Just for Laughs." Night, So Our Camp This Evening Was a Cele- Alaska in Scope)
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By Michael McCoy JustLaughs for At the end of last month's episode, it was the the landscape became. The magnificent, Boyley. Steve's line of Avanti bicycles, virtu- evening of September 27, 2002. Author arid outback reminded me a great deal of ally unknown in the United States, enjoy a McCoy and the approximately 300 other road the broad basins of New Mexico on the large share of the road- and mountain-bike and mountain-bike riders taking part in Great Divide, notwithstanding the absurd- markets in Australia and New Zealand, and The Bicycle South Australia's event, 2002 Bicycles: looking emus racing alongside us just off they were the official hire bike of this event. An Outback Odyssey, were camped on an ath- the road. The day ended in Quorn as sunny and letic field in Melrose, at the foot of Mount Another piece of contrast: ubiquitous spectacular as it had begun wet and miser- Remarkable. Our intrepid field editor had hit flocks of galahs, a beautiful pink-and-gray able at Mount Remarkable. In Quorn, some continuing the hay early, dozing off to the sounds of light cockatoo that is so common, so caustically fellow riders dragged me — okay, invited me rain on his tent and live rock 'n' roll emanating noisy, and so damaging to cultivated grain — into one of the local pubs, where the from a nearby sound stage. crops that its name is employed as an Superbowl of Australia, the Grand Final of insult, as in "you bloody galah." I would the Australian Football League, was show- saga of an September 28 scare up large flocks of them as I pedaled ing on the telly. September 28 In America: washboard road past, then watch as the flood of pink Most of those in the crowd, including In Australia: corrugated road flapped toward cloud-engulfed Mount me, were rooting for the Brisbane Lions, Remarkable, going from the feed of fields who wound up winning the premiership by outback The day began exceedingly soggy as we pedaled through Mount Remarkable I wandered away from the lights of camp National Park on trails and rocky dirt tracks normally reserved for foot travel. to view sky filled with more stars than journey of "We'll be back in the dry 30 kilome- ters to the north," promised the fellow I I’d ever witnessed anywhere. started out riding beside. "Mount Remarkable gets around 26 inches of rain to the cover of timber. To round out the squeaking past the Collingwood Magpies. discovery a year; 100 kilometers north, that's down scene, a brilliant mid-morning rainbow Bicycle SA executive director Peter "the to around 10 inches." shone like a neon sign at the base of the lungs" Solly was the most enthusiastic fan in Despite the rain and clouds, my com- mountain. the pub, emitting a perfect, and perfectly ear- panion's face was painted ghostly white On this day I was treated to riding a splitting, Austin Powers "Yeah Baby!" every with zinc oxide, and a scarf covered his ears Specialized Epic, the revolutionary bike time "Brizzy" did something right or the and neck. Australians tend to be extremely that rides like a hardtail until you get into Magpies something wrong. watchful about sun exposure, as their rough stuff, when "the Brain," a rear sus- Unlike my cricket-viewing experience country has the highest rate of skin cancer pension inertia valve, makes it start think- back at the hotel in Adelaide, I understood in the world. ing and acting like a full-suspension bike. and enjoyed Australian rules football, which, Y O C Sure enough, the farther north we Reportedly one of just a handful in the I discovered, has far less down time than our went, the drier the air and more desiccated world that had come out of hiding by this own gridiron. MICHAEL MC ADVENTURE CYCLIST JUNE 2003 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 13 After the game, while searching for which were tighter than what I'm used to. the story of overgrazing that Australia suf- teers who kept the hot food and drinks camp, I cycled through Quorn's quaint A local woman, drink in one hand and cig- fered in the wake of European settlement. coming ... morning, noon, and night. downtown area. Painted on the false front arette in the other, came out to try to help After entering the Flinders Ranges As I discovered, a visit to the spectac- of a visitor center was a long list of motion me up. Meanwhile, said fellow cyclists were National Park on bitumen, Bernie and I cut ular Flinders Ranges National Park in pictures that have been made in and cheering and giving me a standing ovation. left back onto dirt to climb to a location that itself would be sufficient reason for mak- around the picturesque town. Among I felt like crying. would serve as our home tonight — and, for ing the long trip to the very large state of them: "The Sundowners," a terrific 1960 "I did it on purpose," I told some folks some of us, for another six nights after that. South Australia (at about 380,000 square movie starring Robert Mitchum and in the supper queue who'd been there to Others would head home after just the one miles, it's somewhere between Texas and Deborah Kerr, about a restless Australian see it and cheer me on. "Just for laughs." night, so our camp this evening was a cele- Alaska in scope). The Flinders Ranges are sheepherder and his family in the 1920s. In Hawker, a small town surrounded bration of cycling and of friends new and old. a namesake of explorer Matthew Flinders, by endless dry outback, we camped on the Bushy, one of the Piggies, played guitar, a native of Lincolnshire, England, whose September 29 community horse-racing oval, which Y while several of us sang around a roaring circumnavigation of Australia 200 years O In America: furniture mover decades' worth of equine hooves had C bonfire. Beyond, jutting into the starry sky, ago is being celebrated in 2002 and 2003 In Australia: removalist pounded into the most tentstake-resistant loomed the dark eastern rim of Wilpena — an interesting parallel to our own ground in Australia. The surrounding, MICHAEL MC Pound. Lewis & Clark bicentennial commemora- Today was the first of two consecutive burry vegetation was autumn-grey, with no Before the night was over, my Scottish- tions. 100-kilometer-plus days, which, on moun- hint of spring green growth; it looked as if Sheep Country A rider encounters the locals Australian friend Rico Ferri, Adelaide- During his voyage in HMS tain bikes and on the sorts of surfaces we no measurable rain had fallen on Hawker bound the following morning, presented me Investigator, Flinders charted the entire were riding, was the equivalent of at least in a very long time. ny of Bernie Morgan, a high-ranking with his prized leather hat, one of those odd coast of Australia, proving it was one large 100 miles on pavement. It was also the day Like every other night on the trail, the Adelaide policeman who dispensed fasci- jobs with wine corks dangling off the brim island rather than a collection of smaller that convinced me, positively and unequiv- instant the desert sun dipped below the nating tidbits about the native vegetation on strings, designed to keep flies away from ones, which had previously been suspect- ocally, that I should have built some cal- horizon, the temperature went from quite and other aspects of the Flinders Ranges. your face. (Question: "Why are those corks ed. In the introduction to his book, lousness to my rear end prior to the event warm to very chilly. After a hot shower and In early afternoon we cut up and around dangling off your hat?" Answer: "Because we “Voyage to Terra Australis” — published by putting in a lot more long hours in the supper had brought me back among the liv- the base of Rawnsley Bluff, which marks drank the wine.") Rico avowed that the hat on the day in 1814 that he died at age 40 saddle. Several riders asked me why I was ing, I wandered away from the lights of the southern edge of the feature known as once belonged to the legendary bushman, — Flinders suggested that the name standing on the pedals so much. I told camp to view a sky filled with more stars Wilpena Pound. Appearing like a giant, Banjo Patterson. Australia be applied to the huge landmass. them it was to stretch some new muscles, than I'd ever witnessed, anywhere. Over mountain-ringed crater, the pound is actu- The Festival: October 1-6 By late in the 1820s, the term was being but in truth it was because I'd exhausted here I spotted an upside-down Orion; over ally an elevated basin that once separated Though it didn't attract the participant commonly used to identify the continent. the sitting possibilities: I suffered from raw- there, the storied Southern Cross; above, two much higher synclinal mountains. numbers that Bicycle SA organizers had The Festival was partly about bicy- ness wherever and however I sat, so stand- the milkiest Milky Way imaginable. The majority of those mountains have optimistically hoped for, the post-ride cling and partly about a lot of other things: TOM BOL ing was the only way to get some tempo- eroded away, leaving the steep quartzite Festival was a real kick for those of us who making the demanding hike up St. Mary's rary relief.