With Every Step

by Cadigan, Neil;

  As soon as Andrew reached the highway early next morning, he saw a big cardboard box and three large containers of water on the side of the road – the woman at the roadhouse had come good after all. After emptying the water into his bottles, he’d suddenly gone from one extreme to the other – he had forty-five litres, plus plenty of food.

  He was extremely fortunate that the goods had been delivered as six hours later he’d walked 30 kilometres and not one car had stopped, meaning dehydration would have been a very serious issue. He was in bed at 7.30 pm and didn’t wake until 5.30 am – ten hours straight sleep, probably an overnight record since before Perth.

  As Andrew reached Halls Creek, he came across five policemen having a break outside the bakery and stopped to say hello. He was amused to find that the copper had put the radar on him and clocked him walking at 5 kilometres an hour. He went to the post office to pick up new tyres and the battery-operated fan I’d sent up, headed to the caravan park and had his first shower for seven days. Smelling like roses, he did his washing, had dinner, answered a heap of emails and text messages and completed his diaries. Fortunately, Sheena, a traveller he met overnight, agreed to take a food parcel and meet him at a rest area 100 kilometres ahead in three days.

  So much for a day off on average every four days. Cad had had one ‘lay day’ in thirteen, but the afternoon in Halls Creek, after he’d had to cover only 12 kilometres to reach town that morning, was certainly a welcome break.

  DAYS 340–342, 1–3 DECEMBER 2011

  HALLS CREEK TO ARGYLE MINE (132 KM)

  When he went to get his clothes off the clothes lines, Cad found a $20 pair of Nike socks had been stolen – the pitfalls of caravan park clothes drying, unfortunately. He had further frustration in not being able to get the iPod I’d sent up to work, but after calling me to see if there were any instructions and consulting the iTunes website with no joy, he worked out that he had to drag two fingers over the screen instead of one.

  As he walked through town, Cad again tried to endear himself to the locals, which he assumed was not usual behaviour for tourists. ‘I said hello to a few old Indigenous, and judging by their surprised reactions, I’m going to assume that the white minority here don’t bother saying hi much. I caught a couple of old ducks by surprise when I stopped and said hi, there were big smiles and “Oh, hello there”. Yesterday I spoke to at least a dozen blackfellas about my trip and stuff, and they love it and come over and see what I’m up to. One old boy with an Akubra hat and a white beard pulled his four-wheel drive over and crossed the road to say hello, shake my hand and say, “You have a good walk,” while his wife waved from the passenger seat. That’s not the case with the whites here – they just walk past with a bemused smirk on their faces. I always say hello when they’re staring at me but my greetings are rarely reciprocated.’

  When Andrew starting walking at 10 am the temperature was already 38 degrees. Thunder started at 2 pm, black clouds rolled in and Cad observed he wasn’t going to miss this storm. A strong wind blew up from behind and he had to strap down the solar panel to stop it blowing away. He observed: ‘The wind was getting so strong I could hardly walk in it. With no real warning it went from spitting to pissing down and I put my booties on and was just in board shorts. But the wind changed to the west and was whipping the rain in so hard sideways it felt like hail, it really stung. It got a bit crazy so I had to point Redge into it and huddle behind it. I was freezing and shivering and I couldn’t believe how much the temp dropped. A car slowed as it passed then stopped and reversed. She wound down her window and said in a concerned voice, “Are you alright?” “Yeah, I’m walking around Oz.” “That’s the worst storm I have ever driven in in my life,” she said. I thought, “You should try walking in it.” I told her I was okay and battled on.

  ‘I put a shirt on so the rain didn’t hurt so much but I had to retire behind some trees and resume my huddling position. I squatted and sat there with my knees cramping and shivering. I stared into the trees across the road thrashing around in the violent winds and thought to myself, “What are you doing here, you don’t want to be here, just go home!” The sun poked its head out about 5 to 5.30 pm – it was the first time I had wished for sun in a while. I dried off and got changed and then it started raining lightly again. It rained until I was asleep.’

  Next day was the first day of summer and he walked until after dark but pitched his tent and was asleep, exhausted, by 8 pm. Cad was up at 4.30 am without having to use an alarm clock and on the road at 7 am, into a headwind as usual, and was so exhausted he reckons he only had ‘half a go’ and was ‘gutted’ that he’d only walked 35 kilometres by 3 pm. He felt he’d stacked too much food so ate a mango, two kiwifruit, an orange and five bananas and tried sunflower kernels (for the first time in his life, no doubt). While walking, he finished the audio book The Search for Al tueda. Cad had an enormous appetite for world affairs, history and politics, and said, ‘I learned a lot about a lot, from Saudi finding oil to the India–Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, and a lot about Middle Eastern history dating back to the Crusades.’ Then he returned to his Spanish lessons for the last couple of hours.

  Andrew was also stalked by three wild horses for a while, which really unnerved him, then some sort of bird of prey taunted him for ages. Imagine being out in the wilderness by yourself in stifling heat battling psychological demons as well as the weather, totally exhausted from so long on the road and then being confronted by these wild beasts. ‘[The bird] flew ahead and landed in the middle of the road and sat on the lines until I got close and then it would take off and hover in the wind and then fly ahead and wait for me to catch up. It did it at least seven or eight times. It was weird – maybe it had babies in a nest and was luring me away, although I haven’t seen or heard any baby birds and I doubt it’s that time with the wet approaching.’

  He’d hoped to log 55 kilometres in the day, but as dark clouds rolled in and it started to spit with rain, he hastily retreated to a small dirt patch twenty metres off the highway and made it his home for the night. ‘I knew dirt meant ants but I didn’t care … I spoke to the big pile of black ants congregating around their nest. “Okay, guys, I’m only here for one night. I won’t piss you off if you don’t piss me off. Have we got a deal?” I find myself talking to the flies a lot these days as well, instead of stressing out I tend to take a calmer approach and say, “C’mon, mate, leave me alone, just get on my back with your mates otherwise I’m going to have to squash you.”’ The lecture didn’t work on the flying ants, which infiltrated his food; he had to pick at least forty out of his dinner.

  During the night, Andrew woke in a heap of sweat to a gale-force wind, so got up to push his pegs in deeper with a rock and piled rocks on top to make them more secure; he also dug a channel for the oncoming rain.

  At least he saw what he described as the best light show of his life. ‘One straight big bolt had about six arms coming off it half way down and shooting back into the clouds. I woke up at 1 am to World War III – the thunder was deafening, it rattled my bones. The wind was pushing the side of the tent in so far I thought the poles were going to break, water was pissing in the ceiling because the fly-sheet and tent was being pressed together. I woke up to water dripping on my head. I quickly rounded everything together and stuffed what I could into wet bags.’ He was up at dawn to examine the puddles of water inside the tent but packed up everything wet and muddy and battled on.

  He passed the Ord River, the first waterway he’d seen flowing since the west coast of Western Australia. It was early in the wet season and he’d encountered no great rain, so most of the rivers or creeks he’d previously passed were well below full whereas the Ord feeds from the damned Lake Argyle, so is always flowing. The Kimberley region comes alive in so many ways in the wet season (November to March) when 90 per cent of its annual rainfall comes (over 750 millimetres in the four months) but for Andrew this meant he was likely to encounter ferocious thunderstorms but little passing
traffic as tourists are far more common in the dry season. The people in an old bus who he had arranged to carry his water pulled up, but his supply was fine and he told them take it to the next roadhouse at Turkey Creek. He walked until midday when he stopped for lunch, only to be confronted by an unexpected visitor.

  ‘I sat down and got some food out when I heard a bull making noises. I’ve got to know this noise well, they are always carrying on at night when I’m in my tent, I don’t think they like the speakers as they usually shut up when I turn the music off to sleep. I had my back to them and yelled out, “Yeah, yeah, tough guy, give it a rest,” then turned around and there were about thirty cows and two bulls walking towards me, not in a bunch but spread out in a line. I turned my music off and turned around to face them. They stopped about forty metres away and formed into a bunch and all stared at me.’ Andrew flapped his arms and yelled but that only encouraged the two bulls to smash their horns together as if they were about to attack him. He quickly packed up and walked to the other side of the road looking for a tree, but the landscape was bare so the advice he’d received to climb up a tree was rendered useless. ‘My mind was racing for a plan B but nothing. I didn’t look at him [the black bull] except out the corner of my eye and when I passed I used my [rear-vision] mirror to keep an eye on him. My heart was racing, I’m not looking forward to the water buffalos.’

  Soon after he saw three brown horses with white blazes, which seemed identical to ones he saw late in the day two days earlier, and he thought surely they could not have travelled the 70 kilometres, or maybe they did. They charged towards him, stopping about twenty metres away, and as Cad reached for his camera to get a shot a car towing a caravan came past and scared them away.

  His day of walking ended after he trekked through some magnificent red mountains and gorges – the best scenery of the trip so far, he reckoned – while enjoying an audio book on WikiLeaks. A young bloke called Andrew arrived to give him a pre-arranged lift to the Argyle diamond mine camp to stay the night. (Cad did not record when or how this was arranged; I imagine while he was at Halls Creek.) He was treated like a celebrity, which he thought was amusing, and stuck to his commitment not to have a drink but mingled with the miners, who raised $920 for the Leukaemia Foundation.

  DAYS 343–348, 4–9 DECEMBER 2011 REST DAY AT ARGYLE DIAMOND MINE, THEN TO KUNUNURRA (231 KM)

  After gorging himself on food for two nights and a day (‘I have no self-control in joints like this’), Cad was given a lift back to where he’d finished walking and resumed his Oz On Foot mission. He’d done the 30 kilometres to Turkey Creek by lunchtime.

  I’d suggested he do a helicopter ride from Turkey Creek over the Bungle Bungle Range, which I had done five years earlier, and I’d shout him as a Christmas gift, but typically Cad wouldn’t slow down long enough for such a treat. It was a pity as it is an absolutely breathtaking experience. He also knocked back a free night in a donga with dinner there too and instead picked up his food dropped off at Turkey Creek by yet another traveller by request and pressed on to make an impression on the 190-odd kilometres to the next town, Kununurra. He lasted for another ten kilometres until dark came.

  A 60-kilometre day by foot in these conditions the next day was a phenomenal effort. He hadn’t been on the road long when the driver of a road train pulled over and offered him a Powerade and a $20 donation. He said his name was Robbo and Andrew described him as ‘your average-looking truck driver – big guy, tattoos and a beard. He was a good bloke, he was driving a four-bucket road train taking iron ore from the mine I passed yesterday arvo to Wyndham port. They do two loads a day for a week, then a week of nights, then a week off. He said he grew up at South West Rocks [on the New South Wales North Coast], where he did his electrical apprenticeship and now lives at Wyndham.’ When Cad reached the next roadhouse, the manager gave him $20 with a note that read: ‘for the walking guy – from Robbo’. She said it was to buy food and drinks.

  After a seventy-five-minute break he plugged on until 9 pm, when some locals stopped to chat and asked him if he’d seen any snakes or ghosts, to which Andrew asked, ‘Are there ghosts around?’ ‘Yeah, blackfella ghosts,’ came the reply. They informed him there was a rest area 20 kilometres ahead, so he decided to go for broke to reach it so he had a decent campsite. Along the way, another group of Aboriginals pulled up to let him know the rest area wasn’t far but to be careful of water buffalos and snakes, and that there were cane toads all over the road nearer to Kununurra. All the while lightning and thunder was raging around him. The woman asked if he’d seen a scrub bull yet (he hadn’t) and warned him they would chase him, and if one did he should run up a tree.

  Ghosts, water buffalo, bulls, mosquitos, ants, cane toads, wind, rain, lightning, thunder, loneliness, fatigue, soreness … and Cad couldn’t sleep because the moonlight was like a torch shining on his face. There was nowhere to hide, no one to call, no companion to help him. Just one man, his pram, his rations, his tent and his incredible determination.

  Cad ran into Robbo again the next day, and they got to talking about sundry subjects when Robbo told him how he moved to Wyndham about a year earlier after he’d been back east around the time his son retired from football; his son used to captain the Sydney Roosters and retired after the 2004 Grand Final. Cad commented: ‘Now, for most of my mates they would have known who it was straight away, but I could have been in the hot seat on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? going for the million dollars and still not have a clue; I would have to have phoned a friend. “Who’s your son?” “Brad Fittler.” “Oh, okay. How’s he doing?” “He’s doing it tough, actually.” I thought he was serious for a minute, and then he said, “He just bought a joint for $3 million.”’ Robert Fittler had left his wife when she was pregnant with Brad, and was not reunited with his son until Brad was nineteen, but they have since kept in regular contact.

  The vegetation turned more tropical with lots of palms, and Cad realised what the lady who warned him about cane toads meant; they were flattened all over the road. A couple of farmers who had been ploughing a field to plant sandalwood trees gave him drinks and donations, then Robbo came past on his way to Wyndham just before the junction of the Great Northern and Victoria highways. They had one more chat before going in different directions and never crossing each other’s path again.

  The heat was so bad that Andrew had to vacate his tent by 6 am next morning. He was in a foul mood when he hit the road but a traveller called Anton pulled over and snapped him out of his misery by offering cold water, juices and fruit in a little cooler bag, packed with ice, throwing in a new wide-rim straw hat he’d just bought and a $30 donation. Cad reported his sweating had hit a ‘category 4’ before he’d walked ten metres but he came up with the idea of clamping his fan to the pram handles and the breeze blew straight to his neck. ‘Abso- lutely gold! It definitely got me through the day.’

  Just out of Kununurra he came across a narrow bridge with a ‘no pedestrians’ sign but Cad hurried across anyway, only to force a truck to stop suddenly to avoid hitting oncoming traffic – a dangerous moment. He held up his hands as if to say ‘sorry’. Not real safe either was the fact he was carting $2800 in donations, which he immediately offloaded at a bank.

  The previous day a guy called Brendan pulled over in his car to give Andrew a cold drink and offered him accommodation for the night in Kununurra at a company-supplied cabin. He was going to take up the offer but after a night of drinks and laughs with some carpenters working on contract in town, including some Irish lads, he bunked with them in a caravan park cabin; being entertained by the Irish had become one of his favourite pastimes. ‘I didn’t stop laughing – “good crack”, as they put it.’

  DAYS 349–350, 10–11 DECEMBER 2011

  REST DAYS, KUNUNURRA

  Typical of the generosity of those who admired Andrew’s mission, the manager of the BP service station (Scott), which also had a mini-mart, insisted Andrew did not pay for his supplies (food and a tarpau
lin that he badly needed) and told Cad he had slipped a donation in his bag. There was $100! The two days’ rest was much needed but consisted of catching up on his blogs and diary, returning emails and messages, washing, shopping and a few hours of purely doing nothing.

  DAYS 351–352, 12–13 DECEMBER 2011

  MAKING THE NORTHERN TERRITORY BORDER (84 KM)

  The only highlight of Cad’s traipsing down the highway in 40-plusdegree heat was when a four-wheel drive pulled over with a couple of blokes who had come across him earlier near Fitzroy Crossing. One geed the other up to sing Andrew a song. ‘He could sing like an angel and play [guitar]. I sat there eating my tuna while he jammed out a song while leaning against the truck, it made for quite good smoko entertainment.’

  Next day he woke early having lost an hour after crossing the border between Western Australia and the Nothern Territory. The constant heat for weeks had really fatigued him now, and at about 11 am he rested under the shade of a tree. ‘I spotted a big tree and stopped to eat but was falling asleep so I lay down to doze and woke an hour later in the sun saturated with sweat. I hardly had enough energy to get up and plonked myself back down in the shade. I got another hour’s [sleep] then sat there drinking a workout drink trying to wake up. It was 1.30 and I’d done stuff-all.’

  It looked like heavy rain ahead and a couple pulled over and gave Cad a disposable raincoat, insisting he also take ten cans of chunky soup and gave him a further $50 donation. The wind and rain came soon after and when Cad tried to put the raincoat on in the gale it was shredded to pieces, but after thirty minutes of torrential rain it slowed to a drizzle. The temperature had cooled which gave him good walking conditions right through to dark (about 7 pm) when he pitched his tent on a dirt track, with a disaffected bull snorting at him just metres away.