The final few...

The legs were tightening, the tan fading, the stomach expanding and the hydration was back up. Sickness had put it off but it was Monday morning and time to leave. Avoiding peak hour traffic was crucial so the plan was for the train out of the city. My Uncle Will had once again decided/been convinced to join me and before peak hour we were being launched passed deadly traffic on a v-link train. Soon it was time to see whether my legs would remember the movement they had performed day in day out for the past 5 months. The slight tailwind was welcomed as we both struggled to keep the pedals turning. We discovered that between us we had ridden less than 10kms since arriving from Ballarat. The scenery of the Hume Highway was expected to be familiar, having driven this road countless times. However, it took on a new beauty and a new pace having slowed mine. There were hills that had looked flatter, and they wore colours that had previously looked duller. Simple lives were being lived off this piece of tar cutting with tunnel vision through an unappreciated landscape. A landscape that had just existed to divide the places I know. Sickness still churned slightly in my stomach. Chest pains made breathing more difficult than it should have been. But the kms were passing and the tough first days return to the seat was bearable. It was also of interest to both of us to travel through towns consistently bypassed when on the Sydney to Melbourne drive, guilty of fearing the addition of 20mins to a 9hr journey. Euroa was one of these which will be marked as a worthy stopping point from here on. We made it to Wangaratta before dark and eyed the impressive bakery for the morning. With two people to share the costs, a caravan park was within my budget. The luxuries associated were enjoyed, bar the shaded pool as the temperature was far from appealing.
The next morning we were headed for the border and the weather grew a little hotter. I thanked the timing of my sickness with each flooded ditch beside the road I saw. It had rained a lot the past week but all we saw were blue skies and all we felt was a slight tailwind pushing us on. As we neared the border I knew the flatter roads were ending, and with them we were also about to depart the widest emergency lanes I had seen the whole trip. My 6th and final border crossing and I smiled, my mind not capturing all I hoped it would. Surreal is still the only word I can place upon seeing familiar sites, smelling familiar smells and knowing where you head, unprepared despite months of longing. 20km/hr should have felt familiar however it led me too quickly towards what I should be aching for, just as it had towards Melbourne. I'm not sure what I expected. To feel so much wiser, so much more prepared for society. Something. Anything. To have felt filled with knowledge. I know I would have felt it if I had travelled straight from sickness on the Nullarbor to the comfort of the end. The comfort of bed sheets washed in the freshest scents. But I felt tired, frustrated by what I had seen and this society I was riding towards, mostly as oblivious as when I'd left. The hills soon pulled my thoughts away and placed them upon how to kill the flies on my face with my shoulders while staying on the road, while not swerving in front of oncoming traffic or more dangerously, the overtaking traffic. Holbrook and the well known bakery had been reached long before dark and dinner was enjoyed by us and just as equally by the flies it would seem. We then headed to the caravan park for a relaxing few hours of light where I braved this shaded pool for a whole 3 seconds. The relaxing evening was followed by a very sleepless night for Will, the trucks engine brakes letting Holbrook know of their arrival.
Breakfast of a bavarian ring (oh how I have missed bakeries in the outback!) and we were off again. The hwy took on more hills than any car I had driven ever noticed and the heat was building. As we headed for Gundagai (where Will was to turn around) I found the faster I attacked the hills the less flies I had. By early afternoon about 30kms south of Gundagai I found some shade to wait. Will soon arrived and suggested I push on as he was stopping in Gundagai anyway. Extremely grateful for the company he had provided I was glad to know only 1 full day of my own mind waited for me. We bid farewell and I rode on and straight past the town to the dog on the tuckerbox. A good supply of fruit later I was ready to tackle the a ride into the evening. There had been a few occasions on this trip where 200kms in a day had been close but just beyond reach. I had given up on the idea by the end of the Nullarbor knowing the heat and then hills that were to take over the rest of the trip. However this day I had done 120kms by 4:15 and the heat of the day was finally leaving. It was kept as a target in my mind however soon seemed unrealistic with the hwy shooting up beyond 650m altitude a number of times. But as i pushed on, some downhills towards Yass just kept me ahead of dark until eventually, finally, 200kms went by! I then kept cruising for another 15kms until dark when I rolled into the sth Yass service centre. Any chance of a decent campsite was sacrificed for a vanilla thickshake and an hour later found myself, not sleeping, but lying beside a petrol station sign. The trucks sung me to sleeplessness with their familiar yet forgettable song. This was the last night I would lie underneath the sky for what I felt could be a long time. I knew I would miss the comfort of my sleeping bag as the cold night consumed a day of over exercise. But right now, give me a real bed!
I woke up the next morning and packed for the final time. A fill of water at an inconveniently close petrol station and a homeless man asked me if I slept alright last night. 'Not particularly'. He then proceeded to tell me how well he slept in the local pub having found $300 besides the hwy. What he hadn't spent on the room and steak he lost in the pokies. 'But I don't care' he assured me. I thought of telling him that I ran money management courses for $300 but that would have been a lie, and unlike the school kids I had spoken to along the way, he had seen what I have called a bed for the past 5 months. All credibility was lost. I rode on past each sign counting down to Goulburn. One final rest 20kms before the big merino as yesterday had nearly destroyed me. Here I met Chris, a car salesman. He told me how he had '5 daughters, none of whom have the initiative to do what you're doing, or have just done'. I told him, as I have so many people this trip that not everyone is going to cycle around Australia. However people just need to talk about it. 2 minutes, 1 minute, even 30 seconds a day. If you spoke to one new person about Australia's Indigenous problems each day then who could ignore what is happening? Governments move with the people. When people care then people decide. A quote I read recently from an indigenous man was 'No one has ever lost a seat, let alone an election because my people live this way.' I know this country cares, I just don't know if we fully understand how the simplest words can directly drive the biggest cogs. I have asked Australians to please talk amongst themselves, talk to others and as they discover just how appalling it is that this situation exists within the country of Australia, write to politicians. I am not pushing for the unrealistic chance that something might change. It's the fact I know it can, I've seen it, and the fact that change is so accessible yet has been so consistently ignored or has just been thrown large band aids of ill-handled and resultantly problematic money should frustrate every Australian.
Before I, or my legs knew it I was off the highway and had returned to the road where we had ridden beaten by headwinds that first day. All the thoughts of my mind were filtering out like the last grains of an hour glass. They slipped by no matter how hard I tried to catch them. It left my mind empty with nothing but the vision I had so frequently visited of turning onto the dirt road where it all began. Soon this vision fell out too as it all apparently became tangible. I felt if I stopped and touched something my hand however would pass right through. It wasn't until, back wheel slipping on the gravel climb of the driveway, my heaving chest hunched over the handlebars for the final time, I reached the house. I stopped pedalling and planted my feet on the ground. They didn't sink. The ground held me and the world stopped moving. Wait...so has my dog. 'Preston!' I yelled to the motionless lump on the balcony. To my suprise he woke and found interest in me, not knowing, caring or appreciating where I had been. Soon, he realised I had no food he would consider edible and lay down again, and inside I sat on the couch, looking around within unchanged walls wondering if I'd ever left.

It took me 153 days to do just over 15200kms. On the trip I realised that this was obviously the hardest 5 months of my life. I then realised that my life has therefore been relatively free from trials. Although I felt strongly enough about this to do something, in the end it was my decision to leave. People watch the news every night. They see the struggles of the third world. Placed along side these reports are the Indigenous problems. They have blended through their similarities to become so close to each other, so far from us. They seem unreachable and therefore helplessly unresolvable. Because of the massive gap in living standards we create distances in our minds. 'It's too big'. We shrug our shoulders as though symbolically removing the weight from our backs and placing it upon someone elses. When will someone stand up to the strain of knowing what we have caused? When will someone stand against the ignorant comfort in which we live and say enough is enough? I saw many people this trip who work everyday without an ounce of passion for what they do. I wondered in what their passion would bloom. I have soon however seen this work only exists in their lives to feed their bigger passion, family. I wonder why we can only hold such an interest in those related so closely. We see billions of dollars poured into space exploration and the search for other life. While this is wasted money I can see the benefit of believers to invest in such. If other life were found it would tear down the borders of these cities, provinces, territories, states and countries. Our borders would become our atmosphere and we would look within these borders to see a deeply flawed human race. Surely that would inspire an act of change so dramatic that we would not feel seperated from those on a screen anymore. This is unrealistic. And I feel through Governments and leaders that words in past years have lost potenecy. It's up to those who care already, even in the slightest, to spread a confidence in solutions. Oxfam's work is amazing and it has things moving in the right direction. However they are in a constant battle with the government for support. The Government says and does much with little research. Society needs to take a greater interest to insure that words cannot be spoken and moves cannot be made without knowing the long term plan and the possibilities. I have personally learnt that nothing is effective unless it has been asked for and is understood.

My motivation upon completion of this ride has not ceased. I find myself with a great desire to help further. For now I am researching where my life is to take me next however, still a way from answers I will post one more blog when things have become more clear and I know my direction. I would like to thank so much everyone who helped me to keep pedalling everyday. Whether it was the offer of a drink, a friendly chat, some food or advice it was of great benefit to my drive to keep riding! Of course a huge thank you also to everyone who donated! I have been overwhelmed by individuals generosity and interest in the cause. It was an incredibly difficult five months however incredibly rewarding. And also a huge thanks to Kerstin from Oxfam for all her help and support with the ride. I have to use a quote from Alastair Humphreys: 'Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I do it again? No.' It is hard to remember now, from the comfort of a chair how difficult some moments, days or weeks were. 'You just had to pedal a bike' I say to myself. But a lone traveller leans upon himself when he is too weak to stand. There is the constant strain of an empty mind, no thoughts to vent creeping insanity. Not to mention pessimism. And of course just when it's all coming together you have a bike that breaks, a trailer that snaps, a tyre that goes flat and the performance of six million flies inducting you into an outback asylum. It all still seems slightly appealling from this chair.

Would I recommend a ride around Australia? Probably not. I recommend day rides and riding to work instead of feeding an addiction to fuel. But I do recommend travel. The type of travel where you see not only the landscape and culture, but the effects reckless power has upon these. Powers always searching to be stonger, more stable and striving to posses a greater ability to intimidate. Travel to learn from the mistakes of human history, the beauty of nature's own power, the generosity of people's hearts and the innocence of children while these lands still permit it.


My only other plea for people is to create moments, this world would love to host them.