…. 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!

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