Day 33 137 days to go. Distance: yesterday 121km today 100km total 2339km. It’s 7.30pm Wednesday 8/8/12 Larimah. The last couple of days have simply been awesome!!!! As we were heading from Newcastle waters we met Helen traveling with her husband and both in their early 90’s. Sadly it’s their last trip as Helen’s hubby suffers from alzheimer’s and not traveling well anymore with Helen having to do all the driving. She was a real character and cracked herself up saying, ‘I could just drive between our two favourite rest areas and he’d think we’re somewhere new each day.’ The strength in a sense of humor 101 hey?’ I will remember Helen.
Down the road a bit was a monument erected in memory of Sir Charles Todd who lead the construction of the epic ‘Overland Telegraph Line’ completed in 1892 linking Darwin to Adelaide. There was an original telegraph pole still standing there. While Rube and I stopped for a cuppa two lads pulled up from Slovenia. They had hired a campervan for 1500 euros for 5 weeks sharing the costs. Later that morning I met two cyclists about 20km apart. Jonas is from Switzerland and is cycling clockwise from Melbourne. He’s beelining it back now before his visa runs out but when completed will have coverd over 18000km wow!!!! He was all blonde hair and beard, so skinny and stinky and a peddling smile promising to be back to do it all over again he’s loved it so much. The next lad was from Japan cycling from Darwin to Sydney and learning how to tour as he goes. He called himself an ‘amateur’ unlike Jonas ahead of him who was clearly his hero. I got cool photos with the lads. At the 82km mark I stopped in at Dunmarra Roadhouse and met the coolest gorgeous young man from Czech Republic. Igor is 32 years old and has been in Australia for 11 years based in Sydney. He’s been working a handful of different jobs the last with an adult education company offering alternative medicine qualifications. He’s on a quest to figure out how life may look bringing together his passion for self sustaining, community based living, meditation and facilitating life long learning skills. His family are across Australia and back home and he wants to share his time across the two countries. Igor will become an Australian citizen in the near future and he can’t think of a better way to express his love for Australia than by cycling around it. He hopes to be back in Sydeney by early October and is raising money for ‘Bikes for Humanity.’ This organisation rebuilds second hand bikes and sends them to Africa and teaches the local communities bike repairs to build local skills and industry. Him and I will be traveling the same way now through to then and although we’re traveling a bit differently I hope to see more of him along the way. He said he loves both Australia’s wide open spaces and Czech’s pebble lane ways. Igor headed back on the road while I got to talking to some other lads at the roadhouse. I met Rick from Tenant Creek who’s traveling with the Moscow Circus as an electrician. His van has a buffalo skull on the front bumper which has been painted by an indigenous artist called ‘Boulders’ based at the Thirsty Lizard Hotel at Pine Creek. Rick said make sure I go in and introduce myself as Boulders is one interesting, talented man and he knows him well. I gotta picky with him to show Boulders. It’ll be very cool if this works out !!! A group of roadwork lads stopped for a chat and offered us a lift to the Daley Waters Pub where they were staying. We resisted the tempting offer and got back on the road. About 5km outside of Daley Waters Igor came running out of the bush where he had found a bush camp for the night. He invited Rube and I to join him. He was soooo sweet showing us into his camp like it was his home and he was having guests. He then cooked us a dinner of vegy canned meat, garlic, onions, tomato in a miso soup as a stock and mixed with two minute noodles. Yuuuuuuummmmmyyy!!! We talked and talked and talked and soon felt like old friends discussing the coolest of stuff around shared interests, philosophies and directions in life. I like this lad bigtime big. He is very unique and passionate particulalrly about self sustaining concepts. He hopes to study more about Cuba who are apparently regarded as world leaders in these oncepts being forced into managing their own industries when they were cut off from the rest of the world. Interesting interesting stuff and man. I loved sharing the bush camp experience with him and the camp was alive with stars and critters and good company. Big special fun. We picked up talking this morning where we finished last night making it a later start. Igor usually starts before dawn and stops during the heat of the day then does 40km or so over sunset. He reckons it’s such a beuaitful time to cycle and it must be. We headed off together this morning and were soon stopped by a couple who passed me before Mt Isa and wanted to make a donation. Thank you Ian your $20 for stopping and for your $20 generosity. At Daley Waters we met heaps of lovely folk all so friendly and interested in what we were doing. We watered and lollied up and headed off again for the day’s ride. We travel different speeds so I was soon peddling again enjoying the ride with Rube. Black cockatoo’s are a new addition to the birdlife and in huge numbers flashing yellow and red under their wings when we disturb them. Usually they mean rain is coming but there’s no sign or forecast of our skies being anything but beautifully blue for the time being.
I try to wave at every van, truck and car that passes except if I’m adjusting my backside then Rube does the honors. We have a wave for each type and I love making the effort as there’s so many folk we see again who comment about getting a wave from us. It’s good karma!!!! It was a shorter day today pulling into the Pink Panther Hotel and Campgrounds at Larimah around 4.00pm ish. There was still plenty of sun to do our washing and have a good scrub squeeky clean again. Bob the manager let us stay as a freebie and we got donations from Julie ($30) and Dave ($10) visiting the pub. Julie’s the posty at Port Lincoln South Australia, and said we can contact her for any help when we’re down that that way. Have I told you how much I’m in love with the kindness of people. It takes so little and goes so far and is a two way spiral up of good stuff that counts big.
At Larimah we also met two Japanese cyclists who stopped on their way through and Igor who needed a beer to cool down before his evening ride to find a bush camp. We hope to meet up a Mataranka tomorrow to enjoy the Bitter Springs which are suppose to be very spesh yaya. Time for dinner now and a reasonaly early night. Fundraising totals today are $869.35 with 32 oaths in 33days. Talk soon x
shecyclesolo 