time. Cheers guys.

www.justgiving.com/CraigFoster

The bus journey across from TC was pretty eventful as far as these things go. I sat in a seat second from the back and there was a bloke on one side and a girl on the other. They started talking and after sharing a couple of rum and cokes decided that having sex on the back seat would be a good idea. I haven’t got a problem with people indulging their exhibitionist tendencies but buses just aren’t designed for this type of thing due to space constraints and with the two of them being 20st a piece it just made matters worse. I’m not fattist are anything but I really needed to get some sleep so moved a few seats forward. What was even stranger was that they completely ignored each other after that.

I got to Townsville pretty much wiped out. Coaches are never easy to sleep on so I headed for the nearest backpacker hostel and crashed for the night. In the morning I set off for the 500km ride north to Cape Tribulation. First off I had a bit of a tailwind which was a joy after the constant headwind I’d battled with in the Outback. You may detect a slight obsession developing with the wind. I’m at the point now where I’ll be sitting with people having an in depth conversation and if I detect the wind has changed direction I jump up and stand in the middle of the road, holding a wet finger up to check if it’s changed. It really makes such a difference to your life. Tailwind comes and I’m dancing on the pedals making beautiful plans for the future.

Even with the tailwind I didn’t make much progress the first day. I think I was still exhausted after my 3 day, 320 mile race to TC. 20 miles out of Townsville I was stopped by the police for not wearing my cycling helmet. Seems bizarre that in the state of Queensland, ex-home of Steve Irwin and general shenanigans involving shoving your thumb up the bottom’s of wild man-eating beasts, they won’t let you pedal a bicycle at 12 miles an hour without a piece of plastic on your head. I was going to get into an in depth discussion with the police about the relative merits of helmet usage but he just wound the window down and told me to put it on or he’d fine me so I did as I was told.

I found a free campsite in a small town called Rollingstone about 40 miles north of Townsville and made camp for the night. I’m back in the tropics now and north of Townsville is wet tropics so putting a tarpaulin down and kipping for the night isn’t as much of an option as the chances of rain are much higher than in the Outback. The problem is that my tent just isn’t designed for the tropics so it’s usually just a night spent in a sauna.

The two nights after that I found some rest areas to sleep in with undercover protection meaning I didn’t need the tent. Only problem then is the mosquitoes. I usually just use my mosquito net as a kind of blanket but one night they were so numerous and determined that I had use my ear plugs because of the insistent racket they were making as they tried to get at me through the net. To be fair the rest area was just north of Mosquito Creek and I’ve noticed Aussies are pretty literal with their naming of creeks. I was cycling the other day and looked around me and thought man, that’s some long wavy green grass and then a few seconds later came across Long Wavy Green Grass Creek. I had to laugh when I came across Crocodile Creek and then they’d still bothered to put up a crocodile warning sign.

I was sitting at a servo just south of Cairns when a load of Aussie lads pulled up in a van and asked me where I’d cycled from. I explained the whole trip to them and they were impressed enough to invite me to a barbie and offered me a place to stay for the night. If I don’t make my target of 5000 miles in Oz, it’s the hospitality of the Aussies that’s to blame. They really are just fantastically hospitable people. I cycled over to their place and after a much appreciated meal they asked me when was the last time I’d been out drinking. I had to wrack my brains a bit and when I said I hadn’t been out on the lash since Thailand, a night out was organised.

It was Saturday night so we headed for Cairns. While we were queuing for a bar I realised I didn’t have any money so headed for the cash machine. Unfortunately the cash machine wouldn’t give me any cash from my account so I had to embarrassingly tell the lads that there was a problem and I’d get a taxi back to the house. They wouldn’t hear of it and just kept on saying how paying for a night out was the least they could do after what I was doing for charity. Just another example of great Aussie hospitality. By midnight two of the lads were hammered and had to go home and that left three of us, me Jay and Snipes. We headed for a club.

We got to the club and I couldn’t figure out if it was a club or the venue for the North Queensland gurning championship. Maybe the lads were using it as a pick up line but every women we came across they’d tell them what about how I was cycling round the world for charity. I’d be standing there and they’d drag the women’s finalist of the gurning competition over and tell her she just had to talk to me because of what I was doing. As a rule of thumb people on drugs just don’t really care about this type of thing. The sequence was that they’d drag a girl over, she’d looked bored and I’d look embarrassed. They dragged one bored girl over and she drawled at me that my mates had said I was doing something or another round the world for something or another. I’d gotten tired of explaining the story to bored people so for a laugh I told her I was doing a 16,000 mile line of coke around the round and it was the first spark of interest I’d seen the whole night. I felt bad though and told her I was just joking and you could just see the interest disappear as she wandered off to find that elusive man who really was doing a 16,000 mile line of coke round the world.

We left the club at about 6 in the morning. The lads were of the mold were going home while there was still a phone box open somewhere was sacrilege. I’d been up for 25 hours at this point and cycled 90 miles in between. Man I felt my age. We were sitting in the taxi on the way home when Jay turned to Snipes and said “dude, didn’t you feel old in there?”. They were both 25. It appears that for all the things I’ve experienced on my travels my lack of interest in clubbing has survived completely intact.

In the morning everyone just sat around recovering from the night before. We got a rubbish DVD and some takeaway and it made me a little homesick for those Sunday evenings we used to spend at 369, hung over watching some garbage Pete or Alex had chosen. On the Monday I said my byes to the lads and headed off north to Cairns. These blokes had just met me in a petrol station and then pretty much paid for my entire weekend without even questioning it. It just amazes me the constant warmth and generosity you get from Aussie people and how easy it comes to them. When I headed for the East Coast I was worried that I wouldn’t experience the same kindness I’d come across in the Outback but my fears turned out to be completely unfounded.

I made it to a place just north of Port Douglas called Newell Beach and it looked like it was going to rain so I decided to pay for a campsite. I found a nice little place for $5. I was making camp when I met Peter and his family. In true Aussie fashion they wandered over, introduced themselves and invited me for dinner. Peter worked as a nurse in the Aboriginal communities around Cape York which is basically as far north as you can get in Queensland. The tarmac road ends at Cape Tribulation and then you get another 1000kms of dirt road that takes you north until you can’t go any further. It was good to talk to Peter because I’d struggled to get any positive views on Aboriginals when I was in the Outback. In a way Peter was just repeating what Melissa had told me in Tennant Creek but, as a nurse working in the community, he was able to give me a better understanding of how the loss of culture and land had effecting people due to the sheer alien nature of Western culture.

After a breakfast supplied by Peter I set off for the last part of my journey north to Cape Tribulation. I was in true tropical rainforest country now. The contrast to my time in the Outback was just immense. I had massive rain forest covered hills to my left and the ocean just to my right. It really is a beautiful part of the world. The road hugs the ocean for most of the journey and you’re cycling along just looking out over the Great Barrier Reef. I’d been told that the road was fantastic but as usual it was from a car driver and they’d neglected to mention that it involved some serious hill climbing. I don’t mind hills and prefer them to headwinds but climbing through rain forest just reduces you to a puddle of sweat in a matter of seconds. The climb was worth it through as there’s some fantastic lookouts at the top of the hills with panoramic views of the landscape and the reef.

I rolled down the other side of the hill enjoying the cooling breeze and stopped at the bottom when I noticed a bar. I was just sitting there when an Aussie wandered over, asked me what I was up to and if I fancied going down the beach for a beer. I left the bike at the bar, climbed into his ute and we headed to his place to get some beers and to say hi to his wife. Being an Aussie she was completely nonplused by her husband turning up with a random round the world cyclist. We headed down to Cow Bay, an idyllic stretch of beach completely unspoilt with no one in sight. After our beers we headed back to the bar and I headed off again. That’s the other thing is that things like this are just the norm. It’s no big deal, no swapping of email addresses, just two blokes having a chat, a few beers and then going their separate ways.

I arrived at Cape Tribulation and made for the campsite there. The campsite owners were sitting around having a few beers and asked me where I’d ridden from and why and after I told them they let me stay in the campsite for free and gave me some beers. To be honest heading for Cape Tribulation was similar to heading for Ayer’s Rock. Yeah I did the jungle walks but really I went there for the people I’d meet along the way. Traveling by bike really is about the journey. The end point just isn’t as important as it is for people traveling by bus or car.

It was time to head south again. I’d arranged to meet some old friends from South Africa who I haven’t seen in about 7 years and who now live in Mackay. This would be the first time since the start of my journey I’d be getting to see someone who I’d already met before and I was looking forward to it. It’s a 900km ride to Mackay from Cape Tribulation and as 500kms of it would be retracing my steps I did my usual and did some big miles.

Strange enough I was in a servo just south of Cairns when I got talking to a girl who’d met Klaus the camel guy just a few days earlier in the Outback. She’d mentioned she was going to the East Coast and he’d mentioned she may come across me. Pretty amazing coincidence considering I’d seen him about 5000kms and 25 days ago. That whole big country, small world thing cropping up again.

Just south of Ayr my back tire finally gave up the ghost. It did it in spectacular style and just disintegrated. It’d gotten me close to half way through my journey so it’s done well all things considered. I quick tire change and I was back on the road again. I’ll pick up a new tire in Brisbane as I still have some pretty big gaps ahead of me and while there shouldn’t be any problems, it’s best to be prepared.

I arrived in Mackay two days ago after putting in some big miles. I still want to get down to Adelaide before my visa runs out on Jan 13th so any rest days need to be earned. I’ll probably set off again tomorrow morning after spending a great few days with Linda and her family. I’ve known Linda since I was a kid so we’ve just sat around reminiscing. People usually think I need to be entertained when I’m on my days off but we know each other well enough that she understands I just want to sit and do nothing. We even went bowling yesterday although she did kick my arse all over the place but such is life.

Anyways I’m off to bed. I’ll try and post some new pictures tomorrow but if you follow the link I gave last time you’ll see some new pictures under the Australian section. I’ve split it up by state for ease of use.

Lots of love as always,

Craig.

XXX

Hey you guys,

Yeah well I’m going to write this update in two parts. Mainly because I consider my time in the Outback to be pretty distinctive and also because it’s been a while since my last update.

After my last email I met up with Damien, an Aussie bloke I’d met in Ayer’s Rock. He had some family in Alice Springs and organised us a place to stay for a few days. We sat around the pool for three days doing nothing. Sometimes we’d manage to go the few hundred metres to the servo (Aussies take pretty much every word and add either “o” or “ie” to the end. Think pokie, saltie, freshie, schoolie, smoko, bowled waaaarniiiie etc). After spending 3 days lazing around the pool I decided it was time to get moving again. I think the moment came when I was sitting having a beer with Damien and he said “man, it’s rubbish when you can’t see forever”. I agreed and started getting ready to go back where I could see forever.

I set off back up north to TC (Tennant Creek) on the Friday night. My intention was get the 320 miles to TC on the Tuesday, bus it across to Mount Isa and continue on to the East Coast. It never quite worked out that way though. The first day I cycled 126 miles up to a roadhouse called Ti Tree. I don’t normally do days like this and when I do, it normally means I want to be somewhere else. This was the first sign I’d been in the Outback for long enough.

At the start of the next day I noticed a twinge in my left knee. Nothing serious but I knew it was there but I knew I wanted to get to TC as fast as I could so I pressed on regardless. Unfortunately for me this was the day the wind decided to pick up full in my face. It was more of a head hurricane than a headwind and it beat me mercilessly. It’s difficult to express to a non-cyclist the sheer damage a good headwind wreaks on you both physically and mentally. The fact you’re in the Outback just makes the situation much worse. In most places you have the comparative luxury of choice where you can either sit out the wind or you can make short leaps from place to place resting in between. In the Outback you don’t have that option. You have to make those miles to your next water stop and your next water stop can be well over 100 kilometres away. Try and sit it out and you could just end up running out of water.

On top of the physical realities you have the psychological impact. You start the day and you have 60 miles to do. So you start cycling and you’re trundling along at 10 miles an hour so you figure you have 6 hours riding ahead. An hour later you have 50 miles to do but the wind has taken so much out of you that you’re down to 8 miles an hour. You do the math and you now have more than 6 hours riding ahead of you. You’ve ridden for an hour, you’re exhausted and you’ve actually lost time on your initial calculations. Over the next hour the wind picks up a bit more and you’re down to 6 miles an hour and you’ve got 42 miles to go, so you’re now looking at 7 hours riding. You’ve been riding for two hours and yet somehow your riding time just keeps going up. It’s only when you’ve reached pretty much your lowest possible speed and your lowest physical point that you can make an estimate of your riding time. This seriously messes with your head and Mother Nature and I have had some choice words about her chosen method of torture on many a day.

Eventually I staggered into Barrow Creek. I was exhausted but irony of irony is that there was a couple there who’d passed me earlier and marveled at how quickly I’d made it. I didn’t have enough energy to prevent an incredulous look leaping on to my face before I collapsed on the bar mumbling for a carton of cold milk. The people at Barrow Creek were pretty kind though and kept on giving me free things. I asked for a bowl of Weetabix and when the bloke asked how many, I said as many as you can fit into the bowl. He did a top job and managed to cram 10 Weetabix in to a single bowl. Never ask a RTW cyclist how much food or drink he wants.

In my last email I mentioned Daisuke, the crazy Japanese cyclist I’d met who’d had his bike stolen in Alice Springs. I was sitting in the roadhouse at Barrow Creek when I picked up the Alice Springs Times (I may have made the name up) and noticed my insane red-haired friend on page 5 holding up a brand new bike. An Aussie bloke had heard about his plight and felt bad he’d be leaving Oz with a bad impression so had bought him a new bike, fully kitted out with all touring extras. That’s the type of kindness you run into in the Outback and it’s probably one of the few places in the world where something like this would happen. I had to laugh as the article contains the following quote from Daisuke, “I’m happy because I would have had to walk around Australia”. That’s madness. As a side note, a few other people had obviously read the story and kept stopping in their cars and asking me if I was the Japanese dude in the paper and even though it was pretty obvious I wasn’t, they’d still manage a look of disappointment. It’s pretty crushing when you’re cycling through the Outback in 43C heat and people still find you a disappointment.

From Barrow Creek I got it into my head to try and get to TC a day early. This would involve doing the full 320 miles in 3 days, an average of over 100 miles a day. As I said earlier, when this starts to happen, I know it’s time for a change. I’d spent over a month in the Outback and while I’d gone from hating it to loving it, I’d kind of gotten the point. 2000 miles with what amounts to about 25 places containing any humanity with the rest made up of a lot of desert and heat has a finite level of interest. I also noticed I’d stopped looking for that special contact with people. I was content to just sit in the roadhouse with a book until it was time to hit the road again. As another side note a highly recommended book is “Dispatches” by Michael Herr. Brilliant book, a kind of Fear and Loathing for Vietnam.

I nailed it all the way back to TC. Unfortunately, Melissa, the girl who’d given me a place to stay last time I was in TC, was away in SE Asia so there was even less reason to hang around. I made it to the bus station with 30 minutes to spare. Damien turned up to see me off after he’d driven up from Alice Springs having spent a few days waiting for spares for his motorbike. We’d joked that I’d beat him back to TC but the bastard overtook me with 12 miles to go. I had the intention of getting the bus over to Mount Isa and then cycling to Townsville but I’d had enough of the Outback and it was time for some ocean and some greenery. 320 miles in three days had finished me and I was exhausted, dirty and ready to get out of there. I made the decision to bus it all the way over to Townsville. I’d also done some calculations and I had a number of choices. If I cycled Mount Isa to Townsville I wouldn’t have the time to cycle Townsville to Cape Tribulation as it’s a 1000 kms round trip. Cape Tribulation had been recommended to me as destination and the ride had been mentioned as being scenic with some great ocean views so Townsville it was.

I was sad to see the end of my Outback adventure. I’d met some fantastic people and had experiences that could only happen in the Outback and only if I was on a bicycle. People always ask me the same question, “don’t you get lonely out there?”. Strange enough it was probably the place I’ve been the least lonely during my travels. People are just too curious about what type of person is stupid enough to cycle through the Outback during the summer. I’d also seen beautiful sunsets and fallen asleep to the stillness of the desert under skies that we just don’t get in Europe. I’d also learnt a lot about myself and how far I was prepared to go to finish this challenge. The days after I left Darwin I was honestly concerned both for my health and my chances of cycling round Australia. Every person I’d met had told me I was crazy to be cycling central Australia at this time of year. Cycling central Australia really is a different world. You can’t make any mistakes. You have to be organised and know what resources are available as well as how much you’ll consume. This only comes about through experience and you just have to hope you get the experience fast enough.

So I got on the bus and headed East. Unsure I was making the right choice in sacrificing time in the Outback for time on the East Coast. Only time will tell I guess.

Later dudes and lots of love as always,

Craig.

XXX

Hey people,

Well this could be a tough email to write. For the first time since I started my travels I’m going to have to miss out writing about some of the kindness I’ve been shown since my last email due to the sheer quantity. Thailand is in danger of losing it’s number one spot on my “Top Ten Favourite Places to Cycle” list that I like to compile in my head during the endless hours I spend in the saddle. Strange to think that after the first few days it was rivaling Serbia for my least favourite place to cycle. That’s not to say that Australia isn’t a tough place to cycle. I’m not saying that it isn’t a country that unless you show it the correct amount of respect it’ll kill you with unnerving speed. It’s just that if you get it right, if you treat it with respect, the rewards are enormous.

I left Tennant’s Creek about two weeks ago. It’s 500 kms to Alice Springs and I decided to aim for a 4 day ride with a day off as a reward if I managed it. Constant days in excess of 100 kms are difficult in Oz because you’re really at the mercy of the environment. Get a head wind and a day where the temperatures are pushing 40C in the shade and you don’t get a lot of cycling time. With the terrain being flat, and the vegetation sparse, there isn’t a great deal to stop the wind so the winds roll across the open plains and can reduce you to a gibbering wreck. On my second day out of Tennant’s Creek I put in an 8 hour day and still didn’t make 100 kms. The headwind was so strong I was using gears I’d normally reserve for 1 in 5 gradients up the side of mountains. Psychologically I’d say headwinds are the most difficult to cope with of all the adverse cycling conditions. Mountains you get the sense of achievement and the views. Headwinds you get nothing.

The first roadhouse stopped at after Tennant’s Creek was the famous Wycliffe Well which is labeled as the UFO capital of Australia. It also has the widest selection of beers in NT and I’m guessing there’s a connection. Call me cynical but there’s a roadhouse 10 miles up the road and no one has seen any UFOs there so I get the impression it’s a theme to get the punters in. The story goes that maybe the aliens are interested in the Devil’s Marbles which are to the north but I had a look at the Devil’s Marbles and yeah, they’re interesting, but I wasn’t sure my 2km diversion on a bike was worth it so I can’t see anyone coming light years to check them out.

The next roadhouse was the infamous Barrow Creek. This is the nearest roadhouse to where Peter Falconio was murdered/abducted. I spent a few hours there waiting out the midday sun and people would cruise past taking pictures from the safety of their cars. I tried looking menacing to help the tourists out but while I’ve mastered dirty Mexican fruit picker, I haven’t got menacing down yet. Thousands of people all over the world will be having to explain to their family and friends why there’s a dirty Mexican fruit picker in their holiday snaps of the infamous Barrow Creek.

After 4 days of hard riding I approached Alice Springs from the north. I passed two landmarks just before I arrived got there. The first is a rest area located on the Tropic of Capricorn. I have a cheesy tourist photo of me with my left leg in the tropics and the right in the non-tropics. You can tell which leg is in the tropics as it’s sweating slightly more. I also crossed the highest point on the Stuart Highway between Darwin and Adelaide. Now I’ve crossed some highest points in my journey so far and the common denominator is that I’ve had to do a fair bit of hard climbing to get there. This one was unique in as much as I had no idea I’d even been climbing to get to it. I would have just as easily believed it was the lowest point. You could tell that even Aussies are a bit embarrassed about the whole thing as it doesn’t even mention the elevation.

I rewarded myself with a day off in Alice Springs as out of the 4 days riding, 3 had been in excess of 140 kms so I figured I needed a rest. Something has changed in me though. I don’t feel as comfortable in the populated areas as I do out on the road or in the roadhouses. I stayed in a backpacker hostel and people just don’t look like they’re having fun to me. There’s a vibrancy of life in the roadhouses that I just don’t feel in the towns. Seems that when you stick people in the middle of nowhere they instinctively draw together and that’s when you get your great times. In the populated areas everyone seems to be trying to avoid each other. Like they’re trying to rediscover their personal space.

I left Alice Springs in the evening. On the way out I met a fellow long distance cyclist without a bike as his had been stolen a few nights before. I was pretty annoyed because the place where his bike had been taken from was the room where the hostel had told me to put my bike for safety. Luckily the guy was Japanese anyway and as mad as a hatter so didn’t seem vaguely bothered he’d lost all his things. He only looked annoyed when I reminded him he should be annoyed. The rest of the time he looked thrilled with life and seemed to think I was some kind of international cycling star and insisted on taking pictures and calling me crazy constantly. You start to worry when Japanese long distance cyclists call you crazy.

My target after Alice Springs was Ayer’s Rock. In essence Ayer’s Rock was the reason I’d gone straight on at Threeways and started a 2000 km detour by bicycle. I nailed it after Alice. Maybe the rock was calling me but I just felt like I wanted to get there. It’s 450 km from Alice to the Rock and I was aiming to do it in 3 days.

The first day I stopped off in Stuart’s Well which is a non-descript roadhouse except it has a camel farm. I put my bike against a fence and wandered into the roadhouse for a carton of milk. When I came back the camels had wandered over and for some reason thought my bike was edible and were chewing away at my panniers. My bike was now covered in camel slobber. This was the start of what was to develop into a bit of a camel theme for the rest of my trip.

On my second night out of Alice I pulled up at a rest stop to make myself a cup of tea. There were two grey nomads settling in for the night. They introduced themselves as Billy and Stella and they couldn’t have been more aussie short of wearing cork hats and singing “Waltzing Matilda”. They were also two of the kindest people I’ve met. Billy asked me the last time I’d had a cup of tea and you could tell he loved playing the host and so I lied a bit and neglected to mention I’d just had one 60 kms up the road. By the time I’d left them I’d had three cups of tea, a slap up meal and they’d sent me packing with some magnesium and salt tablets to help with dehydration. After I left them I was cycling down the road when I startled a kangaroo. The kangaroo couldn’t go left because there was a fence and couldn’t go right because it was scared of me so I had this kangaroo racing next to me for a good kilometre or so before if realised I’d just sail by it it stood still.

I turned off the Stuart Highway for the last 250kms to Ayer’s Rock. I stopped off at Mount Ebeneezer roadhouse which inevitably has me singing “Ebeneezer Goode” every time I think about it. Another thing that’s started happening in Oz is people offering me places to stay once I hit their part of the country. I’ve got a place to stay in a fair few places down the East Coast which has all come about just from sitting in the roadhouses.

I was cycling from Mount Ebeneezer to Curtin Springs when I noticed what looked like a horse drawn cart up ahead of me. The cart was going pretty slow so I pedaled towards it. As I got closer I noticed there was a guy running alongside the cart holding onto whatever was pulling the cart. At this point I realised the cart was being pulled by two camels. At the same time I had this realisation, the camels noticed I was coming up behind them and not being used to bicycles they bolted for the horizon leaving their owner stranded in the middle of the road. I asked their owner what I should do and he suggested I chase the camels, get in front of them and then they’d stop running. So I head off up the road in pursuit of the runaway camels but the things had a pretty decent turn of speed and I couldn’t get near them. After a while I realised this was going to end with me chasing these camels all the way to Ayer’s Rock so I stopped and went back for the owner who was a good few miles behind by now and see if we could figure out what to do. Eventually a car comes by so we flag the car down, the owner gets in the car and chases after the camels, gets in front of them and then gets back in the cart. He then motions for me to go past while he’s got hold of the reins and of I speed up the road. I must have laughed for about 5 miles after I’d left them. I have some mint pictures of the moment I overtake the camels and you can just see them wanting to bolt again.

I arrived at Ayer’s Rock Resort in the evening. On the way there you keep catching little glimpses of Ayer’s Rock but it’s never a proper view due to the surrounding hills. It’s like nature is keeping the rock hidden until you can truly appreciate it. While I was waiting for a call I got speaking to Patrick and Carol, a South African couple who invited me for a drink. After I set up camp I headed over to the camp bar for a beer. It turned out that Carol was from my old home town of Durban so we had plenty to talk about. They were on a bit of a world tour themselves but you could tell Patrick was excited by the prospect of doing some traveled by bicycle so the evening was spent with Patrick asking me questions and Carol getting worried that at some point in her life she was going to spend a very long time on a bicycle in some far away country. I always try and be as truthful as I can about the difficulties of long distance cycling and I hope I conveyed that. I don’t believe it is for everyone. If you’re the type of person who views traveling as something where everything is perfect because you’ve paid for it to be perfect then you’ll hate long distance cycle touring. If you accept that part of traveling is having having some pretty awful days but they make you appreciate the great days more, then I’d recommend long distance cycle touring.

I went to see both the Olgas and Ayer’s Rock. They are pretty amazing and while I preferred the Olgas it does all feel a bit contrived. I guess that’s to be expected though. Many people just get off the plane, go look at the rock, get back on the plane and that’s their experience of Central Australia. I’m not questioning other people’s method of travel and I appreciate that a lot of it is due to time constraints but it doesn’t look satisfying to me.

I left the resort about 4 days ago. I felt like taking it a bit easier on the way back. The first day out of Ayer’s Rock, I was cycled along all happy and merry when I turned around and noticed the sky was pitch black behind me and worse, I could see it was blowing up a sandstorm. I was between roadhouses so had no real way of finding decent shelter so pulled off at the nearest rest area. The rest areas usually have trees and a couple of concrete tables. The storm hit me and there was no way I could stay in the open as the sand was being driven at me at ferocious speeds and it felt like I was being sandblasted. I crawled under the table and tried to build a bit of shelter just so I could get some sleep. It worked to some degree but no matter what I did I’d get the odd gust of wind from a different direction that’d blow sand into my face. It was like trying to get some sleep with someone kicking sand in your face every 15 minutes. The most annoying thing was I’d just paid 3 dollars for my first shower in days and when I emerged from the table in the morning I was plastered with sand.

The next day in Curtin Springs I was sitting down talking to a load of elderly tourists from the UK. I was sitting next to the sweetest old lady who kept on asking me loads of questions mainly about my health and making sure I was eating properly and looking after myself. A few minutes later their tour giude came over to shepherd them all into the coach and as she was getting up she slipped a 10 dollar note into my hand. The way she did it was the way grandmothers have given their grandchildren money for all of eternity. All discrete and when I asked her what it was for she said it was to get myself something nice. Can of pop and a packet of crisps I’m guessing. Things like that only happen when you’re on a bike in the outback.

On the way back I also met the camel guy again. He does about 20 kms a day so hadn’t got very far since I’d last chased his camels down the road. He was holed up in a rest area, the camels were outback munching on the trees. He introduced himself a Klaus and he’d been traveling round Australia for 12 years with only the mode of transport changing. The first 8 years he’d traveled by bicycle with his dog. He’d built a little trailer for the dog as it could only walk for about 25 kms a day. Problem is the dog got clever and as time went on he wanted to spend more time on the trailer and less time walking. Klaus would have to chase the dog off the trailer but the dog got clever again and noticed that if it just wandered into the middle of the road, then Klaus would chase him back onto the trailer again to keep him away from the cars.

After 8 years he got sick of traveling by bike and built himself an amphibious bike. The idea being he’d travel by river where he could and then if the river dried up he could cycle to the next river with water. He managed this for 3 years before he decided he was a rubbish sailor and came up with the idea of the camels. Ignoring that they run off when approached by bicycles, it’s a pretty good way to travel round Oz. The only downside he says is that the tourists are always stopping and hassling him for photos and to pet the camels. The Oz govt should make the man a National Heritage site as I reckon a lot more people go home talking about the guy being pulled across Oz by camels than they do Ayer’s Rock.

While I was in the resort I met a lad called Damien who’s doing a big tour by motorbike. One of those times you meet someone and think yeah this is a bloke I could be mates with irrespective of the circumstances. His plans are to head north over to Malaysia and then across Asia to Europe. We kept on bumping into each other as I was heading back to Alice and he was taking detours on his bike so we spent a fair bit of time chatting in the roadhouses. I pointed out that he’s heard my cycling stories for the tourists so many times that he can tell them while I take a bit of time off. Damien is one of those blokes who’s always hatching plans and I made the mistake of saying I’d love to do South America by motorbike and now I’ve agreed to a 3 month journey sometime after I get back. I seems to have turned into a man who agrees to everything. My future list of things to do grows everyday and now includes climb Mt Kilimanjaro, cycle the Croatian coast and South America by motorbike. This doesn’t include the plans I’m keeping to myself.

I’m back in Alice Springs now and will hopefully catch up with Damien later as I haven’t had a night on the beer since south Thailand and I reckon I could do with one.

Was it worth the 2000 km detour to see Ayer’s Rock? Not really. Was it worth it for the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had? Definitely. I’d have done double that distance just for the great two weeks I’ve had.

Anyways best go and find a campsite for the night.

Lots of Love As Always,

Craig.

XXX

Yo peeps,

Today I have that rare commodity being a day of rest, free internet time, an endless supply of cups of tea and a comfy chair so yes, it’s email time.

I sent my last update from Mataranka after solving the great Aussie question of “how the hell do you cycle through this damned place”. The riding at night thing has proven to be of immense benefit in so many ways. In reality I haven’t actually had to do as much cycling at night as I expected. On average the roadhouses are around 60miles/100kms apart and my day usually consists of leaving the roadhouse at around 5ish, cycling till 9 which gets me around 40miles/64kms before I make camp for the night, crack open a Stagg Chili with baked beans and have a cup of tea. In the morning it’s then up at 5:30, leaving camp at 6 and riding the last 20miles/32kms to the next roadhouse for breakfast. The roadhouses usually have grassy shaded areas where I spend the next 8 hours or so reading, dozing and drinking copious amounts of liquids.

Cycling this way has been beneficial in numerous ways. The first, most obvious and most important is that I’ve reduced my chances of dying from heat exhaustion/dehydration. Most of the time I’m cycling into my next water stop with around 3 litres to spare and that’s with being pretty liberal with the water and using it for luxuries like cleaning pots and pans and making cups of coffee at night. If the gaps were greater I could rein that in and have more water to spare. The second benefit is that I’m now in the roadhouses/rest areas during sociable hours which means I’m always meeting the various people that flow through this great part of Australia. Apart from reducing the sense of loneliness, this has really increased my interaction with the real outback with it’s myriad of characters.

After Mataranka and a swim in the hot springs I headed for the next town of Larrimah. I pretty uninspiring place. Northern Territory (NT) isn’t renowned for it’s customer service standards. I guess we need the goods and there’s nothing for miles in either direction so we’re going to buy the goods whether it’s served with a smile or not. Add to that the notorious laid back NT attitude and you’re getting your food pretty much thrown at you at some point in the distant future. Someone told me that a famous NT saying is “not today and not tomorrow”. The strange thing is that amongst all this hardness you still find plenty of kindness.

It was in Larrimah where I met Fritz the mad German cyclist. I was sitting minding my own business reading War and Peace when this excited looking and sun burnt man ran up to me and shouted “YOU WITH BICYCLE YA???”. He sat himself down without waiting for an answer and started talking at 500 miles an hour in a strange German/English hybrid. We did the usual where you been, where you going and it turns out he’s been cycling round the world for the last three years and has done pretty much the entire South and North America coast line including Alaska. I’d read about this guy when I was researching my trip and it just feels weird that I’m now a fledgling member of this group of people doing stupid things like cycling the Oz outback. People who I consider to be my heroes I’m meeting in roadhouses in the middle of Oz. The strange thing is that even though I’m not on a level with the likes of Fritz, other people now look at me in the same way. I don’t feel crazy, brave or even that what I’m doing is special and it just seems like this is what I do. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it’s me that’s doing this. It’s like I’m watching someone else cycle round the world.

Fritz was definitely crazy though. At one point we were chatting and he was telling me how much he loved South America and then said he’d been mugged there 5 times, laughed out aloud and did the Greek slapping me in a hearty way thing. His English wasn’t good enough for me to figure out if he loved South America BECAUSE he’d been mugged 5 times or in spite of being mugged 5 times. A measure of his craziness is that even now I have no idea which it is. I assumed he’d be hiding from the heat of the day in the roadhouse for a few hours but after an hour he stood and declared he was off again. I pointed out it was 38C outside and maybe he’d be better off waiting for a while but winking at me he led me to his bike to show me his secret weapon. His bike had a BOB trailer attached which is pretty common amongst long distance cyclists. He’d modified it so that half of the trailer contained a closed box which was insulated like a cooler box. He bought a packet of ice, loaded it into box and explained that he stops every 10 miles and dips his shirt into the cooler box and so manages to keep his body temperature down. The rest of the trailer was taken up with bottles of normal water and I reckon he was hauling around 20 litres with him. Crazy or not the man’s a hero.

After Larrimah I headed on down to Daly Waters which is a famous outback pub. I arrived at Daly Waters around 8 in the morning for my usual breakfast and 8 hours of War and Peace. The girl working behind the bar was a great looking girl from my birthplace of Birkenhead. We got chatting and she asked me what I’m doing and I explained about the round the world charity thing and then sat down with my endless supply of milk and a book. At the end of her shift she came over and said the staff were donating their tips for the day to Macmillan which considering where we were and how hard the life is in these places, is pretty fantastic.

Before my next planned stop of Elliot I had that rare luxury of a spare roadhouse. Two roadhouses in a 100km stretch is pretty much unheard of round these parts so I stopped and had more milk. The lady behind the counter asked me which way I was headed and when I said Elliot she said “Oooooooohhhhhhhh it’s dangerous down there”. I asked her what she meant because one of the things I’ve learnt about NT is that when someone tells me somewhere is rough or dangerous it means it has a big Aboriginal population. She wouldn’t say though and just told me to avoid the place at night.

The Aboriginal situation in NT is an interesting one but I’m not going to pass judgment because in the absence of enough knowledge I don’t consider it fair. I can see that something isn’t quite right and I can that people are trying to help. The results don’t look great to me though. You walk into any town at any time of day and there’s usually large groups of Aboriginals hanging around and you can see there’s just no hope there. Domestic violence, low life expectancy and alcoholism look to are common problems. I’ve been trying to find some books which will give me some historic insight so I can form more in depth opinions but, as a subject matter, it’s still quite raw and fresh here so the books tend to be incredibly polarised. I’ll keep searching but bookshops are a bit thin on the ground for now.

After Elliot which was nowhere near as threatening as Halifax on a Saturday night I made my way to Renner Springs. What’s amazing about most of these places is that they aren’t even on the national grid and all power is supplied by generators out back. The lady who owns the place was saying they use 375 liters of fuel a day just to keep the place powered which is one of the reasons everything in the outback is so expensive. Renner turned out to be a busy little spot by outback standards. Some guy was there who I’d been talking to back in Mataranka and it’s surprising how often you bump into the same people even though they’re traveling by car or truck and I’m on a bike. A lot of people head up to Darwin and then back down again so I get to see them again on the return trip and everyone is always interested in how I’m getting on. The bike is a bit like having a cute dog or baby as it gives everyone an in on talking to me. If I’m feeling like a bit of quiet time I have to sit away from the bike or pretty much everyone comes over to have a chat and I can spend an entire day repeating the same stories. It’s strange because sometimes when I’m not with the bike I feel a bit like a a major part of me is missing, almost that I have nothing of interest to offer people. I guess it’s because what I’m doing HAS become my life. I haven’t seen an international newspaper in such a long time that my current affairs knowledge is zero. I haven’t watched television since I left England. I know nothing about sport or current popular culture. I don’t have all the normal conversation hooks that other people use to communicate. I’ve become a kind of one trick pony.

Another interesting thing is that because people I meet instantly assume that what I’m doing is more interesting than what they’re doing, it’s difficult to have a two way conversation. I ask people what they’re doing, where they doing and they usually mumble something and then say it isn’t as exciting as what I’m doing, like they feel guilty for not cycling through the outback. It can become frustrating because I love hearing about what other people have been up to and what they’ve seen but I have to really make the effort to get them talking about themselves. On the plus side everyone wants to take pictures of me with the bike so I’ll be in people’s photo collections all over the world.

At Renner I also met a French guy hitch hiking round the world. For those who have seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian he was just like the mad guy living in the hole with the Juniper Tree. In a previous email I’d said that it seemed like a great way to travel but I’ve changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first is that hitch hikers don’t have that ability just to get up and leave if they don’t like somewhere. They’re always dependent on the help of others and I’m not sure I could do that constantly. The second is that no one respects the hitchhiker. People just seem to view then as someone trying to get a free ride in life. The view is more prevalent in places where resource is scarce but I think I’d rather know I was getting round on my own steam. The guy got a lift eventually but not before he’d had to hassle a lot of people. People don’t mind offering help out here but they don’t like being hassled or to feel you’re trying to get something for free. Everyone just has to work too hard for what they’ve got for that to wash.

I stopped off at a rest area 30 miles after Renner as I had the mother of all head winds and had no way of making it to the next roadhouse before the midday sun kicked in. While I was at the rest area the kindness of the various travelers came to the fore and I had a constant supply of people stopping, making sure I was alright and giving me food and drink. It’s mostly the oldies traveling Oz with their gigantic caravans that seem to stop. Think they’re called the grey nomads as they spend months, even years just traveling round Oz after retirement. It’s like having loads of grandparents and they’re always worrying and fussing I’m fully watered, fed and know exactly how hot it is. Some old fella stopped off just to tell me it was 42C. As long as they don’t start giving me dire Christmas jumpers then I’m happy.

I’ve also had a few conversations with the guys driving the road trains. I like to check if they can see me at night and the reassurance that they can see the “dickhead on the bike” from miles away is good to hear. The road trains all talk to each other via radio which is how I’ve come to be known as the “dickhead on the bike”. They’ll go past me and then radio the other trucks just to let them know where I am. One of the blokes told me the truckers know where I am better than any GPRS system.

I slept up at the old Tennant’s Creek Telegraph station two nights ago. It’s an historic building from the 1800’s but there’s no one around at night so a good place to camp. I did the tourist tour on my own at 2 in the morning and noticed that some guy had cycled a similar route to mine in 1899. The roads there would have been single track dirt roads with literally nothing for thousands of miles. When you read things like that it gives you a real sense of perspective.

I rode into Tennant’s Creek yesterday. It’s my first town with a supermarket since Mataranka so a good place to stock up on tinned food. After a bit of shopping I headed for a cafe for some breakfast. While I was there I got talking to a girl called Melissa who’s living here for a few months, house sitting for some friends. We chatted for a couple of hours as she’d been traveling all over the world so we had plenty to compare and discuss. When she got up to leave she said I could come back to the house for a shower and after I established there was also some internet access I flew over to the house. After showing me round the town she said I could stay for the night. I was thinking about it last night and this is the first time I’ve been inside a house since I left England.

She’s treated me like a king since I got here. Constant supplies of food and cups of tea and all those luxuries that you just don’t get when you’re traveling. I think because she’s traveled she understand the things that you miss. This morning I woke up to find she’d gone out and bought me some cereal because I’d said it was one of those things I missed. It takes an immense amount of trust to invite a complete into your house and christ do I appreciate it. She’s cooking me a lunch at the moment and then I’ll chill for a few hours before heading off again.

Those of you with a knowledge of Oz will know that if I’m in Tennant’s Creek I’ve missed my turn off to head to the East Coast. The turn off to Queensland is about 20 miles back the other way at the Threeways roadhouse. Reason for this is I’ve decided on a bit of a detour. I guess this in itself is a measure of how much more I started enjoying Oz after my initial problems. My plan is to head down to Alice Springs and then out to Ayer’s Rock before making my way back to Tennant’s Creek. In terms of a detour it’s around 1200miles/2000kms so will be about an extra 20 days riding. I’ve started enjoying the outback and it seems only right that I go check out the Big Rock. After that I’m going to reward myself with a 400mile/600km bus trip across to Mount Isa in Queensland and then it’ll be about another 400miles to the coast line. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to head up to Cairns once I reach the coast. I’ll check the timing and then see how much visa time I’ve got left to get me down to the more populated South East where the main airports are and my eventual jump off to NZ.

Anyways best go as lunch is ready and I’m going to have a couple of goes on the Playstation.

Lots of Love as Always,

Craig. XXX

Yo dudes,

Thought I’d do another update mainly because I’ve decided that I am heading down the east coast and also because I did my first night ride (one for Dan) last night and I thought I’d get the results down on email.

I set off from Katherine last night at about 7 after spending a day recovering which consisted of just hiding in a dark room with the aircon on full and drinking gallons of juice/milk/water. I also stocked up on more provisions and was thrilled to find BOWL NOODLE SOUP!!! in the supermarket. As part of my plans to ride at night I also bought some spare lights and back up batteries. I met a few Aussie blokes yesterday who kindly donated a hi-vis jacket to the cause as Aussies are just convinced that the guys driving the road trains will just run over anything that gets in their way.

As I said, I set off at 7ish last night. I’d noticed when I was cycling the other night that the wind seemed to die down at around sunset and sure enough I had less of a headwind when I set off. The pace I was setting was around twice that I’d managed during the day on the way from Darwin which felt great. Whereas previously any hill had me leaking like a teabag and emptying my water bottles, I was now dancing lightly on the pedals and having to force myself to drink as although the thirst wasn’t the same, the night temperatures here are still around 25C so I still need to keep hydrated.

The road trains turn out to be less of an issue at night than during the day. For one you can see them coming miles away. The Oz outback is a dark, dark place and anything producing any light is easy to spot. I’ve installed a mirror on my bike so if the sky starts getting lighter behind me, I know I’ve either been cycling too long and the sun is coming up, or there’s a road train coming. I usually just cross over onto the other side of the road when they come up behind me as this means they don’t have to move and the wind doesn’t buffet me around and blow the various things I have dangling from my bike all over the road. They appreciate the gesture as well and usually give me a wave as they trundle past.

Another added bonus which I didn’t mention in my previous email is the lack of flies. The flies in Oz are a different breed to their European counterparts. Faster, smarter and generally more annoying. In Europe anything above 10 miles an hour and the flies can’t keep up. In Oz I’ve been sailing down a hill at 20 miles an hour and there’s still a swarm following me. They also seem much more friendly than European flies and try and get in your nose, mouth and eyes and ears which added to the immense heat and the headwind can get annoying quickly. Couple of times I’ve just stopped and unloaded a stream of expletives but the flies just take this as a chance to get me while my mouth is open. Anyways, cycling at night removes this problem. Hey presto, no flies. Brilliant. Granted I now just keep running into moths attracted to the only light for miles but moths I can handle. They just bounce off my face instead which I’m cool with.

By 11:30 last night I’d managed close to 60 miles which is a pace I haven’t managed in a long time. This is with a headwind so hopefully if it ever turns into a tailwind I can up the pace. Having said that I haven’t had a tailwind since Macedonia so it’s best I just learn to live with it. More importantly I’d only used around 2 litres of water. I’m carrying close to 10 litres at the moment so this gives me a pretty good range which far exceeds any of the distances between water I’ve seen on the map. On top of this, I feel a lot better today. The ride from Darwin to Katherine I just didn’t enjoy at all. When I stopped, I was in no fit state to speak to people or to enjoy the country around me. Today I’ve made it to Mataranka by 7 in the morning after camping just outside town last night. After writing this email I’m heading out to the Hot Springs for a swim, some breakfast, a cup of tea and to try and make some inroads into War and Peace, the perfect book for cycling through the Oz outback. Then I’ll do the same tonight and head off down to the next roadhouse which is also around 60 miles away.

I feel much more positive today. Now I have a way of cycling Oz, enjoying the cycling and still having time during the day to enjoy the country. I still have some pretty tough stretches ahead and it’s another 1300 miles before I hit the east coast at Townsville, which will be around 3 weeks away. I also have some friends down the east coast who I’m really looking forward to seeing and may even get to see Jason and Shel so all-in-all I feel a lot better. I was pretty worried a few days ago and it’s a load of my shoulders that this all feels possible again.

Anyways, some Craig time awaits before I get cycling again.

Lots of Love Again,

Craig. XXX

Hey all,

Just thought I’d write a quick one. Quick because internet access out here costs a bomb and an update because I’ve had a bit of a change of plan.

I left Singapore on the 16th, last Monday night, and arrived in Darwin the early hours of Tuesday morning. When I was in Malaysia I met up with a couple of Aussie lads who’d told me that the humidity in Darwin was much worse than Malaysia but it isn’t true. Don’t get me wrong, it is humid, it just isn’t as humid as SE Asia. With this in mind I felt pretty confident about the cycling aspect of things.

I stayed in a backpacker hostel in Darwin for 2 days because I needed some serious preparation time. Oz is just a different level of cycling to everywhere else. The distances between civilisation or even water can be pretty enormous and this changes the complexion of everything. I started off carrying around 10 litres of water and 4 days of food but I’m starting to question if that’s enough. I have sterilisation tablets for up to 25 litres so could resort to the water in storage tanks if need be.

I left Darwin on the Thursday morning around 9ish which was my first mistake. I planned to bang in a 100 miles by the evening but by midday, with the heat, cycling was bordering on impossible, if not outright dangerous. I started off all breezy and light, averaging 13 miles an hour but by 12 I was struggling to maintain 8 miles an hour as I toiled and grovelled up the slightest of hills. I kept going and dragged myself into Adelaide River by 5ish and I wasn’t feeling too great. I’d used pretty much all my water which didn’t bode well for the bigger distances. I think I was suffering from a degree of heat exhaustion but I spent about half an hour lying on the grass amongst the sprinklers which helped no end. The same water sprinklers woke me up soaked at 3am so the love affair was short lived.

The following day I set off earlier at 8 but it didn’t make a great deal of difference. By 10 o’clock it was just too hot to cycle. I struggled on till 11 and then found a closed cafe and spent 4 hours sitting, reading and waiting the heat out. I set out again at 3ish but even at that time it’s impossible to average more than 10 miles an hour and water is still being consumed at a rate of knots. On top of that I’ve noticed a beauty little headwind always seems to kick up at around 3ish so then it’s heat and headwind to contend with. I managed about 70 miles for the whole day and managed to get to Pine Creek but in reality I wasn’t in a much better state than the day before.

Yesterday I tried to get up even earlier and was on the road by 6:30. I managed 40 miles by 10 o’clock and then found a drainage pipe under the road and sat the heat out till 5ish. I’d laid my bike along the road which meant that cars kept on stopping to see if I was alright. This is pretty reassuring as they all asked me if I needed water so it means that if push comes to shove, I’ll always be in a position to get myself out of any trouble.

I set off again at 5 but although it was cooler that damned headwind just wasn’t letting up. I couldn’t believe how tough it was and I’m not ashamed to admit I’m having serious doubts whether I have what it takes to cycle in Oz. If you have any doubts, any insecurities, any questions, anything, then cycling through this place just takes you to the cleaners. It really is the toughest challenge I’ve ever faced and the scary thing is that it’s going to get tougher.

I was making my way to Katherine when in the distance I saw two cyclists coming towards me. Seriously I thought the heat had finally got to me. Turned out to be two Aussie guys at the end up their tour from Adelaide, which is around 4000 miles. We sat talking for a while but it was me doing most of the talking as I was just pumping them for information. A lot of it I already knew but it was good to hear it confirmed. No one is cycling NT during the daytime. They’d found a German guy suffering from heat exhaustion because he’d been cycling during the day. These guys had been getting up at 3 in the morning, getting in 50 miles before it started to get hot and then sat out the heat until just before dark and then put in another 30 miles. I asked about how they were coping with the road trains but they just pulled over or even crossed onto the other side of the road so they had that sorted as well.

They also asked me about my route and I said I was heading down to Perth and then across to Sydney. They reckoned that doing the Nullabor in December would be bordering on suicide as there’s nowhere for shade and it’s the height of summer. They’d come up the East Coast and recommended I took that route as there’s more civilisation and just more to see and do. It was great to get some first hand knowledge and tips from guys that had actually cycling through Oz. I need to serioiusly modify when I cycle and have a think about my route. Even getting up at 5 isn’t good enough and I need to look at doing a lot more cycling in the dark. I have enough lights to make me visible for miles so it definitely seems the way to go and I don’t think I have much choice. By the time I left them to head for Katherine it was about 7 and the sun was going down and with this the wind also calmed down. I was back to doing 13-14 miles an hour and feeling pretty good. Maybe it was just the pleasure of meeting other people and getting some good information but it definitely confirmed riding at night will get me some valuable miles. That’s the tough thing about Oz. You can’t just say you’ll do 30 miles a day because you’ll run out of water and you can’t do big miles during the day because you’ll also run out of water. The key is obviously to cycle at night when you aren’t consuming as much water and then try to sleep during the day.

I stopped off in Katherine last night as my last real point of civilisation before I decided to go East Coast or West Coast. I’m pretty sure I’m going to go down the East Coast for a number of reasons. The first is that if Aussie cyclists are telling me that a particular route at a certain time of year is suicide then I should listen. The second is that my visa is 3 months and while it would get me round whichever way I go, the East Coast gives me more options in terms of airports if my visa runs out. Also I’ll just get to see more of Oz. I don’t want to have to cycle 6000 miles in 3 months. I want the option to stop and chill if and when it’s possible.

Anyways best go as like I said, everything here is stupidly expensive. I’m going to sleep in Katerine tonight and then set off fully watered and lit up like a Christmas tree tomorrow evening.

Lots of Love,

Craig.

XXX

Yo peeps,

Greetings from Singapore!!!

Yeah well that’s SE Asia done dusted and put to bed. Bring on Australia I say. Hopefully that conveys a sense of bravery and daring but, in reality, Oz scares me a bit. I’m looking at a map of Oz as I write and well, ummm, there’s nothing there. Just a lot of nothing with big bits of nothing in between. I keep on staring at the map, willing towns to appear with names like Cokesville, Foodstown and Waterdorpe but it’s futile, the nothingness stays. Ah well.

Well what’s happened since my last email? I left the island of Koh Tao a little over two weeks ago. I felt a bit stupid after my last email because I ended it with a slightly melodramatic line about being on my own. In terms of waking hours I was probably on my own for about 3 hours. I caught the nightboat out of Koh Tao and landed at Surat Thani around 6 in the morning. As I was loading my bags back onto the bike I heard a voice say “Hi” and turned around to find a couple of fellow long distance cyclists doing the same thing. I knew they were long distance cyclists by that hungry look we all seem to develop after a few months. Their names were Mike and Petra, a Dutch couple who’d been on the road for 8 months taking in a pretty hardcore route of Hong Kong, China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

We went for breakfast and afterwards I asked if they minded if I joined them for a while. I’d made the mistake of showing Mike my mileage through Europe and I think there were a bit worried I’d be pounding them into submission demanding 100 miles in a single day but the island had taken the wind out of my sails and I was finding the cycling pretty tough going. It was tough enough that I was starting to worry that maybe I was losing my motivation a little. Whereas in Europe, banging out sequential 100 milers didn’t seem like a big deal, in SE Asia anything over 60 miles was proving to be difficult.

We crossed over to the West Coast of Thailand, heading for the town of Krabi. Somewhere along the way, Mike and Petra seemed to get used to the idea of cycling with someone else. I think initially they weren’t too keen and I can understand that. Cycling with someone else can cause problems, especially if you’re talking about people of differing abilities or/and differing interests. There’s no faster way to take the enjoyment out of cycling that to have someone who’s pushing you over your comfort level for hours on end. I tried to take this into consideration and figure out their preferred pace and also to cycle a bit ahead to give them some time alone.

We ended up cycling together for 4 days and it was great to have the company as well as someone to share the beers with. On the 4th day we rolled into the town of Trang and turned up at the usual backpacker haunt to be greeting by the owner of the restaurant and the guesthouse. It’s pretty embarrassing because whenever you tell anyone in SE Asia what you’re doing, they always exclaim how strong you must be and usually follow this up with feeling your arms or something. Embarrassing because, in the main, long distance cyclists don’t actually look very strong. We just look underfed and a bit dirty. Anyway the owner grabs my arm and says “Ahhhhhhh you strong like chicken”. First thought is what type of chicken has this guy got on the menu and I start looking round for big 6 foot muscle bound chickens but then I just realised his English is probably based pretty much on what he serves and I should be grateful he didn’t say I was strong like prawn.

I left Mike and Petra in Trang the following morning. As I said, it was great to have the company but I think they were compromising slightly on the distances they were doing and so was I. Their type of traveling is more the meander and take in the sights whereas mine is very much the pick the start of a continent, pick the end of a continent, and go for it. If something stops me like Koh Tao then I’ll stop for a while but I like to keep moving. I think 4 days together was the correct amount as I think that’s probably the amount they were willing to compromise and the same for me.

Trang is about two days riding from the Thailand-Malaysia border which I rode on my own. At one point, some guy on a motorbike pulls alongside and starts chatting away to me. He asks me if I’m on my own and, when I answered yes, he pointed to the surrounding countryside and said no, that I wasn’t alone, that everyone was with me. Now I have no idea if he knew how poignant that was but, for me, that moment encapsulated Thailand. He’s right I never was on my own. I’m not sure I can ever convey how fantastic Thailand was. How it suited me and what I was doing perfectly.

The best way I can explain Thailand is that it felt like anything was possible. I don’t just mean for me but also for the people I met. Every time I thought something would be a problem, it turned out to be just another positive experience. It changes the way you think. You just stop worrying about the future because you know that when you get there, something will work out. From a cycling perspective it was more than perfect. It’s like God asked a cross section of cyclists what they like and so we got roads with wide hard shoulders, drivers who respect you and give you space, a flat landscape but with beautiful rock formations that the roads meander round, restaurants every 5 minutes serving rice the perfect food, stupidly cheap accommodation and to top it off the friendliest and most helpful people you could wish to meet. Obviously some weirdo asked for lady boys as well but hey ho. I stopped wearing sunglasses when I was cycling in Thailand because I noticed that when I wore them, the people waving and smiling weren’t quite so open and I wanted to experience that openness to it’s full effect. One of my best moments was when I went past a school of kids who were just leaving for the day and they were all waiting outside and I reckon every kid in the school waved and said hello to me.

As luck would have it, my rest day fell on the day I was leaving Thailand. Instead of taking the land crossing, I caught the ferry and entered Malaysia via the island of Pulau Langkawi . As usual, customs was interesting. Something about being on a bike instantly makes you safe in the eyes of customs officials. I remember entering Greece and I wasn’t even asked to show my passport. I was entering from Macedonia , through one of the major entrance points for illegal immigration and the guy just waved me through. The same thing happened in Malaysia. Everyone else was being searched and sent through the metal detectors and I was just waved through. This could be an important tip to any potential illegal immigrants amongst you. Just get a stupidly heavy bike and you’re laughing.

In terms of a holiday destination, Pulau Langkawi is fantastic but it’s probably a bit too perfect for a long distance cyclist. There’s certain places which make you feel a bit self-conscious that you’re a little bit too shabby, a bit too starved looking and this was one of them. I left the island after my rest day and headed back to the Malaysian mainland. From there I headed back over to the East Coast. I must confess I cheated a little here and caught the bus. The main reason was that I’d read that Highway 4 was an engineering masterpiece. As a cyclist, I don’t like engineering masterpieces because that usually means tunnels and I hate cycling through tunnels so I had my first experience of SE Asian public transport. My over-riding impression was one of being frozen. I’m not sure what it is about the public transport here but if you aren’t freezing to death, then they think there’s something wrong. The bus stopped for 5 minutes so I went and got my rated to -17C down-filled sleeping bag and, I’m not joking, but I was still cold. I have no idea why or how people put up with it.

After reaching the East Coast I started trying to put the miles in again. I say trying because I ran into the same problems I was having in Thailand. 60 miles was proving to be difficult and usually after 40 I started feeling physically ill. I thought it may be dehydration but I was stopping for plenty of water so I had no idea what the problem was. It was around this point I had a couple of bad days psychologically. When you start struggling like that, you start to question everything, “why the hell am I doing thi?s”, “what’s going to happen when I get home?”, “how can I expect to cycle through the Australian outback when I can’t manage 60 miles a day?”, “will I have enough money to complete this?”. I’d read about this when I was researching my journey but, even in Serbia, when it was really tough, my motivation was still there. Just turning the pedals had begun to feel like a chore. These feelings are obviously made worse by being on your own. You haven’t got anyone to reason with you or to encourage you so, once you start going downhill, it’s difficult to stop. I named it my Damascus moment as I’d read about another guy feeling the same on the road to Damascus. Plus mine happened on the road to Pekan and Pekan moment sounds like a dessert.

I got out of it partly by accident and partly by design. The accident was that one evening, around 4ish, the rain bucketed down. This was the first rain I’d had since Thailand and I ended up missing my hotel because I couldn’t see a thing. I stopped for a few minutes and when I got back on the bike again I felt a lot better so I thought I’d press on. I’d done 50 miles by this point and usually I’d be groveling into some town with a pounding headache but today I felt good. I kept on going and by 7 I’d done another 50 miles for my first 100 miler in SE Asia. The point was I’d been cycling during the worst part of the day, during the build up to the monsoon season and I was just asking too much of myself. Especially when you’re doing it every day. The next day I got up early, did some miles in the morning, and then rested for a few hours before getting some miles in late afternoon to early evening. Suddenly doing 90-100 miles was achievable with a bit of planning and forethought. The good thing is it took a load off my mind about Oz. I may even do some of my cycling at night as I’ve read from a water pov, it just isn’t profitable to cycle during the hottest part of the day.

The design was that I took a day off in a great little town called Mersing and put my photos on the internet. The guesthouse I stayed in was how I’d imagined backpacker hostels to be and the perfect place to take a day off. I spent a day sorting the photos and this got me thinking about the great experiences I’d had. Sometimes when you just press on, getting in the miles, you forget what’s gone before and going through the photos really helped. Here’s a link to the photos which should hopefully work. I’ve put split them by country but when I get more time, I may add comments although some of them are pretty self explanatory.

http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/thecrankerRTW

I left Malaysia yesterday. I think my impressions of Malaysia are slightly tainted because I went though a difficult time there. From a cycling perspective, it suffers in comparison to Thailand, but then so does everywhere I’ve ever cycled. It’s a wonderful country shaped heavily by religion. The mosques are stunning and there’s something incredibly atmospheric cycling though town when the call to prayer sounds. The people are still friendly but there’s a hint of shyness. None of this holds for the children though who can spot a westerner on a bike from a 1000 yards and still get a “HELLLLLOOOO” in. The tourists also differ in Malaysia. In Thailand, I was usually one of the older travelers but, in Malaysia, it was the opposite with pretty much everyone being not only older but they’d also usually been traveling for a long time. I think it’s because in the main, the nature of Malaysia means who have to be interested in the traveling rather than the partying. Things you could get away with in Thailand, just wouldn’t wash in Malaysia so you have to make sure you appreciate the people and the culture.

Now I’m in Singapore and it’s great be here. Mainly because I ran out of books about 200 miles ago and I suffer without books. I found this brilliant bookstore and spent hours just stroking and cooing over the books like a demented lover. They even stocked a book I’ve been searching for since I left Europe. I’ve also developed an interest in Balkan history and found a couple of cracking books to keep me going. Think my main weight on the bike will be books and water in Australia.

I found a campsite on the East coast of Singapore. It’s between the city and the airport which is perfect. Camping is free, which is great, as Singapore isn’t the cheapest of places although, as usual, I seem to have camped in some lovers area as young people were still whispering sweet nothings to each other at 5am and keeping me awake. The campsite also looks out onto the shipping lane into Singapore port and it’s just miles and miles of boats. Looks like another city at night. Bizarrely, the campsite also has a bowling centre and so I went in last night and had a few games. Lanes suited me and it was like I’d never stopped bowling. Pro-shop owner came out and we spent a while talking about bowling. I even got invited to their anniversary tournament but I won’t be here as I fly to Darwin on Monday night at 20:00 to begin the Australian stage of my journey.

Once I leave Darwin, I have no real idea when I’ll send my next email but I get the feeling it’ll be a while. Maybe Broome but I literally have no idea and plus I suspect things like water may be of more interest to me.

Anyways best go as Singapore is famous for it’s food and I’m off to sample a few of the food courts.

Lots of love as always,

Craig.

XXX

Yo guys,

Greetings from Koh Tao!!!

Well this should be an interesting email. An email from a guy who’s cycling round the world but hardly has anything to do with cycling. More a glorified postcard.

I left the town of Hua Hin about 2 weeks ago. I reckon I’ve cycled maybe 200 miles in that time. Thailand does that to you. You fall in love with the place and you don’t want to leave. I’ve met people who came here for a week’s holiday and have been here for seven years. Sure it has it’s negatives but unlike most places, you have a real choice if you want anything to do with those negatives. There’s always an option. You’ll find a Thai hospitality and sense of fun that’ll bring joy into your life no matter how weird your upbringing.

From Hua Hin I cycled down to a town called Prachuap Khiri Khan and found a place to stay which, by my standards, was the height of luxury. Running hot water and everything. During the evening I went out to check out the town and find some food. First restaurant I came across, a young Thai girl ambled towards me, looking down at her order book. She looked up, saw me and just turned and screamed “Farang” which is what the Thais call foreigners. What must have been the Farang expert came out to inform me that they were full just as about 10 busloads of Thai tourists turned up for their pre-booked meal.

I tried a few more restaurants but couldn’t really find anything I was keen on so returned to the hotel. I got chatting to a guy at the next table who it turns out is hitch-hiking around the world which tbh, ignoring the safety aspect has to be one of the best ways I can imagine to travel. I mean how can you not meet people? If you don’t then by definition you don’t go anywhere. He’d been traveling pretty much non-stop for 9 years, always looking for the next big challenge which I’m guessing is how he arrived at the idea of hitch-hiking around the world. Makes me wonder where all this will end. Are some people just pre-destined to keep pushing the boundaries of travel?

I left in the morning and headed for a quiet beach town called Wat Tan Sai. A place which possesses the type of beaches you see in travel magazines. I have a photo of me sitting on the beach and there isn’t another person for miles in either direction. I slept in the local youth hostel which had a few, but not many tourists. The rest of the youth hostel was home to 250 students from Bangkok University on holiday for the weekend. I met the other tourists at the resort and had your standard travel conversations. As you’d expect of 250 university students, the whole place eventually turned into a big party. The owners kept coming over and apologising but tbh it was pretty tame stuff compared to what their equivalent Western counterparts would have been getting up to. Later on in the evening they started a ritual with candles and some cool songs. None of us tourists could figure out what was going on so I figured I’d go and ask a few of the students to satisfy my own curiosity. Turned out it was just how they create a bond between the 3rd and 1st year students although looking at the booze they were consuming, I had a sneaky suspicion there’d be plenty of bonding going on later anyway. They were really curious about what I was doing and after showing them my bike, I sat and told a few tales about my travels so far. Eventually I left them to the latter stages of their bonding process and headed for bed.

In the morning I met another of the tourists I’d missed the night before. The guy was an American and couldn’t have been more of a traveling cliche if he’d tried. He’d obviously watched Val Kilmer’s performance in The Doors and figured that was the look and persona for him. All laid back and plenty of “duuuuuuude” thrown around the conversation. He’d been coming to Thailand since 93, “before this became all touristy, just jungle” was how he put it. Like once he arrived in 93 they should have just closed off the borders and halted all development. I kept on expecting him to tell me he’d been in “Nam dude” but his age made this impossible. Turned out he had that one covered anyway as he’d been in “Bosnia dude” where he’d seen some “shit”. He even looked off into the distance all haunted when he said he’d seem some “shit”. He said he’s been in Cambodia and when I asked him how he’d found it, he said it was just to the right of Thailand. I assumed he was joking but he wasn’t. I figured I’d get going before the Jim Morrison tracks started playing.

Around this point I decided I wanted to try some diving. It seemed sacrilege to travel through Thailand without sampling some of their world famous diving spots. I decided on the island of Koh Tao which is considered one of the best dive spots in the world and accessible by ferry from the town of Chumphon, about 85 miles south of Wat Tan Sai. I arrived in Chumphon around 7 in the evening with the intention of catching the midnight ferry to the island. The night ferry was billed as being either a fantastic experience or one of the worst nights of your life depending on the weather. Sounded perfect.

The ride down was fantastic. I took some quiet roads and cycled through some small villages and, after a few hours, the part of my body getting the most tired wasn’t my legs but my arms and face from returning the smiles and waves of the locals. I cycled through one village and the entire town was out on their veranda and everyone waved and said hello. I felt like a visiting president. That’s what I said about Thai hospitality earlier. You just can’t help but be seduced by it. If you read the Lonely Planet guides you could have a degree of cynicism about people’s motivation but being away from the city on a bike, removes any negatives I can see.

I can usually measure a town by how long it is before I’m asked by a prostitute if I’m looking for a good time. Chumphon was about 45 seconds. I told her I’m on a bike so I’m already having a good time but thank you for the offer. Luckily I’d only be in town for a few hours. In Chumphon I came across another of my traveling cliches which, unfortunately, seems particular to the English. I was in a bar, reading a book, when two girls came over, both absolutely hammered. I was polite but made it obvious I’m just here for a bit of quiet reading. They left me and returned to the bar where they just sat, argued