South to North Australia (8100km)

This was my first 'real' big cycle trip. I hadn't done any route planning and had simply brought a load of outdoor gear on ebay, shoved all my stuff on a plane from London to Melbourne, got a working holiday visa and told everyone I was going to cycle the length of Oz. In hindsight I should have been better prepared, but where's the fun in that?

Reflecting now I think that Australia is my favourite place I have ever cycled; unending roads, a great diversity of landscapes, friendly people, a common language, incredible wild animals, a mix of dirt and tarmac roads and wild camping pretty much everywhere. It was a fab journey spanning around 4 1/2 months. 6 weeks from Nov-Dec 2015 and 3 1/2 months from July-Oct 2016.

Phase 1: tASMANIA AND MELBOURNE TO SYDNEY (2500KM) 

After unpacking my stuff in Melbourne airport I cycled about 80km to a friend of a friends address and then promptly slept for 14 hours! Due to my lack of preparation I spent a couple of days in Melbourne getting maps and doing some mini research and before I knew it I was cycling to the ferry terminal to begin my ride in Tassie!

Quite honestly Tasmania is perfect for cycling . The scenery is stunning, nature is abundant, its underpopulated and the roads are quiet. Quite possibly a cyclists dream. But it is hilly, very hilly.

This was something I quickly discovered on day 1, wanting to get off the bigger roads I took some smaller roads. The gradients of which brought actual tears to my eyes. I spent my first night at one of the many free camps on the island, where I used my MSR dragonfly stove for the first time. I nearly set my head on fire. Not an ideal start, but it seemed to generate some sympathy from a nearby RV owner who came out and shared her bottle of champagne with me! I could get used to this!

For a couple of days out of Launceston, towards the coast, the road was flat. This made for nice cycling and gave me a chance to get used to the heavily loaded bike. I was lucky enough to stay with a couchsurfer in Launceston and a warm showers host in St Marys. Once on the east coast it became a bit hillier, but nothing too bad. I stopped frequently to see the sights, Bicheno was a nice beach town and Freycient National Park’s wine glass bay was pretty incredible. I stayed with another couchsurfer in Triabunna before making my way to Eaglehawk Neck and Port Arthur. Port Arthur is interesting, a former prison colony that is now a well known tourist attraction. It was the target of a mass shooting in 1996 when 35 people were killed by a local armed gunman. Walking around was rather eerie and that night I slept a little uneasily in my tent. 

Reachng Hobart I stayed with a warm showers host called Eric (we stayed friends and later did a packraft trip together along the Franklin/Gordon rivers). Eric was an awesome host, for 3 days I ate great food, slept in a comfy bed and was able to look round Hobart and visit the famous Mona art gallery. Of course it pissed it down the day I left, but I made the 80 or so kilometres to Bothwell and was fortunately taken in by some locals. The next day the road climbed steadily to the town of Miena, where I stayed with another warm showers host. Miena is at the southern end of Great Lake and is in a very pretty, remote setting. 

From Miena, the road turned to dirt for 30km as it skirted the lake and then gradually rose until 1210m, from which it was 40km of pure downhill. It was fantastic! And the views, despite it still raining, were fab. From Deloraine I then made my way back through lush farmland towards Devonport where I caught the ferry back to Melbourne. 

When I left to cycle in Oz everyone back home in the UK had said 'Oooo that will be good, Australia is nice and flat'. This is not true, large parts of Australia are flat but in actual fact the east coast is made up of the Great Dividing Range. Cycling in Tasmania had prepared me a little but every day from Melbourne to Sydney consisted of hills. Again the scenery was amazing, the wild camping was fab and I enjoyed the cute intermittent coastal towns. Highlights included 90 mile beach, Marlo, Murrah Lake, Malua Bay, Jervis Bay and the Royal National Park. After 6 1/2 weeks of cycling and 2500km I arrived in Sydney, and headed straight to the harbour bridge and opera house. It was a really special moment, I had a job starting in a few days time in the city and felt excited to make this place my new home. 

PHASE 2: sydney to port augusta (1730km) 

It was another 7 1/2 months before I would tour in Australia again, I spent 6 months working in Sydney and 6 weeks cycling in New Zealand before beginning the 5600km ride across and up the country. Leaving  in July meant I was setting off in winter and would be camping in some chilly weather, just above freezing at night. I left Sydney with a much heavier bike than my previous rides as I had all my packrafting stuff with me.

The first 270km to Dubbo went through nice quiet country towns: Lithgow,  Bathurst, Yeoval, Orange and Dubbo but from here on it was proper outback countryside. Huge areas of pure nothing and it stayed like this pretty much for the 1500km to Port Augusta. After 8 days of cycling from Sydney I stopped in the country town of Bourke alongside the river Darling, where I left my bike with a family and hopped onto the river for 2 weeks. Once back I posted my packraft stuff to Sydney and carried on to Port Augusta. 

I will be honest the 11 days from Bourke to Port Augusta didn't include the most magical of scenery, but it was interesting enough and nice to have the time to think. The only major towns en route were Broken Hill and Wilmington. The rest were very small with just a corner shop for basic supplies, or a road house in the middle of no where. I met some really nice people though, who took me under their wings and let me stay in their homes. An occasionally when I slept in a free RV park the grey nomads would invite me into their caravans, feed me up and offer me beer. 

Despite the scenery not being hugely changeable or magical it was enjoyable cycling, after being stressed out at work in Sydney it felt good to have nothing to do but pedal all day, put a tent up in the evening and cook a meal before reading in bed. It felt good to have headspace and a lack of shops and advertisements. It felt nice to be alone. 

phase 3: adelaide to alice springs (2200km)

Port Augusta marked the beginning of a new phase. This would take me away from the outback countryside and into the the middle of the red centre and desert. Being August it was a good time to be cycling, warm enough in the day but not boiling. I was a bit worried about the lack of civilisation. It was 2200km to the nearest big town of Alice Springs and 550km to Coober Pedy where I could next stock up properly on food, but I was excited, really excited, because this part of the ride would take me into what I considered 'real' Australia. 

I was pretty lucky on my way up. The first night I stayed at a free campsite by the side of the road and there I met another cyclist, a French guy called Jonathan. He was also heading north, so we decided to cycle together the remaining 440km to Coober Pedy. Having someone else was really fun, we both had quite different riding styles, I was content to tootle and put in long days and Jonathan wanted to be fast and do shorter days. We ended up coming to a happy medium and it felt great to have company as we fantasised about the next road house and what it would bring: ice cream, coca cola, a beer?

The road was long but the landscape changed more frequently than the route through outback NSW, some days we had bush and others just plain barren land. We attracted attention at the road houses and I would leave Jonathan to fend off the questioning so I could sneak in first and see what goodies were on offer. After 4 days together we got to Coober Pedy known as the 'opal capital of the world'. It was a fascinating town, home to the largest opal mines in the world. Many of the towns buildings were built underground to provide refuge from the harsh heat of the summer months. We stayed in an underground hostel and the next day Jonathan left, keen to push ahead, whereas I wanted a day off to consider taking a different route, 400km of dirt track towards Oodnadatta. 

I ended up deciding to take on the dirt. It was 200km to Oodnadatta which had a road house and then another 200km towards Marla, a road house back on the Stuart highway. It had been raining heavily a few days before meaning the track was in bad condition but I had been told it should mainly be rideable.

The first 30km were really wet and muddy. I made the mistake of trying to skirt round the big puddles instead of going through. The sides were deep thick mud which coated my tyres and managed to get into every nook and crevice. From then on I just went straight through the water in bare feet, dragging my bike with me as I went. The landscape was interesting, the moon plains: endless grey land and then a little bit of scrub. I counted 2 cars on my first day. The next day I was due to arrive in Oodnadatta, I was about 15km away when I ran out of water (I had taken 10 litres for the 2 days to get me there), although I was close I was a little concerned and when the 3rd car of the day went past and stopped to ask if I was ok I was grateful. He gave me another litre of water which was nice of him. 

It took 2 days and a morning to get from Oodnadatta to Marla road house. Wild camping was easy, there were no people, no cars and no houses. You could literally camp in the middle of the road and no one would no you were there. I didn't do this, I camped in the bush, but still it was nice to have the option. On the 4th day I got lucky and noticed a movement on the side of the track; a perentie lizard! The largest lizard in Australia and the 4th largest in the world, it was pretty cool to be in its company. 

Eventually after 4 and a bit days and a lot of talking to myself  I reached the Stuart highway again and was able to have a shower at Marla road house. The next destination of note was Uluru and the red centre, 520km away.

The red centre

I had been looking forward to reaching the red centre for ages. This is typical red desert country, but due to the heavy rains of the previous month it was actually quite green. Uluru was 250km west of the Stuart highway, on the Lasseter highway, 2 days of cycling. On the first day on the Lasseter there was a massive thunder and hail storm. I could scarcely believe it, hail in the red centre? There was no cover around and I was already drenched through, so just carried on cycling, eventually reaching a road house called Curtain Springs.

Upon entering the bar I noticed a few guys dressed in cowboy style clothing and a TV crew. Turns out they were part of the camel farm at Yulara and were filming a documentary about the explorer Lewis Lasseter, who was certain that a gold reef existed in central Australia. He died out in the desert in 1931.  For the film they had brought a caravan of camels and were camped a half km away from the road house. They invited me to camp with them and I made friends with a girl called Amy-Lee who was a photographer and camel herder. She told me that when I got to Yulara I was welcome to stay with her at the camel farm, I gratefully took her up on the offer. 

The camel farm was fab! Everyone was very passionate about camels and it was clear that it was more than just a job for the people that worked there. I stayed with Amy and she told me that we could go on a dawn camel ride the next morning! It was great, the camels seemed really happy and they all had individual personalities. Also seeing Uluru as the sun came up was pretty extraordinary. For the rest of the day I cycled to Uluru and walked around the sacred sandstone rock which is of importance to the Pitjantjatjara Anangu people. The only object of height for hundreds of kilometres, featuring a plethora of waterholes, springs and caves, it is literally a lifeline to those nearby. 

After a big hug with Amy I left the next day towards Kings Canyon, 300km and 3 days away. Again there was another massive thunderstorm but this time I was able to get my tent up in time and huddle in the dry. The next day I saw a herd of wild camels from the side of the road, a really spectacular sight! Australia actually has the largest population of wild camels in the world, brought over in the 1800s, they were released into the wild in the 1900s when motorised transport took over. Turns out they are incredibly well suited to the Australian environment, there are around 300,000 living feral in the wild. 

Kings Canyon itself was also impressive; a huge sandstone gorge with walls over 100metres high, situated in Watarrka National Park. It has been an aboriginal scared site for the Luritja people for the last 20,000 years and is home to over 600 species of plants and animals. Not what you expect to find in a desert. 

The Mereenie loop is 170km of dirt road that joins Kings Canyon to the West Macdonnell ranges, there is nothing on the way, just dirt and the occasional vehicle or camel/horse. I was a bit nervous about this section as although its 170km of dirt it is actually 225km of nothing between Kings Canyon and the water stop at Glen Helen Lodge. Meaning I would have to carry a fair amount of water.

I needn't have worried, I had a fantastic tailwind which meant I made awesome time, and after just a day and a half I was off the dirt. The second night I bivvied at Gosse Bluff (a crater left behind when a comet hit the earth millions of years ago!) From the crater it was 65km to Glen Helen Lodge, where I could get water, before setting off on the 140km journey to Alice Springs. Visiting Ormiston Gorge, the ochre pits and Ellery Creek big hole en route. 

phase 4 : alice springs to darwin (1730km)

This was the final stage of the ride, and it was about to get a lot hotter and stickier. The distances between towns were fairly big but I would be able to get water every day or two. On the second night out of Alice there was another rain storm so I headed for the nearest rest area and decided to camp there. To my surprise there was another cyclist, Chris had just finished the 'race to the rock' a race from Adelaide to Uluru and was now cycling north towards Tennant creek to match up with a different ride he had done a while ago. We decided to cycle together, although I had reservations about whether I would be able to keep up. 

Turns out we partnered up fine and again it was nice to have someone else to talk to rather than just myself. One night we met a cyclist from Azerbeijan, Tural, and had a nice evening camping, cooking and drinking Azeri tea. The day after we visited Karlu Karlu, or the Devil's Marbles, huge granite boulders of religious significance. Upon reaching Tennant Creek we separated, me going north and Chris heading east.

Back on the road I passed by the towns of Daly Waters and Elliott. People had warned me to be careful in these towns, as apparently there are a lot of drunks, but upon reaching both I realised it was just silly stories. I slept at a campsite on the grounds of the Daly Waters pub which was awesome, the place was adorned in thousands of knick knacks, including an impressive selection of bras. I made friends with a group of people doing a 4wd trip and spent the following day cycling with a hangover. The next place of significance was Mataranka, which was home to natural, crystal clear thermal pools and eventually I reached Katherine 'where the outback meets the tropics'. The 4th largest settlement in Northern Territory with around 6,700 people. I stayed with a couchsurfing host who took me to see Katherine Gorge, Nitmiluk National Park and Edith Falls; all three were magnificent.

It was getting pretty hot and humid now, temperatures reaching up to 39 degrees and with the humidity I was sweating an awful lot. Luckily the next destination was Litchfield National Park, which has an abundance of waterholes, waterfalls and pools. A day of cycling was spent visiting the magnetic termite mounds, Buley Rockhole, Florence Falls, Tabletop Swamp, Tolmer Falls and Wangi Falls. I was now only a couple of days from Darwin, my end destination, something which was both exciting and sad. The Northern Territory was gorgeous but I was cycling during the 'build up' and the weather was starting to become difficult. 

Finally I reached Darwin, I stayed with a family and spent a couple of days going to baby dance classes (really cool!), looking round the museum and art gallery of Northern Territory and swimming in the family's pool! It was the perfect end to the trip, and as sad as I was to stop cycling I was also looking forward to evening out my tan lines! See the picture below!