Great day for cycling. No wind and the sun is shining. 

We left Merredin on Saturday 27th August and continued on our journey east. This was a special day though we didn’t actually realise it until two days later. I will explain later. 

Anyway, the headwinds that had been our unwelcome friend since Perth disappeared and we were able to make better progress. Unfortunately, the rolling hills continued and the rain arrived to soak us every half hour. Despite these constant hinderances to our progress we remained joyously downbeat 🙂  We have now started dreaming about sitting on the sofa at home watching a good movie, drinking a bottle of red.  This is a dream that will remain with us until we return home – you don’t know just how lucky you are!

From Merredin we cycled along Highway 94 through Southern Cross to Coolgardie – 300km and 5000ft ascent in 3 days. Whilst we are still sore and knackered we are, at last, getting bike fit. Look for the blue dot – that’s us in Coolgardie. It’s a 10% journey done start!

Southern Cross to Coolgardie was 186km with no accommodation or even a shop along the way. So it was another bushcamp and if we have to endure a bushcamp then at least you can endure another bushcamp photo. 

This camp was surrounded by thousands of one and two centimetre holes with no sign of life.  We had no idea what kind of animal or insect made these holes so we camped and hoped for the best. When it was pitch dark I took the headtorch and went out to investigate wondering whether I was going to see thousands of spiders or snakes. Thankfully, it was just ants!

Now ants are not too much of a problem but when the sun comes out the flies appear. We had the choice of buying environmentally friendly all natural insect repellent or ‘Bushman’ with 80% DEET and smells like paraffin. Guess what we carry!  Susan is more environmentally conscious than myself but I won her over by telling her that applying Bushman was like the high end beauty parlour treatment ‘chemical skin peeling’ and that it would take years off her.

So far, however, the flies tend to favour me. I think it’s because I have been wearing a green merino wool top that is constantly damp with the rain. I’m just like a big green sheep on a bike. Flies aren’t intelligent and don’t know that sheep can’t ride bikes so it’s a logical assumption to make especially when I smell like one!

I’ve already discovered the flies can catch us even when we are cycling at 20mph and they regularly like to land on your face!  Now even through Canada with millions of flies, they didn’t land on your face!  What’s this all about! Now this is Australia, after all, and as we know every insect is dangerous.  So that can only lead me to assume these are face eating flies! Well I can tell you that my Bushman is going to be my favourite travelling companion.

As we cycle, the weather is very changeable – the last few days have been cold and raining but when the sun comes out its hot and burning.  Rainbows are everywhere. We cycled through this rainbow and Susan turned into a unicorn. Who would have imagined that!

We are now having a day off in Coolgardie. It’s a holiday after all. Coolgardie was part of the Australian gold rush and in its day (1890’s) it was the third largest town in Western Australia (after Perth and Fremantle) with 25,000 residents.  Today there are just 1,200.

Its a very quiet town now but with lots of old historical buildings. The mines are still worked but most of the gold has gone. When we visit these places I always drag Susan to the local bar to chat to the locals. Yesterday we went to the old Denver Hotel bar that has been here since goldrush times. Susan got chatted up by an old retired goldminer who told us his stories. However, although he had a four bedroom house with a fine view that he had build from reclaimed timber from old mines, he had no gold. So unfortunately (for her!) Susan is still cycling with me 🙂

Finally, what was so special about the 27th that we came to realise two days later? Well it was our wedding anniversary! Memories are made of this 🙂

Our bike and trailer by Highway 94.

Nazca Quetzal recumbent tandem with Radical trailer.

http://www.laid-back-bikes.scot

I had to visit the local hardware store to buy a file to make a small repair to the bike. When I returned, Susan picked up the packet and shook her head with exasperation ‘ I hope you didn’t pay extra for a personalised tool!’

…. in a land far far away we left the comfort of the Fraser Suites in Perth and cycled east. Through the city streets the Garmin GPS took us on a tortuous route of back streets and hills that sapped our strength in the first couple of hours. This was actually the first time we had cycled with the fully laden tandem plus trailer since we left Canada two years ago. I remember leaving Vancouver and it was a real shock to the system how we struggled on hills to overtake women pushing their prams on the pavement. Some pedestrians we never ever caught and they got bored looking behind to see where we were.

You see, this recumbent tandem is a wonderful touring bike but add the drag of a 25kg trailer, two panniers of clothes, 15kg of water and powered by two pensioners and perhaps you will begin to understand why this blog is called ‘Going Nowhere Fast’. Now I’m sure Susan won’t like me calling her a ‘pensioner’ but, as far as I’m concerned, sitting here after 4 days cycling, I look 75 and feel 84 so I qualify. Susan looks as young and as fresh as ever, of course 😉

I really don’t believe you can train for this – you can try but there is no substitute for doing the real thing day after day.

Anyway, enough of the bleating. From Perth we made our way onto the Railway Reserves Heritage Trail which is a wonderful cycle/walking path following the route of an old railway.

This was the start of our crossing the Darling Ranges, an escarpment running north south. Over the next few days we cycled an average of 50-60km with about 2,000 feet of climbing each day through towns such as Mundering, Northam, Cunderin and Kellerberrin. The hills and a strong headwind made us feel right at home – it was just like being in Canada again!

As we made our way from Northam to Kellerberrin we knew we were not going to make it as it’s still winter here and the days are short.  It was time to camp. So we cycled off the main highway and found a suitable spot in the bush. Now I know what you’re thinking -this is Australia the most deadly country in the world. Well I’m not daft and I had done my research and the top of the ‘I don’t want to meet in Australia’ leaderboard are sharks, salt water crocodiles and box jelly fish. We were miles from the sea so unless ‘Sharknado’ (look it up if you don’t know) came to pass we would be safe. Kind of.

So for the next few hours I nagged Susan with the words ‘snakes and spiders’ as we set up camp and made dinner. That nights ‘Bush Tucker Trial’ consisted of pasta mug shots topped up with powdered tomato soup with milk and a mars bar for desert. Mmmmm

Presently we are in Merredin having a welcome rest day. Hopefully the wind will change tomorrow, are per the forecast, and we will get a following wind. At this time of year the winds in Western Australia are predominantly westerly which is ideal for us. In September they change to easterly and by this time we hope (have) to be across the Nullarbor Plain or otherwise I think we will be progressing backwards.

Tomorrow looks like another bush camp as I suspect we are going to get caught in no mans land again. It won’t be so bad this time as we have a tin of corned beef and biscuits. It’s almost worth camping just for that!

We arrived in Perth, Western Australia on Tuesday 16th August, after Etihad Airways had kindly transported our bike and baggage on time and free of additional charges 🙂 Susan is kind of talking to me though I still suspect she holds a grudge for not flying business class. As I keep saying to her this is no trip for softies. As we picked up the bike from the outsized luggage I said thanks to the baggage handler. ‘No worries mate’ he replied. Yes indeed, we were in Australia!

We really didn’t do much for the next few days. It takes time to acclimatise to the local beer and I didn’t want to rush it. They even sell low carb beer on draught which is ideal for my everlasting diet though I haven’t managed to gauge whether real men drink it. I’m not saying I’m a real man but I aspire to be one and Australia is surely the country to pick up a few tips.  So my research goes on and Susan even allowed us to visit ‘The Lucky Shag’ bar down by Elizabeth Quay in Perth. It wasn’t that lucky – beer costs £8 a pint!  Yes the cost of living in Perth is appreciably higher than the UK. In general I would say food and drink is easily 25% more expensive.

By Friday we were ready to cycle and we made our way to Fremantle on the coast. It’s still the Australian winter and the weather is pretty mixed. So naturally on our first cycle it rained part of the day.  Nevertheless, we made it to Bathers Beach and took the requisite starting photo.

We then cycled the first 25km of our journey back to our hotel in the city centre.  25 done, about 4,975 to go.

We did, however, stop for a fish and chip lunch at Cicerello’s on fisherman’s wharf. No haddock or cod here. It was either hoki and chips or snapper and chips. We are not in Scotland anymore.

As we left Cicerello’s Susan pointed to the big yellow statue outside. ‘Is it just me or is that statue rude?’

‘I think it’s just you, Susan’

Welcome to Australia.