Sunburn became Andrew’s biggest enemy, as any suncream he applied was soon washed off with sweat. ‘It hurts to touch my face or just yawn.’ He made it to Hayes Creek roadhouse and immediately ordered a works burger and sausage roll – at the princely cost of $z9! As usual, of all the many miners in the bar, most of who just stared at him, an Irishman was the one to break the ice with, ‘You that fella walking for cancer?’ The lad, nicknamed ‘Irish’, like every other Irishman Cad met on his journey, donated $30, while the Aussie workers were all inclined to offer him only a free beer. Andrew headed for the public toilets, which provided a hot shower at a cost of $3.
Cad decided to ‘smash it’ the next day to reach Pine Creek, 55 kilometres away, where a comfortable bed at the pub was waiting courtesy of Peter, but he found it was hard going even after he decided, having been quite nervous about the traffic for days, that if he held his line the road trains and campervans could veer around him rather than him having to step off into the long, wet grass on the roadside.
‘Today was up there with the ten hardest days of my life,’ he diarised. ‘It just seemed to go on and on, and I had no music, which made it worse … I wasn’t ready for such a big day, and if there wasn’t a bed waiting I would have called it a day hours ago … I finally got to the Pine Creek turn-off [in the dark] and nearly cried. I had just assumed it was on the highway but there wasn’t even a streetlight. I could see the streetlights of the town through the bush but they seemed a lifetime away.’
Cad limped in, with chafing, blistered feet and a rash from head to toe causing pain. He found Peter in the bar but excused himself so he could shower before joining him. The rash concerned him. ‘It was giving me sharp shooting pains all over my skin, mainly on the back of my neck and scalp; it worried me heaps and I was thinking about hitching to Katherine Hospital.’ He had no dry clothes, so washed all he had to try to remove the putrid smell and had to wear a wet shirt and shorts back to the bar. Peter introduced him to the workers, and the mining company donated $500.
Next morning, not wanting to wait until the shop at Pine Creek opened at 10 am, Andrew assessed his food supplies – six cans of tuna, three cans of peas, three sweet potatoes, ten biscuits, one packet of Fruit Tingles and a fruit cup – and felt he could make do for two days until he arrived in Katherine. Fortunately, these stocks were boosted by two McDonald’s muffins sacrificed by a couple of women who stopped to chat, and another who provided two apples, two oranges and two cold drinks – and a lecture about using sunscreen!
After ending his day 7 kilometres short of his target, he set up camp with a huge storm beckoning. When it hit, the wind pulled his tent pegs out and he had to hold the fly so that it did not blow away; water was flowing through the floor of his tent. He managed to do his video blog in the middle of the storm while holding onto a wall of the tent.
When Cad arrived in Katherine early on the third day out of Pine Creek, he did not have a morsel of food left, only a litre of water and no working battery. An old local approached as he walked into town and offered him $15 to buy something to eat, yet it didn’t quite cover the cost of a foot-long Subway meal ($17).
He was then in search of someone who could fix the solar panel. The marine shop owner claimed it was the regulator and sent him to the camping store for a new one. From there he was directed to the electrical store, where it was confirmed he needed a regulator; the proprietor, impressed by how far Andrew had walked, offered him one for free. But it still wouldn’t work, and he had to go to the motorbike shop to get a new battery for $60, which fixed the problem.
The rest of the day consisted of washing his reeking clothes, depositing $1120 in donations into the Leukaemia Foundation account, spending over $40 on his three takeaway meals for the day and $300 in Woolworths on food for a week – inflation rules in the middle of nowhere!
DAYS 440–442, 10–12 MARCH 2012
KATHERINE TO MATARANKA (117 KM)
Imagine this scene: as Cad crested a hill, he saw the outline of a jogger coming at him from the opposite direction through the heat haze bouncing off the bitumen. Then it was gone. Shortly after he saw it again, and then ‘two idiots out the middle of nowhere, crossing paths’ stopped to talk.
The jogger was a Frenchman named Remi Camus, whom a Belgian cyclist Cad had crossed paths with, Patrick, had told Andrew to watch out for. He was running solo from Melbourne to Darwin, pulling a modified mini-trailer, averaging 45 kilometres a day, and boasted how he had run 113 kilometres one day. He ended up doing the trip in 100 days. ‘He was a confident, cocky sort of bloke who had been on the road for ninety-something days … we compared stories about trucks and flies and mozzies and the like; it was funny that we both knew exactly what each other was on about.’
According to the thermostat on the Frenchman’s watch, the temperature was 39 degrees, which gave Cad a better sense of what heat he had walked in and what the Frenchman had also unbelievably endured, running an Olympic marathon daily. He felt the temperature was warmer in the many days before and after however.
Camus had two video cameras to record his trek and planned to release a documentary and write a book about the adventure. It’s quite remarkable to consider how many cyclists, mostly European, Cad came across in outback South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, but to be just the third person to walk around the country and unexpectedly run across the path of just the eleventh person recorded as running from coast to coast or around the country is something to savour. They took photos of each other and went their different ways.
Despite a painful foot, infected from a wasp-bite the previous day, Cad walked until 10.10 pm. For the first time, he needed the army blanket the Dutchman Edward had given him, as the night was cool after an extremely hot day. Perhaps he was finally going to encounter some more temperate climate as he headed further south.
DAY 443, 13 MARCH 2012
MATARANKA TO LARRIMAH (65 KM)
Larrimah is noted for the Pink Panther Pub, just off the Stuart Highway, and when Cad reached the landmark about 9 pm he was relieved, exhausted and overwrought with stress. He’d walked 65 kilometres, a record on his Northern Territory leg, but only because he had no other choice. He described the preceding hours as the worst night of his life: he’d been walking in driving rain with poor vision and nowhere to pitch his tent, leaving him with no alternative but to limp on. At one stage he stopped and screamed into the vastness like a grand orator to a packed amphitheatre, letting all his pent-up frustration and anger out, with not a soul to hear his pleas.
His diary notes from the moment a tyre burst give an indication of his mood: ‘I tried to go hard but was getting nowhere fast when my tyre burst again on the inside near the nozzle – same spot! I was having a tantrum, I was over it. “I fucking hate it, I don’t want to be here, it’s such a chore, it’s such an effort, every step is an effort. It’s like I’m walking through thick mud.”
‘I found myself screaming into the air, arms in the sky, “Yeah, great idea, let’s walk around Australia,” turning to face every direction like I had a surrounding audience. Not long after, I changed the tube and it started to rain. I packed everything away and took my shoes and socks off. I thought it’d pass – I was wrong. I had been optimistic this morning and thought about reaching Larrimah – 65 kilometres – but after walking in the rain for twenty minutes I passed a “20 kilometres rest area” sign and realised I’d only done 45 kilometres. I nearly cried, I tried so fucking hard today. I started looking for somewhere to camp but there was nothing: no clearings, no farm gates, just thick wet grass.
‘I power-walked until it got dark. Now what? I decided to keep going, it was absolutely flogging down without a break and I could hardly see a metre in front of me and at times I walked into the grass on the side, it was off its head. I was wading through ankle-deep torrents thinking, “I hope this isn’t a creek.” I power-walked my arse off, my feet were killing me and my chafing was excruciating.
‘
A car slowed down and then chucked a U-turn. “Does your sign say walking for cancer?”
‘“Yeah, mate.”
‘“If you can do that, here’s $50,” the bewildered driver said.
‘But tonight was the worst night of my life. No music, no idea of the time or distance to go, I just wanted to die but I had no choice, I had to keep digging and keep digging but there was nothing left. It became dire and I started screaming into the rain again. Please, I begged, give me a break, but my prayers were not answered. It had been pissing down hardcore for nearly three hours.’
The clouds broke enough to get a glimpse of the moon, which gave out a skerrick of light, and then he could finally see the streetlights of Larrimah. He shuffled into the pub just after 9 pm to be greeted by Lyn behind the bar, who met him with, ‘Are you the walker?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, we’ve been expecting you.’
Cad thought it would be too late to get a meal but was over the moon to learn they’d make an exception for him and make him a bacon, egg and tomato toasted sandwich. It was a feast.
Rob, whom Cad had met when leaving Katherine (and whom he described as ‘your typical bushie – weathered face, scraggly goatee, a weathered old Akubra and yellow fingers from his Winnie Blue rollies’), had taken up what seemed his regular residence in the bar and soon had Cad in stitches with his yarns. ‘He had a quick wit for someone who spoke so slow.’
When Andrew went to say goodnight and look for somewhere to pitch the tent he was told by the publican Barry that he could use a bed in the room at the end of the bar that was reserved ‘for blow-ins’, and they’d even throw in a fan for him. For a passing tourist it might have been spartan; for Cad it was luxury, particularly as it kept pouring outside.
When he looked in the mirror for the first time for days, he was shocked at how distressed he looked. But that hour in the Pink Panther Pub typified how, at his lowest ebb, the hospitality and warmth of people around him could lift his spirits off the floor. Those people, like so many others at so many different locations, were a godsend, a powerful tonic before bedtime that provided the mental fuel for him to keep going.
DAYS 444–446, 14–16 MARCH 2012
LARRIMAH TO DUNMARRA, RETURN TO DALY WATERS (138 KM)
Due to a good night’s sleep, a shower and the benefit of a bed rather than air mattress and tent, Cad felt remarkably fresh when he woke up. He departed armed with Anzac biscuits from Lyn and an offer from Rob and his wife, Bronte, to spend the night in a donga on the property they worked on 37 kilometres further south. It rained most of the day but Cad arrived at his destination by about 4 pm for a second night out of his tent and spent the evening chatting with Rob and Bronte outside their caravan.
As he walked away next morning he half-envied their carefree lifestyle in such a peaceful setting but half-pitied the fact they didn’t understand how much of life was out there that they were missing out on. Again he had to walk all day in the rain but somehow recorded over 50 kilometres to get to Daly Waters, where he was well looked after by hosts at the Hiway Inn, Cheryl and Peter, who offered him a free room and meal; he was well attended to by many of the drinkers, led by, of course, the Irish!
Peter and Cheryl had an interesting story. They had been on the road for five years in their caravan when they suffered a broken axle on the van and had it towed back to the inn so that it could be repaired. Five years later they were still there, as managers of the pub and loved the place and the life. Cad claimed the meals were as big and good as at any roadhouse or outback pub he visited.
They invited him to stay another night and enjoy St Patrick’s Day and the ‘World’s Greatest Shave’ promotion, where people have their heads shaved to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. As tempted as Cad certainly was, he decided he wanted to keep going, although Peter said that if he reached Dunmarra and changed his mind, he’d drive down to bring him back for the night.
Cad arrived at Dunmarra just on dark, and after going through a mission trying to discover whether a box of food he’d arranged to have dropped off at the roadhouse was there (it was finally found at the bottom of a fridge under other food), he decided he’d take up Peter’s offer and double back to Daly Waters. Peter and Cheryl arrived a while later to drive him back for what ended up being one of the most enjoyable stop-offs of his trek.
DAYS 447–448, 17–18 MARCH 2012
REST DAYS, DALY WATERS
The old Daly Waters pub seven kilometres off the highway is a more famous tourist spot; if you don’t arrive by 4 pm outside of summer you won’t get a campsite next door or a place in one of the two evening meal sittings. However, Andrew was glad he chose the Hiway Inn as his temporary residence.
After struggling to devour the Inn’s ‘truckie’s big breakfast’ of a steak, sausages, bacon, egg and spaghetti, Andrew did his washing and administrative chores (diary, blog, responding to messages) then headed into the bar early evening for the Greatest Shave, and was first to have the shears applied to the melon (courtesy of Cheryl) and took to the clippers himself later. His video blog from the night is wonderful. He met workers from all walks of life and a group of young men who had just done a jackaroo course at Newcastle Waters station and were having their first taste of outback employment. There were plenty of drunken characters by the end of the night, with some cockies slipping their pants down as they danced to country and western music.
Next day was spent recovering, with a trip to the old Daly Waters pub. Cad was so grateful for, yet embarrassed by, the generosity of Peter, Cheryl and their staff and friends and left early next morning for a ride back to Dunmarra with a pocket full of donations and a heart full of good memories. When he woke he found a note slipped under his door from a couple he had chatted to the previous two nights with a $100 donation, which indicated the instant rapport Cad was able to strike with people and their genuine admiration for what he was doing. It read: ‘Stay strong, brother. Don’t let tiredness distract you from such an amazing act. It’s not too far til the end. Gav and Stacey.’
DAYS 449–454, 19–24 MARCH 2012
DUNMARRA TO THREE WAYS (333 KM)
First night, after being hammered through his drenched shirt by mosquitos and having to walk with his head torch on while desperately looking for somewhere suitable to pitch his tent, Cad found the old highway and turned off to spend his first night without rain for nearly three weeks at Newcastle Waters, nearly 700 kilometres down the highway from Darwin. The ‘town’ area is to the east of the main highway, and subject to flooding in a big rain, but he never saw the lights of the few houses and one shop en route to the massive Newcastle Waters cattle station, which is located on the historic stock route from Adelaide to Darwin at the junction of the route west into Queensland.
The next day Cad got to talking with a contractor who was responsible for filling water tanks in the rest areas on the Stuart and Barkly highways and he warned Andrew about the howling south/south-east trade wind that roars down the Barkly, and that he had come across many cyclists who head east into it at the wrong time of year and retreat back to Tennant Creek after surrendering to the unconquerable task of matching the monster in their face.
With that advice, Cad confirmed what he had been considering for weeks: he was going to abandon his plan to walk all the way south to Alice Springs then hitch back to the Barkly Highway junction and walk east. The winds were due to pick up early April, which left him a week-long window, once he started tracking east towards Townsville, before the imposition of pushing Redge into an almost gale-force foe became insurmountable.
Andrew reached Elliot about 4 pm ploughed on until nearly 9 pm, before finding a dirt track where he could camp, setting up beside Nev and Dellie, who ran barramundi fishing tours in the Top End.
Shade was becoming hard to come by as the landscape had changed over the past two days to mostly low scrub and grass, and by another two days it was red earth and spinifex as far as the eye could see. Andrew believed the te
mperature was well over 40 degrees next day but he had promised himself to have only brief rests at the 10-kilometre marks up to 40 kilometres. He couldn’t last until the fourth scheduled break due to the heat, being confronted by a mass of ants every time he stopped and persistent march flies in their hundreds; he could see their shadows on the road so dense were their swarms. Cad constructed two full pages of notes about his battle with the march flies, indicating what an obsession they had become in what he had called ‘Zombie Valley’. He planted himself in the shade of a bush for an hour when a vast area of cloud provided rare shade and the temperature dropped noticeably.
But for the most part there was not a cloud in the sky, and he had to trickle warm water out of his bottles to keep his mouth lubricated in the heat, as road trains whizzed past and few caravans and campervans navigated the Stuart Highway. It had become a lonely, relentless, mind-testing existence when he made it to the Renner Springs roadhouse early afternoon on Day 452, and it was another 135 kilometres to go to the next piece of civilisation (Threeways roadhouse) and his left turn to Queensland. He vowed as he approached to eat only food he had stocked and not concede to the temptations behind the counter and the ridiculous prices he would have to pay, but in the end relented to acquire a pie and paddle pop.
Despite walking into a wind, on Day 453 Cad did his second successive 60-kilometre day, this one in eleven and a half hours, which was thirty minutes better than the day before. Trouble was he had to endure a constant nosebleed, which became a problem for over a week.
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