With Every Step

by Cadigan, Neil;

  After being drained by the heat for so long, Andrew couldn’t believe it when he woke up on Day 454 feeling cold, with much of his gear flying across the rest area car park in the cool wind. The howling gale in his face didn’t relent all day and he had to walk with his head bowed to stop his hat blowing off, but he couldn’t save the solar panel that glided past his nose onto the highway when a road train passed – but still worked when he picked it up off the road!

  He passed two cyclists in their seventies, Jim and Mike, both millionaires who were riding from Melbourne to Darwin then to Perth (for the third time). Jim said the pair had ridden together through many countries and continents.

  He reached the Threeways roadhouse by 6 pm after a tough 48 kilometres into the wind, and was ecstatic to be in air conditioning and pick up his box of supplies that had been sent ahead. He was desperate for a shower, only to be told it cost $6. A truckie sitting at a restaurant table suggested he not bother this time of day because the water wouldn’t be warm. ‘Mate, I haven’t had a shower for six days – that’s not going to worry me!’ Cad told him.

  DAYS 455–456, 25–26 MARCH 2012

  REST DAY, TENNANT CREEK, THEN BACK TO THREEWAYS

  Cad hitched the 25 kilometres south to Tennant Creek (on the road to Alice Springs,) so he could bank $1200 in donations and do the usual time-off chores of washing, repairs to Redge, cleaning his gear and shopping – $350 for twelve days of food – and also did an interview for the local newspaper. Next afternoon he scored a lift back to Threeways, which is at the junction of the Stuart and Barkly highways, the latter heading east to Queensland, but didn’t arrive until 4 pm, so he set up camp and spent four hours replying to emails and doing his diary, ready for an early start next day. He said the people running the roadhouse were as inhospitable as any he encountered on the entire trip.

  DAYS 457–459, 27–29 MARCH 2012

  BARKLY HIGHWAY TO BARKLY HOMESTEAD (186 KM)

  Andrew had decided to do the 186-kilometre stretch to Barkly Homestead in three days and not the planned four, figuring he’d use the rest areas for overnight camps at 68 kilometres and another 63 kilometres further on. He certainly went out hard with a 70-kilometre day (Google Maps was often inaccurate), his biggest since before Perth eight months earlier. It was a long, lonely day as he walked with his head bowed into the strong wind, something he was to get used to; he only had one car stop all day (four backpackers), and very few went past. It was the quietest traffic day he had encountered.

  The elements were at their fiercest the next day: draining headwind, flies out in full force, and when he stopped for the night the mosquitos were relentless and he found himself back in mice-infected territory. Cad thought he would be ingenious and put a few small Easter eggs outside his tent, hoping the mice would be attracted to them and not what was inside. He failed; there were holes through most of his food packets and mice droppings through the pram.

  The relentlessness of the journey was definitely getting to him; he was out in vast, flat, barren countryside and still so far from the finish line. He felt trapped by the existence that saw him counting down towards his second birthday on the road (nine days away), a second year without income and daily steps towards his fear that he would spend his approaching years without a partner. ‘It’s like being in prison but I think prison could be much easier – no flies, no mosquitos, no sun, no wind, same shit food, same shit bed but no walking.’

  He struggled late in the third day along the Barkly, and after the 30-kilometre mark had to stop every hour. Tracey, whom he’d met at the Tennant Creek tourist park, stopped and asked him if he wanted to throw Redge in the back of her ute and get a lift to the homestead, but Andrew wouldn’t take a shortcut, even with only 5 kilometres to go.

  DAYS 460–463, 30 MARCH–2 APRIL 2012

  BARKLY HOMESTEAD TO CAMOOWEAL (259 KM)

  Cad awoke in his tent to the discovery that just about every packet of nuts and all his muesli bars had been invaded by ants; he threw the bars out and painstakingly repacked the nuts into another container.

  He hit the wall at the 40-kilometre mark and thought that would do for the day, but then decided that if he walked on he could make Camooweal, the most western Queensland town en route, in four days rather than the planned five.

  It was obvious how little things made big impressions, or were big distractions, when walking day in and day out. Cad was fascinated by a snake slithering across the highway, yellow with brown spots, ‘beautiful’. He took photos until the snake became aggressive, and as he went to walk on he heard a car coming. He doubled back and stood there waving his arms so the car would divert and avoid the snake, but it didn’t slow down or alter course and drove over it, prompting Cad to give the young driver ‘the bird’. Cad was devastated. ‘I felt terrible, I should have just left it [the snake] alone and it would have been off the road. I went back and it had stopped wriggling.’

  Two days later the amount of traffic picked up dramatically, mostly four-wheel drive vehicles towing boats, leaving Cad to think there must have been a barramundi fishing weekend or some similar event organised. He hit grasslands with lovely grazing fields as far as the eye could see, but they attracted the flies in a great mass, and they did not relent for a second.

  A grazier stopped soon after and Cad asked him why the flies were so bad; he replied it was to do with the grass the cattle grazed on, called Mitchell grass (thus the region’s name as Mitchell Grasslands): wherever there was the grass, there would be flies in the millions. Cad asked how long the grass fields lasted. ‘Oh, to [Mount] Isa … then it’s sheep country.’ He had to try to eat with his net over his head but it was hopeless and he had to turn his earphones up higher to drown out the buzzing noise of the flies. He walked seven hours without stopping, just to avoid the flies swarming all over him when he stopped.

  His reward was to find a rest area that was inhabited by three women, who kept him awake by ‘cackling’ all night and playing country and western music, then having more music blaring before sunrise as they packed up. ‘I think it was Lee Kernaghan; they all sound the same to me.’

  Next day he walked out of the Northern Territory to Camooweal. Just thirty-three days after leaving Darwin, he was in Queensland.

  13

  SIXTH STATE, FIFTEENTH HIGHWAY

  Stepping out of the Northern Territory into Queensland after many long, lonely and challenging days due to the constant headwinds, few settlements and little human interaction, Cad hit the tiny Queensland hamlet of Camooweal, 12 kilometres past the Northern Territory– Queensland border. Before this trip he would never have thought a place with a population of 187 would feel like the big smoke, but he was relieved to see the town lights after walking the 440 kilometres of the Barkly Highway in a week – an average of nearly 63 kilometres a day – into a biting headwind that had broken the spirit of many cyclists.

  He was physically exhausted, badly in need of a shower and a good meal, but everything, according to a truckie sipping on a cup of tea beside his rig, had closed at 9 pm, including the service station. He found the caravan park and, with the light switch on a thirty-second timer, showered in the dark (with his nose bleeding most of the time) before cooking outside when the owner walked up, shining a torch Cad’s way and wondering who the intruder was at such a late hour (10 pm). When he realised it was Andrew he was less alarmed, telling Cad he was expecting him at some stage as his food parcel had been dropped off.

  Next day he was off into the wild again; he’d changed states but not conditions – it was over 40 degrees Celsius.

  DAYS 464–467, 3–6 APRIL 2012

  CAMOOWEAL TO MOUNT ISA (183 KM)

  Andrew knocked out 70 kilometres from Camooweal until he called it quits at 11 pm after fourteen hours of walking, backing up from doing 69 kilometres the day before. It was no wonder he was being belted by regular nosebleeds, day and night. Next day he came across some workers and mentioned how the flies were driving him mad. ‘Old mate’ (as
Andrew called anyone whose name he didn’t recall) gave him a small tub of rosemary and cedarwood cream, which he claimed would keep the flies at bay, but not the native bees (which was apparently what Cad had thought were big march flies). The magic remedy didn’t relieve his plight: ‘Old mate’s cream just made my face sticky – it was like I’d buttered my face with honey, and the flies just hovered around like Great Whites to a shark cage.’

  Andrew was surprised to see Gav and Stacey, the couple who had left him a note and $100 under his door at Daly Waters, pull up. He was glad to have a chance to thank them. He rested at 40 kilometres but made himself do at least 50 kilometres for the day, despite his feet causing him grief on the rough bitumen surface. When he had a 500- metre stretch of smooth tar he said it was like ‘walking on cotton buds’.

  It was during this part of Queensland that he came across four bicycle riders – Aaron Turner, Daniel Seehusen, John Clark and Tim Holman – who, with a support vehicle, were en route from London to Melbourne (24,000 kilometres in fourteen months, via Europe and Asia) as part of their Ride2Rescue fundraising trek, raising awareness of international child trafficking. Their first meeting was when a couple of the boys were in their support vehicle on a ‘beer run’ into Mount Isa about 15 kilometres away to get supplies for their evening meal and came across Cad. He recorded: ‘They said they were living in my shadow as all they have heard about is the walker. I said, “I know how you feel – all I hear about is the Stormtrooper!”’ On their way back from Isa, the boys had Cad’s requested can of Coca-Cola with a double cheeseburger as a bonus, which made him ‘ecstatic’.

  The next day was Good Friday and Cad only had to walk 9.5 kilometres from his camping spot to reach Mount Isa but little was open in the town. After running into the riders, who pointed him towards an IGA supermarket, Cad went overboard at the first ‘real supermarket’ he’d seen since Darwin, and soon had a trolley filled with twenty packs of potato chips, ten family-size blocks of chocolate and numerous biscuit packets, before telling himself to ‘pull your head in’ and put half back.

  He caught up with the Ride2Rescue guys again that night to exchange experiences; he was envious that they had $50,000 of sponsorship arranged before they’d left (to cover expenses), plus they had set up an official charity to accept funds and had much of their gear donated. He was also envious of all their support from family and friends too, some of whom had accompanied them on legs of the trip; they were trying to organise hundreds to ride into Melbourne’s Federation Square with them to complete the journey. They’d been busy organising for six months before they left on their journey, and in Malaysia the international Rotary club had organised a fun ride, while an ex-pat Australian Rules club helped in Singapore.

  By contrast, Andrew was paying all his expenses himself, except for some shoes I was able to get from Nike, from my mate Peter Wynn and from the Parramatta Eels NRL club; some camping gear from Roman; parts to repair his pram from Chariot (Mark Morris from Australian distributor Morris Stanley was very supportive); and repair work on his pram from bike shops as he travelled. But that was his, and my, fault for not putting more effort into preparation, although several large camping retailers did not even bother replying to my sponsorship requests.

  Cad wrote: ‘I thought a lot about how much money potentially I could have raised … I used to think I was cut out for this but I was wrong. I don’t and didn’t have the mental strength for this shit but really the fundraising is one of the only reasons I’m still walking. I owe it to myself to finish now I’ve come this far. I don’t know what to expect of anyone. My family are all proud, and at the end of the day what more can they do. Dad does what he can. But … all this only makes me appreciate Josh [Simpson] coming to walk with me on the other side of the country, that’s something I’ll never forget, and it makes me regret the way I was [while Josh was with him] even more than I did then.’

  Cad was just on one of his downers sparked by his fatigue and isolation, second-guessing himself and looking back with regret. But when I consider his ‘no one cares’ thoughts, it almost makes me cry to think he never saw the true picture. Many, many people were in awe of his achievement, and said so. He wasn’t cut out for it? That’s nonsense too. I know that I, and most people I know, would not be cut out for such a challenge, but Andrew Cadigan? No one can question that he was.

  With the thought of unrealised fundraising potential in mind, his brain was ticking overtime with another Cad Grand Plan, and he was soon on the phone to appropriate authorities on the Central Coast and the Leukaemia Foundation, trying to organise a charity walk from The Entrance to Terrigal when he reached the Central Coast near the end of his journey (I knew nothing of this until I read his diary). After making calls to councils, police, ambulance, Rotary clubs and water distributors over the ensuing days, he became frustrated with the red tape and lack of responses from authorities and aborted the effort.

  DAYS 468–469, 7–8 APRIL 2012

  MOUNT ISA TO CLONCURRY (120 KM)

  With a slow leak in his tyre caused by stray tacks at the camping area, Cad was into it at 6 am and didn’t let up for hours in quite heavy traffic. With no road shoulder, road trains were pushing him into long grass on blind corners but still coming close enough to blow the solar panel off the handlebars. The surroundings were spectacular, as he recorded: ‘Beautiful scenery, red rocky hills covered in spinifex and dotted with small gums and the road just weaved in and out of them through the gullies.’

  He made it to Cloncurry in the dark and walked all the way across town to the caravan park where he looked for the Ride2Rescue boys, finding they had saved him some pasta and chicken (‘I was stoked I didn’t have to cook’). Cad really hit it off well with these guys, especially Tim.

  In mid-2013, after reading about his meeting with the Ride2Rescue crew in Cad’s diaries, I contacted John via their website to inform them of his plight; they were truly shocked and devastated to hear he had died. They were also wonderfully forthcoming in their admiration for his achievement, which they’d already relayed via their own internet blogs.

  DAY 470, 9 APRIL 2012, ANDREW’S THIRTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY

  EAST FROM CLONCURRY (45 KM)

  It was not the birthday Andrew had wished for. His spirits were badly eroded and he could still not see the end in sight. He woke up at six and gave the boys two food parcels to take ahead to Julia Creek. A few kilometres out of town the boys reached him and they gathered for a photo and said their last goodbyes. ‘And that was that – another six faces that came and went,’ Andrew wrote.

  Cad turned his phone off so he didn’t have to field birthday wishes and speak to people, turning it on only to check Google Maps and Facebook posts, so he wasn’t interrupted and slowed down but also because he was in one of his low moods. Kane Foley called while the phone was switched on but Cad didn’t pick up; he texted him back to say thanks for the call but he would speak later. ‘I replied to all my Facebook comments,’ he wrote in his diary that evening. ‘Facebook is easy, I can put on a brave face when I have to, to talk to people and do my blog. But I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Today is fucked – it’s my birthday to remind me I’m another year older, another year out here. But that’s not it, my head is still not in a good place and with every big day I keep piling on it makes me feel mentally and physically shitter. Tonight I would have walked over 800 kilometres in two weeks – that’s pretty off its head, really. But I’m not stopping until I break or I’m home packing for Thailand.’ It appears that at this stage he was already planning to head back to Thailand when he finished the walk, although he kept this to himself and changed his mind several times over the coming months.

  He called Kane back; Foley was driving back home to the Central Coast from Perth. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered; I must have sounded like a whinging sad sack. A few people rang and left messages. I didn’t ring them back. I don’t know what my problem is. I whinge that no one rings me and I don’t want to speak with the
m when they do.’ I know he did speak with his parents, sister and Matt Delaney that night.

  After heavy rain, he camped on a dirt patch with the ground so hard he couldn’t get the pegs in. His blog was posted in the morning, and if he was feeling down on his birthday he disguised it a little with his laconic recording. ‘Another day in the sticks, another birthday, another year older, another year wasted doing this crap. And another highway. Just got on the Flinders and that’s the thirteenth one. Started on the Princes, around to Adelaide, up and down Lincoln, back up the Flinders, across the Eyre, down the Esperance–Coolgardie, around the south coast on the South Coast Highway [in Western Australia], funny enough up onto the South Western to the Brand, up the North Western, up the sweaty Great Northern, down the Stuart, across the boring Barkly, this one will take me across, then back down the Bruce, onto the Pacific and then finally done. That really goes to show how bored I am out here, that I’ve just memorised all them. See you tomorrow.’ He almost got it right; he’d overlooked the Bass and Midlands highways in his birth state, Tasmania.

  DAYS 471–476, 10–15 APRIL 2012

  CLONCURRY TO HUGHENDEN (364 KM)

  The weather became much cooler overnight and Cad realised he needed to buy a flannelette shirt and beanie again. The headwind was as persistent as ever at 25 kilometres per hour. He travelled 65 kilometres in twelve hours, electing to economise time by eating standing up, figuring that when he sat down he’d go to his phone, check emails and Facebook and waste ten minutes each time.

  At Julia Creek he picked up the food parcels plus a pair of sunglasses I had posted to him, and the relief from the glare was so great ‘it felt like I had an operation to remove cataracts or something, I could see clearly again for the first time in weeks. My other sunnies were so scratched it was ridiculous.’