That time I tried to tricycle around Australia

Ready to roll: on the tricycle and
gearing up to ride around Australia

Not achieving your goal can be as rewarding - and sometimes more so - than reaching your target. This was brought home to me many moons ago after an attempt to cycle around the whole of Australia.

If the "me then" had read the opening sentence above, I would have shook my head in disagreement. Because being young and "bulletproof," everything was about clarity and absolutes or, as Yoda had said: "Do or do not, there is no try."

But hundreds of miles into the outback and many days ride from the nearest town, I pitched my small tent beneath another breathtaking Australian sunset and conceded that the trans-country ambition was slipping from my grasp. Fitness alone would not be enough; the biomechanical strain was causing one knee to holler ever louder in pain each day. Abandoning the endeavour was the sensible option. The evening sky, splashed with hues of yellow, red and mauve, seemed to belong to another world. I sat at the tent's entrance and pondered what it would mean to step away from the challenge. Was it a "try" that had failed, or was it a "do" that had reached an unavoidable early conclusion?

It all began by thinking big ... real big. Sure it would have been easier to drive around Australia, but my wages as a sandwich delivery boy in Perth would not stretch to buying a used VW camper van or a Ford Holden, however clapped out they happened to be.

Instead, the ride would to be done on a second-hand tricycle to which I'd roped two baskets where I could store my rucksack and tent and containers of drinking water. On this exact day 31 years ago, the story appeared in a local suburb newspaper of Perth. However, by that time I was already pedaling somewhere "beyond the black stump", to use an Australian idiom.

An awful lot of distance lay ahead. The total journey would nudge beyond 10,000 miles (more than 15,000km) if it included an excursion away from the coast to Alice Springs in the centre of the country.

End of the day: the bike unpacked beside the tent in
the sunset afterglow, somewhere in the Australian outback

My aim was to do a round number each day. One hundred kilometres, around 60 miles, seemed doable, although 80km turned out to be more realistic. The tricycle was not built for speed, and weighed down by provisions and gear, together with the topography, weather conditions, and a desire to rest and enjoy the constantly unfolding panoramic views, the journey was never going to be about ratcheting up numbers on a speedometer.

It was the start of the antipodean winter, which helped temper the outback's often excessive heat. All the same, it was necessary to rest during the hours of peak heat each day. As evening approached, I'd take stock of where I was and scan the surroundings for a secure location off the road and out of sight to pitch the tent and hide the bike.

With each passing day signs of civilisation diminished and the remote wilderness took over. The ground became drier and harder, to the point that tent ground pegs could barely be pushed more than an inch into the soil.

On the road: the vast emptiness of the landscape, and
my fully laden cycle during a rest stop on an empty road

The slow pace of the journey was perfect, allowing time to absorb the surroundings; places of mindblowing emptiness, unusual rock formations, the sight of emus roaming in the distance, or lizards - much closer - scooting across the road.

The days were broken into 10km segments. As each was achieved the reward was a rest in a shady spot, a huge drink of water, and a jam sandwich or two from the bread basket hanging in front of the handlebars. All around was the ethereal near silence of the emptiness.

I slept well at night, comfortably exhausted from the cycling. Ten hours of sleep was common, broken only when I awoke to the occasional noise of an unseen animal in the night rustling around outside.

But a week into the journey, and with only another hour of cycling needed to reach the next major population centre of Geraldton, I decided to save my knee from further pain and called time on the cycling ambition. The rest of this curtailed journey would be by foot and hitchhiking. It took me to the dolphins of Monkey Mia, the remote township of Carnavron, and then the stunning 14-mile long (22km) beach at Broome in the far north-west.

Aa a hitchhiker and foot-traveller I met fellow journeyers I'd probably not have encountered had I still been on the cycling mission. The memories stay with me.

No, I didn't achieve the goal on which I'd set out. But embarking on it in the first place and then allowing it to evolve into something else, led to something as rewarding.
So think big, go for it, but know that a course correction doesn't mean a fail - it more than likely will bring equal or greater joy.

Newspaper article: May 31, 1988