rolling rolling on two wheels

In 2016, Susan and Clif rode their tandem bicycle across Australia — 4,818km from Perth to Sydney, west to east, through the Nullarbor and three states. This page is the full story of that trip, post by post, region by region.

Western Australia

• Dorothy & The Scarecrow Go To Oz — The very first post of the whole blog: two years since finishing in St John’s, Newfoundland, and it’s time for a new adventure — opened with a wry Wizard of Oz exchange about talking without a brain.
• We’re Not In St John’s Anymore — Landing in Perth to begin the Australia crossing, marked with a first-day photo at Bathers Beach — ’25 done, about 4,975 to go’ — and Susan’s dead-serious question outside a fish and chip shop about whether a certain big yellow statue looks a bit rude.
• In The Beginning…. — Leaving the comfort of Perth’s Fraser Suites, the fully loaded tandem struggles so badly on the first hills that pedestrians pushing prams pull ahead — followed by a bush camp risk assessment that rules out everything except, perhaps, an actual Sharknado.
• Being Personal — A trip to the hardware store for a bike-repair file earns a deadpan groan from Susan: ‘I hope you didn’t pay extra for a personalised tool!’
• Something Faintly Interesting — As advertised: something faintly interesting, spotted on the road.
• Laid Back Cycling — A proper introduction to the star of the show — the Nazca Quetzal recumbent tandem, affectionately dubbed ‘Lardy Ass,’ with its Radical trailer in tow along Highway 94.
• Not So Cool in Coolgardie — Face-seeking flies at 20mph, a bushcamp surrounded by mysterious ant holes, and cycling straight through a rainbow that briefly turns Susan into a unicorn — it’s only two days later they realise they’d completely forgotten their own wedding anniversary.
• On The Road To Norseman — A rare gift of a day — no wind, clear sun, easy miles on the road to Norseman.
• A Spring Day in Norseman — Susan starts slapping her thighs mid-ride, explaining she’s ‘getting rid of the lactic acid’ because Jason Kenny had it at the Olympics — leaving Clif to conclude that if he wants to be an Olympic cyclist too, he’d better start getting some lactic acid of his own.

The Nullarbor

• East towards Nullarbor — The start of a 700km stretch into the true Outback — a night in an old sheep station’s stone cottage, little bigger than a cave with a window, followed by Balladonia’s tiny museum holding real wreckage from Skylab, which crashed to earth nearby in 1979.
• The Blue Dot — The very first route-map update of the whole Australian crossing — heading around the Great Australian Bight toward Adelaide, thousands of kilometres still to go.
• Take The Long Road Home — No words needed — the sign says it all as the long road ahead stretches out before them.
• Balladonia to Caiguna — 181km of nothingness on Australia’s famous 90-mile straight, carrying 24 litres of water and battling 35C heat with dueling strategies — Clif fully covered as ‘Captain Sensible,’ Susan sunbathing as ‘Suzie Malaga’ — ending in an accidental vindaloo-strength corned beef rice cooked blind in the dark.
• Caiguna to Eucla — Minutes after answering a reader’s question with ‘we’ve seen no snakes,’ a venomous western brown snake appears roadside — then, racing darkness to the next roadhouse, they rig a Bluetooth speaker to the handlebars and turn the last stretch into a rolling 80s disco, fuelled by Red Bull and Mars Bars.
• The Blue Dot — The blue dot reaches the Western Australia / South Australia border — a genuine milestone deep into the Nullarbor crossing.
• South Australia — Nearly 1,500km from Fremantle, the tandem crosses into South Australia — their second state of the whole crossing.
• The Great Australian Bight — A stop along the Eyre Highway to take in the wild cliffs of the Great Australian Bight.
• Town to Town — The first real town in 1,132km of Nullarbor wilderness — Penong, population 215, famous for its water-pumping windmills. Time for a beer.
• Eucla to Ceduna – 492km — Susan’s attempt at Aussie slang — ‘I would like to see a whale’ — gets mistaken for ‘a wheel’ at a lookout point, and Clif’s own bike seat breaks so badly it needs a homemade metal splint, earning him the nickname ‘Sheila’ from the local guys.
• Oz Cycle Survival Kit — The real Oz cycle survival kit — no words needed, the photo says it all.
• The Blue Dot — The blue dot keeps pressing east toward the Sydney finish marker.

South Australia

• Ceduna to Wudinna — A minor knee twinge sends Clif into a full meltdown (‘I’ll never get to Sydney’) while Susan, who’s pedalled 10,000km through Canada and Australia with genuinely sore knees, offers zero sympathy — the crisis is eventually managed with a nightly bedtime cup of jelly and ibuprofen.
• Kimba — Not quite halfway through the cycle itself, but a genuine milestone all the same: halfway across the entire Australian continent.
• Wudinna to Port Augusta — A detour to Kimba’s ‘halfway across Australia’ sign (measured ‘as the crow flies’) costs them an extra kilometre they didn’t need — while Susan torments Clif nightly by twisting open his beer with her bare, leathery hands and throwing him the cap, sometimes even dancing while she does it.
• The Blue Dot — The blue dot creeps east toward the finish line marker, now on a southward detour toward Adelaide.
• Another Rest Day or Two — Two days out from Adelaide, a big storm bearing down on the South Australia coast forces a stop — time to batten down the hatches and, more importantly, find the nearest beer shop.
• Lights Out in Port Pirie — The moment Susan asks ‘do you think the power could ever be cut?’, the biggest storm in 50 years knocks out electricity across the whole of South Australia — an area the size of France — leaving even McDonald’s dark.
• The Great Flood — A flooded road, two TV news crews, and an official called ‘Mr Road’ who keeps promising to ‘come back to you’ — Clif primes his washboard stomach for the cameras before they simply walk the bike straight through the water while he’s not looking.
• The Blue Dot Reaches Adelaide — Flooded roads force a chaotic maze of diversions into Adelaide — a rejected attempt to cycle a motorway, then a faulty Garmin that turns a 12km ride into a supposed 62km detour, salvaged only by Google Maps and an emergency cheeseburger.
• Adelaide — A rest-day wander through Adelaide, posing with a couple of the city’s more eccentric landmarks along the way.

Adelaide to Melbourne

• Heading South — South from Adelaide into wine country and the town of Strathalbyn — a dramatic shift in scenery after the endless flat expanse of the Nullarbor.
• Once, twice, three times Adelady — New seat supports arrive at the Adelaide post office just as they’re leaving — Susan’s deadpan verdict, ‘I think you need all the support you can get,’ sends them cycling back into the city three separate times to collect the package.
• McLaren Vale to Strathalbyn — Their steepest climb of the whole trip — 12% grade through McLaren Vale wine country — is topped off by Clif’s deadpan theory that a paddock of long-necked ‘sheep’ must be the result of some genetic experiment gone slightly wrong.
• Strathalbyn to Meningie — A day of vineyards through the Fleurieu Peninsula turns into a running joke about their eating schedule — second breakfast, afternoon snacks, sugar drinks, strawberry milk for recovery, and a nightly beer Clif insists is essential carbohydrate loading.
• Magpie Mayhem — Dive-bombing nesting magpies swoop eye-level at the bike, claws extended — until Clif deploys ‘Big Gobby,’ a booming shout loud enough to stop birds mid-flight, fighting off wave after wave of aerial attacks all the way to Kingston.
• The Blue Dot — The blue dot leaves Adelaide behind, heading south toward Melbourne.
• Victoria – the garden state — A great day on the bike marks their fourth state border crossing — from South Australia into Victoria.
• Robe to Warrnambool — A motel gives them a free room upgrade purely from the look of them after a hard day’s cycling, and Clif’s DEET-soaked handlebar ‘man bag’ takes the brunt of every bush fly heading straight for his face — acting as an unlikely windshield for the whole trip.
• Nobody Said It Was Easy — The toughest climb yet in Australia — hairpins at 10-12% grade up Lavers Hill — has Clif claiming the role of ‘strategic planning leader’ while conceding, when people ask if the bike has a motor, that he just points at Susan.
• Shelter From The Storm — A brief roadside shelter from a passing storm, borrowing a line straight out of Dylan.
• The Blue Dot Meets Melbourne — The blue dot rolls into Melbourne — a few days of city sightseeing before the final push toward Sydney.
• Here Comes The Rain Again — The coldest October day in 6 years turns the Great Ocean Road into a gauntlet of landslides, rockfalls and rivers flowing across the tarmac — the road closes for two days right after they pass, and they thaw out over tea cake with fellow cyclist Johnny Isaak, sheltering from the same storm.
• Marvellous Melbourne — A rest-day tour of Melbourne — Flinders Street Station, the MCG, and The Mitre, the city’s oldest building, which Clif insists on calling a ‘museum that sells beer’ so the visit counts as culture.

Melbourne to Sydney

• The Blue Dot — The blue dot pushes north out of Victoria, tracking steadily toward Sydney and the finish line.
• Wagga Wagga — A brutal headwind across the open plains tests their family motto, ‘When you just can’t keep going, keep going’ — until they finally admit defeat 500m from a campsite and rewrite it to ‘When you just can’t keep going, get a cabin.’
• The Blue Dot — The blue dot sits at Goulburn — just 200km from Sydney and the finish line.
• Over The Hills Far Away — Their biggest day yet — 103km, 4,000 feet of climbing, 34C heat — starts with Clif ignoring a mysterious scuffing noise for hours before Susan spots the actual flat tyre on the trailer, and includes a chance meeting with Marc, who’s running across the entire country from Sydney to Perth.
• Back On The Hume Highway — From Goulburn, the Hume Highway grows busier and busier as Sydney closes in — nearly there.
• Advice On The Hume Highway — A highway sign flashes the same warning every time they cycle past — and, exhausted after months on the tandem, Clif can’t quite work out why it seems to be aimed right at them.
• Greater Sydney — A caffeine-fuelled Clif declares ‘I feel like a new man’ after downing a Monster energy drink — Susan deadpans it right back, a running joke ever since she started admiring shirtless workmen back in Melbourne.

Journey’s End – Sydney

• The End — The finish line of the Australian crossing: 4,818 kilometres from Perth, two and a half months on the road, ending with a simple thank you to a country full of wonderfully friendly people.
• The Final Blue Dot — The last blue dot of the whole Australian crossing lands right on Sydney Harbour Bridge — journey’s end.
• Sensational Sydney — Sydney delivers the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge built from British steel, and Bondi Beach, where real men skip the sand and sit under a parasol drinking beer — followed by a couples photo where Susan crops one of them so badly he looks bald.
• The Best Beer in Australia — After three months drinking nothing but Australian beer, Clif delivers a confident, entirely biased verdict: Coopers Pale Ale, the only large Australian-owned brewery left standing.
• We’re Not in Kansas Anymore — Arriving in Christchurch the day after a major earthquake hit, then reflecting on the full Australian crossing — friendly drivers, relentless bush flies, purple beetroot burgers, and the verdict that Australia was easier than the brutal Canada tour that came before it.