A Bike Journey

Adelaide As the second batch of home made pumpkin scones arrived on the table Jenny gently enquired: “So, how long are you guys planning to stay for?” Inhaling his 6th scone, Guy said between mouthfuls: “Ohh about 4 days, we should be good to go by then.” No one said anything, Freddie glanced outside from the comforts of the indoors, the wind howling in the trees. She was thinking what everyone was thinking: 4 days was was just the tip of the iceberg.|| Guy’s sister Justine flew out from Melbourne to visit for a few days, and…

Cycling through the Barossa Valley wine region, we noticed a small creek called Jacob’s Creek. Looking around we saw the famous winery just around the bend. It was too early for the flashy visitor’s centre to open, so we took the opportunity to do a few star jumps instead. ||…

Port Augusta – Adelaide After a rest day in Port Augusta we were soon on our way again, eager to reach Adelaide and see our friends Paul and Jenny as well as Guy’s sister Justine who was planning to fly over from Melbourne for a quick visit. An easier-than-expected 500m climb saw us enter the southern Flinders Ranges, South Australia’s largest mountain range. After spending so much time in the flat centre of Australia, it felt strange to be surrounded by rolling green pastures.|| In the afternoon we dropped down into a valley a…

Coober Pedy – Port Augusta According to our guide book when you arrive in Coober Pedy “you might think you’ve arrived in a post-apocalyptic shithole.” A little harsh perhaps but there is no doubt it is a unique setting packed full of interesting people with only one thing on their mind: Opal.|| With 80% of its residents living in underground dugout homes to escape the heat, and mining equipment littering its dusty streets, Coober Pedy certainly felt a little surreal. Opal fever has seen fortune seekers come from 44 different countries for the past 100 years so it…

Somewhere about a day’s ride before Coober Pedy we watched our 16,000th kilometre tick by on our bike computers. Coober Pedy is known to be Australia’s hottest place where temperatures reach over 50°C in summer and locals live in underground houses to beat the heat. When we arrived, the temperature was 8°C and the storm clouds were just waiting to burst. ||…

Uluru – Coober Pedy Leaving Yulara behind we set off one rainy morning to cycle towards Coober Pedy, some 740km away. To our delight, the winds had switched direction since we arrived and we had a tailwind again, this time pushing us eastwards and away from the still visible landmark of Uluru. For weeks we had been hearing from other campers that the epicentre of the current mouse plague was around Erldunda, the area we were heading towards. Mice had already gnawed several holes into our panniers and we were tired of the additional hassle to make our camp…

Kings Canyon – Uluru After 5 days of cycling with no food resupply we were running on empty so we were hoping for a general store at the Kings Canyon Resort. Unfortunately what greeted us was just a depleted fuel station shop. It was still another 5 days until our next proper supermarket so we made do with an odd assortment of tinned food. Setting up camp in the late afternoon admiring the escarpment of the George Gill range our peace was soon disturbed as we were swopped on by some of the local birdlife intent on taking the bread…

Having just emerged from the Mereenie Loop and 140km of bone jolting corrugated dirt roads, we were feeling good to be back on the smooth tarmac and averaging speeds in the double figures. We came to a conclusion that fully loaded touring and rough dirt roads are a bad combination. ||…

Alice Springs – Kings Canyon There are two options to travel from Alice Springs to Uluru, or “The Rock”: the most popular option is to stay on a tarmac road, then backtrack to the highway with an optional detour to Kings Canyon. The other option is to take the Mereenie Loop road. This is a more scenic 700km route to Uluru taking in Kings Canyon and minimising the amount of backtracking. The catch is that the Mereenie Loop encompasses a 140km unsealed section known for its rough corrugations and sandy creek crossings, really just suitable for 4WD vehicles. This…