and three boisterous school-age boys, one of whom has vacated his bedroom for me. Shortly after moving to Sydney in 1989, Foz came and stayed with us in Erskineville and we reminisce on some hilarious times. I was laying bricks for a company in the eastern suburbs and got Foz a start as a brickie’s labourer on the same site. It was boom time and I remember the look of amazement on Foz’s face when he opened his first wage packet. “I think they’ve overpaid me George” he said!
Sad as it is to leave the Fozard’s, I’m soon back in my ‘happy place’, in Percy’s saddle, accelerating up the Bruce Highway on a sunny morning, despite the heavy traffic and blustery wind doing its best to bring my mood down. I’m briefly tempted to turn right and visit Noosa Heads, a spot I’d first visited and had a great time camping at in 1980 but know full well it will lead to disappointment as today it’s full of high-rises, expensive boutiques and fancy restaurants where tourists sip their over-priced chardonnay and flaunt their wealth. Chip on my shoulder? Who, me?
After riding around Gympie in a vain attempt to find a coffee shop I finally fetch up at a café in tiny Tiaro which is doing a roaring trade. I’m enjoying my coffee, eating my egg sandwich and reading my James Burke novel at a table to myself, when an elderly couple arrive looking for a seat. “You can sit here,” I offer. They turn out to be real characters with a hint of mischief in their eyes. “Norman Wurst,” the man introduces himself, “and I’m a proper sausage!” His wife Joy is obviously used to this routine. “This gentleman said I could sit on his lap dear,” he says to her and winks at me. They both smile and settle in their seats. As they eat their barramundi and chips, they tell me their story.
Now retired and in his late 80’s, Norman spent four years in Alice Springs and seven in Papunya in the Northern Territory, teaching Aboriginals how to be pastors on behalf of the Lutheran Church. “You could say they got the best of the Wurst,” says Norman and winks again. “Papunya is an Aboriginal community about 240 kilometres west of Alice. Literally in the middle of nowhere,” offers Joy, “they’re mainly Luritja and Pintupi people who live there.”
While Norman was spreading the word, Joy worked in the thriving art scene in Papunya. “I worked at the Papunya Tjupi Aboriginal Arts organisation where about 100 local artists paint,” she tells me. “Have you heard of Doris Bush Nungarrayi?” she asks. I shake my head. “How about Albert Namatjira?” asks Norman with a mouthful of chips. I nod, (yes, I’ve heard of him). “Well he painted there in the early days.” They tell me that they’ll never retire and currently live in Toowoomba where they do volunteer work, helping refugees from Sudan, Congo and Burundi to acclimatise to the Australian way of life.
The last 50 kilometres of the day before I lock Percy up behind the Bundaberg Grand Hotel and book in, provide some great riding. And a couple of quiet beers (Queenslanders couldn’t give a XXXX for any other beer) at the almost empty Club Hotel followed by a stroll along the river ends my day.
In the morning I get an email from my brother Malcolm in London, who asks, if I ever get lonely on these long rides? I take the smaller roads heading north towards Rockhampton where I plan to leave the coast and head inland. As I ride, I think about my brother’s question. And I realise that for someone used to and comfortable in their own company, solitude becomes something of a drug – a thing to cherish. So, the answer Malcolm, is “no.”
Through vast stands of sugar cane, the small towns of Rosedale and Lowmead, the Mount Colosseum National Park and past my first dead kangaroo, a big grey, I emerge onto the Bruce Highway for coffee at the Big Crab Café in Miriam Vale. At a road works red light I see my first live ‘roos, half a dozen or so of them grazing on a hillside in the distance.
I stop for lunch in Rockhampton, parking my bike on the footpath where I can sit alongside. An Aboriginal family, mum and three kids wander by. The eldest boy, wearing a rugby jersey and a cheeky grin says, “Nice bike mister,” before skateboarding off.
Chapter Three.
Into the Outback
“Into the great wide open
Under them skies of blue”
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
It gives me a little thrill to leave the populated east coast, for this afternoon I’m heading into the outback. I’m not sure where the ‘outback’ starts but this certainly looks like it and each revolution of Percy’s wheels takes me deeper into it. The Capricorn Highway stretches on ahead, disappearing into the distance, spinifex and saltbush on either side while the winter sunshine dances on the tarmac. The land is as flat as a pancake, as though it’s been levelled by a giant steam roller. Is it warmer already or is it just me? I feel a bit guilty for not riding up to Cairns before heading west but I’ve arranged a couple of interviews in Longreach and don’t want to be late.
The Highway runs alongside a major rail link which carries enormous coal trains from Central Queensland to Gladstone and other east coast ports. Along with the black stuff, this is also cattle country and signs warn of unfenced areas.
My body is getting acclimatised to riding now. My highway pegs are a godsend, enabling me to move my butt around in the saddle as I stretch my legs in various positions. I felt a bit of a twat with them back home in Christchurch but out here they are very fitting. I can also lift one foot (or both) and rest them on the top of my engine crash bars. High above me an eagle hawk wheels, probably looking for fresh road kill.
I’m now in the Bowen Basin which is home to several large coal mines of which the modern little town of Blackwater, ‘Coal Capital of Queensland’ is the service centre. Some 15 million tons are transported to Gladstone annually. With 500 kilometres on the clock I decide to call it a day and end up in a well-appointed cabin, surrounded by high-viz-clad miners.
You won’t be surprised to learn that Blackwater, discovered by Ludwig Leichardt in 1845, is so named because of the dark water in nearby creeks believed to have been caused by coal deposits, Its population has halved from a high of 10,000 in the mid 1970’s.
Back on the road, after an “oh shit” moment when Percy refused to start, I’m contemplating my naval, figuratively speaking, brooding on the relativity of time and wondering how far my tank of fuel will last in this headwind, when I swerve around a dead ‘roo and a whistling kite launches itself in my direction, twisting away at the last second. I sometimes get a bit of a warning of road kill ahead by the smell of meat putrefying in the sun.
The light out here has an intensity that gives the most mundane things a startling clarity. I wish I was a painter and could whip out my easel and water colours, to capture it but make do with another digital photo. The landscape looks a lot like Texas, minus the nodding oil derricks.
When
