Interlude in the Pilbara 05/12/2013
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, camping, dampier, pilbara
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After nine days of cycling I found myself staring at maps more than the world around me. It was time for a break, time for a town wedged between iron ore and the foamy sands of the Indian Ocean.
Nothing much happens in Dampier but there always seems to be something going on. I’m the local vagrant, camping on the beach, sipping coffee in the salty air of paradise.
I sit here barefoot and watch the ships glide past. The tides come and they go, leaving in their wake something that has never come easily to me. Contentment.
This is the first town in Australia that I well and truly adore. Part of me wants to stay, but when I turn over my calloused hands I know I’m not the type.
Lately I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a trip at all. It has no real purpose and certainly no direction. Maybe this is my life, and maybe, just maybe, it’s all I ever wanted.
Sunset in Dampier, WA
The Theory of Zero 05/05/2013
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, great northern highway
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My nephew is something of a free thinker. After acing all his arithmetic tests he one day decided to answer every question with a zero. His approach saved time, he explained, and logically he was bound to be correct sooner or later.
His teacher may have been unimpressed, but I for one quite like the Theory of Zero.
For four days I’ve been cycling mean country. The highway runs dagger straight past cracked riverbeds and trees that have long since lost hope of rain. They bend to the dusty red soil, parched and splintered, waiting for the mercy of a spark.
I pedal on.
The sun seems to pulsate in a cloudless sky. It scatters every living creature save the wedge-tailed eagles that circle endlessly above. They land only to pick the bones of a kangaroo rotting on the road, shooting piercing glances when I cover my mouth.
I pedal on.
A raging headwind slows my bike to a walking pace. Beside me a wreathed cross peers from the yellow grass of the ditch. A faded teddy bear and some empty beer cans honor someone who should have worn a seat belt nine years ago.
I pedal on.
Then suddenly it all changes. I look up and find myself in an endless pasture. The highway vanishes over the horizon like a bridge in a sea of gold. A butterfly floats past, catching on its wings a sun setting in a thousand shades of orange.
The smell of cool earth fills my lungs and I’m reminded of home, of beautiful Saskatchewan.
And til tomorrow, I pedal no more.
Near Sandfire, WA
That Dempster feeling 05/02/2013
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, derby, gibb river road, repairs
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So I didn’t take the Great Northern Highway. I shrugged at the junction and disappeared down a cattle trail instead.
It took me nine days to ride the Gibb River Road – 670 km of rock, sand and corrugations that rattled every bolt in my bike. I shredded my tires twice and broke five screws in my pannier racks. Even my shoes fell apart. And I loved it.
It reminded me of another road, the first of this long journey. There the only sounds were bugs, birds and the slow crunch of gravel beneath my feet. I lived on creek water and sunshine, slept beneath tender stars. I was never better than in the Territories.
The feeling faded over time, maybe from age or the weary cynicism of travel. I thought it was gone forever, that this was a fool’s errand. I went mad trying to find it again, when all the time I only had to stop. Breathe. Let it tap me on the shoulder.
It has, and I aim to savor it.
The endless state 04/22/2013
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, great northern highway, kununurra, northern territory, victoria highway
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No doubt better minds than my own have found eloquence in the beauty of Western Australia’s Kimberley Region. The perfect words are beyond me. I just wander around gaping, whispering their four-lettered step children.
This place is empty and immaculate. Road signs are flecked with bullet holes, exclamation points on the futility of regulating a place so impossibly vast. Yet there is something to be found, and the more I stare at the sky, at the red grains between my feet, the more it looks like home.
Tomorrow I set off down the Great Northern Highway. For now, let me share the road behind.
Outback 04/15/2013
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, darwin, katherine, northern territory, stuart highway, victoria highway
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Though I enjoyed my time in Darwin, I never shook the idea that my being there was somehow strange. My body seemed to understand what my mind could not, like restless shoulders in a sweater worn backwards.
Leaving Darwin
Now that I’m gone, I think I know why. Darwin is a frontier town – it begins where bush land ends. The people I met there came not to start journeys but to end them. They were settling down, or perhaps just settling.
And like all great ends of the line, the city gives its arrivals exactly what they want – a place to get stupendously drunk.
Tourists come like autumn leaves, cartwheeling between pubs in brilliant colour. After the bell sounds last call, when the lights come up and the brooms come out, you’ll find them with the rest of the season’s casualties, face down in the gutter.
Revelry is no sin, but it wasn’t mine to share. My passion is different. It gives me butterflies and echoes like a first love in every cell worth feeling. Sometimes it stops in my throat, scares me to death, afraid that its vast aching wonders will sweep over me, drowned and delirious.
Wallaby near Hayes Creek
And for some reason I need to ride a bicycle to find it. So I do.
After Darwin I cycled through forests of shocking green, under cockatoos and kookaburras laughing in time.
Further south, the ground gave way to stunted scrub and air so dry you’d swear the grasshoppers would turn to dust.
The road followed rail to the bulging horizon, blasting through red rock and bridging foul rivers. Wallabies sprang through the mornings while dingoes left tracks, too smart to be seen.
On the fourth day I neared Katherine, where I’ll leave the Stuart Highway and turn west onto the Victoria.
The road to Western Australia
Lining the approach were tracts of native grasses fed by the departed monsoons. In a few weeks they will be flattened by wind or fire, but now they stand taller than man, lush and obstinate.
I left my bike to walk beside them, sliding their stalks along my fingertips. The husks opened, allowing their seeds to nestle in the hair of my arm.
I just stood there connected, waiting for the warmth of another scattering wind.
Of oatmeal and itchy feet 04/10/2013
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, darwin, northern territory
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I’ve got a three-week beard and nothing else to do. Tomorrow I wander.
Northern Territory crossroads
Darwin was my home for eighteen months and in some ways I’ll miss it. This was my reprieve after the grind through Asia. It gave me familiar faces, food in the fridge and even a bit of money in my back pocket.
But fond memories are a poor excuse to stay. There’s one road out of Darwin and I need to take it.
I’m desperate to see red earth, to stand in the middle of nowhere and know I’ve arrived. I want to squint and spit with old cattlemen, to hear the floorboards in dusty roadhouses, to sleep beneath the Southern Cross and give thanks for all I don’t understand.
Mostly I need to leave someone behind.
The kid who left the Arctic in 2009 will go no further. He was more ego than experience, begging for joy and misery without being prepared for either. He thrilled for a fight, always ready to test himself against an invisible hand. He could do anything, never knowing that sometimes he shouldn’t.
I’ve outgrown that person, this city. I’ll leave them quietly and without regret, taking with me the small wisdom of knowing what I seek.
And tonight, as the road curves over the horizon like the end of a beautiful question, I smile and wonder if I haven’t found it already.
The sun and the moon and the Earth 11/13/2012
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, darwin, eclipse, northern territory
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This morning there was a partial eclipse as the sun rose over the Darwin Waterfront. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just beautiful.
Sunrise in Darwin
♪ Show me that smile again . . . ♪ 11/12/2012
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, darwin, northern territory
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My last post wasn’t “dark.” It was honest and it took me a year to write it.
I’ve had some hard times. Mountains I wasn’t ready to climb. But I’m not slinging my belt over the rafters. I’m not washing wine bottles with my tears. Relax. To my final breath, to my last monotone syllable, I will always be hopeful.
I hate what was because I can’t have it again. What will be always takes my breath away. Tomorrow is the best day and I’m not sorry for it.
Lately Darwin is amazing. There is no winter. Perfect sunsets fall through my window. I can walk two minutes and catch fish from the bay. Nobody asks how I got here.
I’ll be back on the road soon enough. I only want my mind to be ready when I go, because I know the chance won’t come again.
Please excuse the growing pains.
Shake the dust 11/10/2012
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia, darwin
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My time in Australia began with a thud. After a red eye from Bali, I stumbled as far as the Darwin terminal and woke up with my face on the carpet, my bike still in a box.
I needed some time to rest my legs, I said. I’m still here a year later.
I know one thing for certain after my travels: Solitude is great for a weekend of Zen and granola. Talk to yourself for two years and you’ll fuck your brain.
I’ve always been shy and distant, but whatever happened between here and home popped some screws. All I got from my first six months in Darwin were panic attacks.
Sometimes I think I traveled the world only to acquire a very suburban, white-person problem. Anxiety is an amorphous nothing, and I laugh at it when the bottle is half full. The rest of the time it terrifies me.
It comes out of nowhere. Everything buzzes like some sort of awful hyper-reality. I feel like puking but I’m sure I’m going to die. All I want to do is flee -point the bike anywhere and keep going.
Old habits. From good or bad, I always run eventually. But this time I was too stubborn, or maybe just too tired or stupid.
I hardly cycled in the last year. I wrote nothing. Until recently I hadn’t even looked at the road behind me. I stayed and tried to make peace.
If that’s not the answer, then it has to be close. I used to have freak-outs every day. Then every few weeks, now every month or so. That’s good enough for me.
There’s a chance I could stay here for a few more years. Last December I got a job and could barely handle the stress of mopping floors. Now I manage a Lodge for tan-lined tourists and my boss wants to sponsor me.
I might stay.
If the paperwork falls through, I’ll grab my holey shoes and bike to Tasmania. And I’ll finally know it takes more than rice to keep me going.
Darwin at 30 05/09/2012
Posted by mikeonbike in cycling, travel.Tags: australia
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Thank you for the many wondering messages. I haven’t been hit by a bus, not pushing a shopping cart, waving to every Jesus I meet. I’m in Australia and can’t be asked to explain myself.
I’m working. Dinner from a plate, wine from my fingers. I’ll bike home, but right now I’m not interested in either. All kinds of time.
Here’s one for the meanwhile . . .
