The Pilbara was certainly the most productive region for donations, and Cad was accepting hundreds each day from those who stopped along the way, on top of the lucrative fundraising evenings at Eramurra, Karratha and Port Hedland; obviously, a front-page story and photograph in the Pilbara News and a television interview had lifted awareness of who he was and what he was doing. Contrasting that was the fact he felt dreadful, with a bad cough and chest cold, but that didn’t stop him walking a minimum of 40 kilometres a day for twelve of the next thirteen days while the thermometer nudged 40 degrees.
In fact, he took only sixteen days, not the planned eighteen, to get from Roebourne to Broome, thanks to an average of 48 kilometres a day on the logbook and one day off (at the Sandfire roadhouse), making it his most intense period since the Nullarbor. (Mind you, he’d had twenty-one of the previous forty-eight days off since reaching Monkey Mia with Josh.) The blisters on his feet were as bad as they had ever been, and the chafing was back in earnest.
He was physically and mentally shot in the last days before Broome, however the thought of relaxing in Fiji with familiar faces was ample incentive not to slow down. For days he could see storms to the north, and when he finally encountered rain for the first time in about three months he actually rejoiced, standing in the middle of the highway, shirt and shoes discarded, with arms outstretched with his head to the sky, screaming, ‘Yes. Yes! It’s not hot and there are no flies … Yesssssss!’
Andrew decided he’d walk only to the Roebuck Plains roadhouse, which was at the junction of the road to Broome and the Great Northern Highway where it took a right-hand turn towards the Northern Territory. He was done. He’d pushed himself enough. He couldn’t be bothered continuing by foot to Broome and would cover that ‘dog-leg’ on his return.
DAYS 311–314, 2–5 NOVEMBER 2011
REST IN BROOME
Next day Cad was able to get a lift into Broome where he stayed four nights in a backpackers’ hostel, hired a motor scooter and visited the protesters’ blockade at the gas plant. He had a long-overdue haircut, some genuine rest (but also two visits to the gymnasium and a private consultation with a personal trainer about diet and stretching) and some late-night socialising around town with fellow backpackers. He also caught up with his first boss when he was an apprentice carpenter, Phil Browne (father of Steve in Karratha) and his wife, Linda, and son Sean (‘Shug’), who were living in Broome.
He had a good break and was ready for the long journey to Fiji and to be in the midst of family and friends.
Did he rest and recuperate? Not on your life.
DAYS 315–322, 6–13 NOVEMBER 2011
BROOME TO FIJI AND RETURN
One part of Andrew was so glad he went to Fiji for Luke and Kristal’s wedding, to be there for what was a special occasion in a great location, and have a rare catch-up with family. However, another part of him regretted that he’d made a break from his isolated existence, because it made it so much harder to return to walking.
I’m certainly glad he made the effort, because it’s the family’s memory of the last time as a larger group we were with Andrew and was such a special experience for all who were there – even though he was obviously a troubled soul when he arrived.
The sojourn from Broome to the Naviti Resort took twenty-two and a half hours from door to door, including eleven and a half hours of flying time (he had five hours in between flights in Perth, and two and a half hours in Sydney). He was in Fiji for six days, before returning to Broome the day after the wedding, which was held on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 2011.
He arrived in Fiji late in the evening and, incredibly, went straight to the gym when he made it to the Naviti Resort. Next morning he jogged to the Warwick resort and back, a distance of nearly 13 kilometres, a feat he repeated a couple more times before easing down after four alcohol-free days (my guess is that he was back on the antidepressants) and relaxing, even partying a couple of times – too hard, as usual, with cousins and many of the 100 people who had flown in for the wedding. You could tell by looking at him that he benefited from the break, even though it had been such an ordeal to come from so far away.
He caught up with extended family and some friends. He particularly enjoyed seeing his niece and nephew Kayla and Max, whom he’d seen little of, as he was living in England during Kayla’s first eighteen months and Max was only ten months old when he’d started his walk (he was twenty-one months old in Fiji).
It was tougher than any of us realised for him to return to the road. When Cad left the day after the wedding, there were plenty of the family there to say goodbye with handshakes and hugs, but probably not a full sense of how different our paths would be after he was driven away on the coach to the airport.
Cad was not one to show emotion or reveal his inner thoughts readily, so I was surprised, and sad, to find this in his diary: ‘I was pretty gutted I didn’t get to say goodbye to Kayla, Nicole and Glenn. I saw Max for the last time at brekkie and saw Nicole at brekkie as well but didn’t say goodbye, I thought she’d be up [at the reception area as he departed; unfortunately, the kids were asleep in the room and she’d looked for Andrew earlier]. I said goodbye to Mum and Dad and got on the coach. They stood on the top of the stairs waving. I don’t think they could see me through the glass. The bus pulled away and I had tears dripping off my chin – fucking hell, what a mess. I wasn’t blubbering or making a sound, just had the waterworks going. It’s official right there and then, I’m over it. I didn’t want to go back to Broome and start walking.’ Then he started stressing about having to do a shop and organise people to drop food parcels at roadhouses for him, and about the heat and humidity he would soon encounter.
After an overnight stop in Sydney with his good mate Todd Bailey, Andrew left for Perth the following evening, hopping on a connecting flight to Broome. He was back in one of the harshest yet most beautiful corners of the world.
And back to cruel reality.
10
THE KILLER KIMBERLEY
When Andrew returned from Fiji he should have been refreshed. He wasn’t, despite the obvious benefit of a week’s break from the monotonous and relentless existence since Josh had left him sixty-six days and 1934 kilometres before Broome.
Mentally, to have seen family and friends and to have withdrawn from the torturous daily routine of walking in the heat, humidity and plagues of flies was good for him. But physically, he couldn’t bring himself to slow down. His jogs between the Naviti and Warwick resorts, where Katherine, whom he’d befriended in the bus from the airport, was staying with her family, gym sessions and a couple of late nights socialising on top of the arduous travel schedule that covered 19,000 kilometres by six planes and two buses hardly provided the respite his body needed.
After his return to the far north-west of the country, he stayed two days in Broome to prepare himself for the toughest part of his walk, the Kimberley Ranges – 1013 kilometres across the breadth of Western Australia from just east of Broome, which is 19 degrees south of the equator, through to Kununurra at 15.77 degrees south – during November and December, the hottest two months of the year.
It was the start of the ‘big wet’, the cyclone season. The coolest temperature roadside would have been 36 degrees Celsius. Records showed the average maximum daily temperature at the weather recording stations in the region were was 40.7 at Fitzroy Crossing (airport) in November 2011, and 39.8 at Warmun in December. You could safely raise that by four or five degrees along the edge of the highway, with the heat bouncing off the bitumen like a furnace. It was madness.
The temperature and humidity increased the further north he travelled. The Bureau of Meteorology recorded average mean temperatures of 34 to 40.4 degrees Celsius for all but one day (down to 30.5) in the region during the time Andrew was there (plus high humidity). And they were mean temperatures; the maximum daily heat levels would have been somewhat more. Many people stopped to tell him their car thermometers recorded 45-degree heat o
utside their air-conditioning.
Add to the climactic conditions the isolation, and Cad knew it was the leg that would make him or break him – or at least crush his spirit and suck all the life out of his body. To be frank, it was a crazy thing to do; he was putting his life in danger.
Somehow he found the focus and physical capability to walk over 1000 kilometres in twenty-seven days before having two days off in Kununurra. He averaged 45.5 kilometres each full day he walked (there were twenty-two of them) in the searing heat. Simply unbelievable!
This was without doubt the most poignant part of his trek in that it tested his body and mind more than any other leg, causing him to dig deep to see what was inside him in circumstances he had never before encountered in his thirty years. In several interviews he did during and after the trek, he said the Kimberley was the toughest leg; I can still vividly see him relay that quite nonchalantly to David Koch on national television on the Sunrise program the day after he’d reached the finish line.
Yet it was only when I read his diary notes that I fully comprehended what he went through. We’ll pick up the journey from outside Broome, just over ten and a half months since he took off from Sydney the day after Boxing Day 2010.
DAY 323, 14 NOVEMBER 2011
ROEBUCK ROADHOUSE TO EAST (26 KM)
The day I am about to describe, almost totally in Andrew’s words, best captures the most hellish personal challenge he was about to endure, yet somehow overcome. It shows the enormity of the physical and mental pressure he had inflicted on himself by a combination of not preparing his trip well enough, leaving at the wrong time of year and going in the wrong direction, and the delays – a crook leg in Tasmania, socialising for weeks in Melbourne and Perth, and on the leg from Perth to Broome, plus attending two weddings because he would not break commitments. The greatest impact of that – the harsh weather at the start of the wet season in Australia’s Top End – were about to haunt him.
It started on a Tuesday when Sean Browne gave him a lift to the Roebuck roadhouse, 30 kilometres north-east of Broome. They enlisted a local Aboriginal man to help unload Redge from the ute, and the guy told Andrew the location of an unmarked waterhole about 90 kilometres east of Fitzroy Crossing and 270 kilometres from Roebuck. But before diving in for a refreshing swim, the man warned Cad that he had to find a rock, put it under his armpit, rub it on his arm then throw it in the water, otherwise he might be bitten by a snake. It was one of the many traditional Aboriginal beliefs that he would learn about. Cad then found a passing plumber to take his food parcel through to Fitzroy Crossing.
He was given a fairly confronting indication of what lay ahead when he walked over to talk to a cyclist, who, riding in from the other direction, had hurriedly walked into the roadhouse store.
‘I had a good chat with old mate [the cyclist] about all the things to come and it sounded dire. He told me about bulls and water buffalo on the roads and storms and bullshit heat and humidity. He was from Darwin and he said it’s so much worse near Kununurra. He had been flogging himself from four in the morning for two weeks, riding up to 200 and something kilometres a day to get south and out of the heat. He said he was just getting smashed and there were hills coming. He said it was so stale with no wind and he was drinking twelve-plus litres of water a day … we exchanged info about gear, as you do. He said he needed a pop-up tent because the ground is so hard he had no chance getting pegs in.
‘He headed to Broome and I sat there eating and sculling water and procrastinating for another couple of hours until about 11 or 11.30. I had forgotten to get new wheels and, upon further investigation, found mine were fucked. I rang the bike shop {in Broome] and am getting them to order some and send them through to Halls {Creek] – it might be two weeks, ’cos they have to get them shipped in from Melbourne … what a hassle.
‘Five kilometres up the road and I was instantly wet from head to toe, it was the worst day since Lavers Hill {in South Australia]. I was already dripping with sweat sitting in the shade at the roadhouse, it was ridiculous. I stopped a million times trying to fix the front wheel and arms. It was heavy and had been lifted in and out of Shug’s ute and now the steering is stuffed. I was hating it, every step was an effort. I walked for what seemed like an eternity and freaked out when I turned around and could still see the roadhouse sign.
‘A storm brewed up within an hour … the red dirt on the side of the road had turned to slush and made it a boggy nightmare every time a car came and I had to get off the road. A lady pulled over with a wet car to warn me there’s bad weather ahead.
‘The landscape was distinctly different. It was a lot greener and more trees and not as scrubby, more termite mounds were appearing. There were cicadas filling the air with their noise, competing with the distant rumbling of thunder that never seems to stop. No sooner had the last storm passed that another was brewing to the north-east. Again a bit of rain, but this time I called its bluff and didn’t get changed.
‘I kept forgetting to drink water and would find myself stumbling along until I felt sick or exhausted from dehydration and heat exhaustion. The “sip a song” had gone right out the window. I was giving myself the shits and kept yelling out loud, “C’mon, sip a song” [his plan to have a sip of water at the end of each song on his iPod]. I had to take an hour for lunch under a tree to rehydrate. I left feeling better but just did it again an hour later; I need to get back on my A-game. I sat there at lunch with the sweat literally pouring out my chest, neck and forehead. I stopped bothering to wipe it away because it would constantly flood out again, and that’s sitting in the shade.
‘I started to seriously doubt for the first time of my capabilities of being able to make Darwin let alone continue in this shit. I finally see what everyone was on about and I know it’s only just begun. It’s not that I didn’t believe them; it’s just that until you experience it for yourself you can’t even imagine how bad it is. I bumbled along until I finally got some reprieve about 5 pm, when the temp dropped and breeze appeared as the third storm brewed.
‘I was fucked. I had bad chafing – I’d felt it all day but hadn’t bothered to do anything about it. I stopped under a tree and checked it out – it was bad and the skin was broken which means the 3B [cream] is no good. I cleaned it up and sat there naked trying to air it out. The conditions were only just favourable to do some walking and I really needed to do some kilometres or I wouldn’t make the next roadhouse and would run out of food and water. But I had made the decision to stop and sort my chaffing or it would be the end of me. I cleaned it up and covered it with Savlon, I’d tried every which cream but old Lofty was right, Savlon was the best – I should have listened to old fisherman in the first place above anyone else.’
The state of both the weather and his body became an almost daily ordeal for the next forty-one days. But he kept on keeping on the highway and his mission not to give in.
As the wind began to howl he hurriedly found a rock and smashed in his tent pegs to set up camp. He realised he’d forgotten to pack cans of fruit and vegetables so he had rice and tuna. He then discovered he’d forgotten to put in his towel and half of his underpants, presumably leaving them on the clothes line at the backpackers’ hostel in Broome. Then he ran out of Savlon cream.
He didn’t require sleeping pills to drop off, so exhausted was he, but woke at least five times and each time sculled more water, utterly dehydrated. And this was just the first day of what was the toughest period of his walk!
DAY 324, 16 NOVEMBER 2011
TOWARDS WILLARE BRIDGE (50 KM)
Cad’s alarm went off at 4 am; he wanted to beat the heat for a few hours. But after doing a workout and getting organised, it was almost 7 am by the time he hit the road. He was dripping with sweat just minutes into walking, before a headwind, which he usually dreaded, gave him some relief. He telephoned the bike shop at Broome and was stoked that his wheels had been sent and the cost was only $95 for three, although he was affronted that the guy at the bi
ke shop thought he was the Stormtrooper. ‘Shit I hate that guy,’ Cad recorded, in reference to the persistent mistaken identity occurrences he’d had to endure. He was referring to Jacob French, a twenty-one-year-old who at that time was walking the 5000 kilometres across Australia from Perth to Sydney dressed as a stormtrooper character from the Star Wars movies while raising money for the Starlight Children’s Foundation (he completed his trek in nine months).
A diary entry gave an insight into how Cad was toying with cutting corners but just couldn’t bring himself to cheat. ‘I spoke to Steve [Parkin] and Dela [Matt Delaney] while at the servo and was whingeing how I was over it and I think I’ll just walk the shortest way straight home. But then this morning I was thinking, “This is about Simmo and the Leukaemia Foundation as well now.” I don’t know what to do. I just need to keep off the piss and keep on the move and hurry up.’
A woman called Kim in a 4ØD pulled over and invited Andrew to dinner that evening at their home further along the highway. He thought he was walking into another storm but it turned south and cooled the afternoon down – to 37 degrees! He was just about to give up on finding Kim’s place when he saw it at the 50-kilometre mark for the day. Kim’s husband, Rob, had the contract for roadworks with Derby Council and the house was their base during the months they worked in the region. Cad was overjoyed at the prospect of a shower and a dinner of lamb shanks, vegetables and mash (with Rob, Kim, their daughter and some workers), and having Rob fix the bracket on his wheel the next morning before writing a cheque for $300 to the Leukaemia Foundation.
DAY 325, 17 NOVEMBER 2011
TO WILLARE BRIDGE ROADHOUSE (55 KM)
Cad woke at 4.40 am and was on the road an hour later after breakfast. He wrote: ‘I stopped 3 kilometres up the road and literally wrung my shirt out. I sat under a tree in disbelief. I would wipe the sweat from my forehead, chest and stomach and count to twenty-two seconds before it was flooding again. I stopped bothering to wipe sweat from my eyes; the time it took to take my fly net and sunnies off outweighed the time it would take to fill back up. I just kept trying to blink it out. All day the sun was nailing me but there was no use trying to use sunscreen because it would just sweat off. I had to put my orange hat on and close the flaps around my chin but it made it ten times worse. I saw my first boab tree in the bush, three of them next to each other. Nothing to get excited about because after those three there were hundreds.’
With Every Step Page 16