Riding the August Moon - Angels

There are Angels…

Sometimes everything just glides into place! (sometimes)

Posing with bike beside termite mound at Pine Creek

Old Boiler

Soon after arriving at the Lazy Lizard camp ground, while I was resting on the grass and contemplating my next move a young woman approached me, she was curious about how far I'd ridden with the bike and trailer and wanted to know more about what it's like riding the Stuart Highway. I was groggy from the heat and  depleted of energy, but really enjoyed  being able to discuss the journey. It turned out she was interested in doing a long distance ride herself. Maybe that's how the seed is sown? I've had a few chats with touring cyclists and had often experienced a kind of envy hearing about their travel experience.

We chatted for a while about cycling; the road etc… then she offered me a bottle of coconut water. I've never tasted the stuff and always thought it was a bit of a rort but after one taste I was hooked, when I drank that stuff my whole body reacted! It was amazing! I must have been low on electrolytes, it seemed to deliver what I needed directly into the blood stream! After she left I sculled the remainder of the bottle in one hit!Magic happens!

 

Hooded Parrot

Juliet's Shed

If you're sitting in the park across from the Lazy Lizard you're likely to notice an interesting looking house on the corner across the road. The house of Ms Juliet Mills. You can't miss it there hare hand painted signs all over the outside fence. Juliet is an artist and a poet,  she sells second hand books and is creating a garden that is becoming a story of it’s own. The garden is a work in progress, gradually growing and gathering artistic curiosities and messages for the inquisitive visitors. If she's in the mood she will invite you in for a yarn. If you're for it, or not, you may soon find yourself drawn into revelations and quizzical exploration, an adventure along a path between safe social convention and risky baiting, inquisitive conversationalists are bound to take the detours into something a little deeper.

At a stage in my journey where I was wondering what would be my next move, meeting Juliet was like stepping into the territory of The Cheshire Cat. At any other time I would have simply enjoyed the banter, but on this occasion it felt like there was a reason and a purpose to the meeting. We discussed books, (how to get them, what people read in what order they are organized on her shelves)  art and people, but for the whole time I felt a sense of something hovering above me reminding me to look around and ask myself… ‘why are you here?’

I wandered out of that yard feeling like I’d crossed an imaginary line! I had been considering taking the Greyhound to Katherine to meet up with some friends but as I crossed the road into the park at Pine Creek I knew immediately that my journey was complete. This is where I needed to be.

The whole next day was spent reading and exploring Pine Creek. Lucky I didn't need to go any further, dehydration or too much sun the day before had put the buz on my brain! Woke in the morning with some weird symptoms. I kept falling to the left as if I was paralytic drunk. It took half a day to fully get my balance.

The latest copy of local paper ‘Up The Creek’ had published one of Juliet's poems. I reckon it would have gone down beautifully if she’d read it at the recent Wild Words in Darwin, the theme this month was Erotica. 

If you’re ever in Pine Creek you should drop in for a chat… but make sure you read the sign to check when she’s is available. Be warned though, Juliet likes her privacy so choose your time carefully and don’t get annoyed if she’s not available, she’s not running a business just offering an opportunity for a unique opportunity to meet a special person who may tell you what you want or don’t want to hear, depending…

Oh yeah and don’t forget to bring a few books to donate and some gold coins for the tales. 

Something had happened to me over the past two days, I had begun to feel completely at home at Pine Creek. I had a good book, food and enough money for camping in town for a week if I chose to but the time had come to turn around and head back home where my family were patiently waiting. 

I had finally grown very comfortable with Pushmi-Pullyu, and dreaded having to dump her. Of course the whole rig was way to cumbersome for the Stuart Highway but in Pine Creek she was perfect for getting about town and along the dirt tracks. I didn’t want to just leave her lying around. I gave myself a day to find a solution and then went back to checking out ‘Up The Creek’. Too lazy to read I flicked through the pages and something caught my eye. It was an add toward the back with an image of a bicycle on it. Wow up…. I went back to the page and that’s where I found Shayne’s add.

Shayne works for the VictoriaDaly Night Patrol in Pine Creek. He’s running a bit of a bike fixing program with the local kids and placed an add in Up The Creek looking for donated bikes for the project. Brilliant! This was exactly what I was looking for. I gave Shayne a call and we met up at his place, a few minutes later (literally across the road from where Pine Creek isn’t a big town) 

We had a great chat and Shayne showed me some of his projects and inventions. I was really pleased to be leaving my bike with a guy who was so enthusiastic about working with young people, (And Bikes!) I really wanted to hang around and lend a hand but knew it was not to be, this time. On the day I left Shayne took me for a drive around some of the back roads, including the lookout, which I have to admit I had no intention of trying to ride up. The lookout could actually be one of the highest road in the NT. Meeting these people was the highlight of my trip, it filled me with a greater sense of purpose in what I was doing and connection to a place I haven’t really spent much time in before.

Since I got back to Darwin I’ve been thinking of ways to support Shayne and the kids at Pine Creek. Maybe collect a trailer load of bikes and take them down as a donation. 

There’s a lot more that I’d like to say and ideas I could explore but the inspiration to write is losing it’s momentum and I’m not sure I could convey exactly what it is that’s on my mind or stirring in my soul. 

This has been a solo journey (as all good ones should be) but on reflection it seems clear that being 'alone' can sometimes position us for special encounters. Opportunities can present rewarding and sometimes mystical experiences, and encounters with others. Angels appear through the dust, demons may also await unwary travelers. 

On this journey I was blessed. The spirit of the road succeeded in shifting something within, my thoughts have become much clearer and self-doubt confronted and sent packing! A direction for life, not so much in terms of what I should be doing but how I should approach it is revealing itself through the haze. 

The means that lead me to what my Yolngu friends call the dhukarr (The path, The way) the end remains a mystery. 
 

I am most grateful for - Fresh water, a little shade and the the kindness of  strangers 
(Amended 03/9/17)
PS - It's peculiar, my time at Pine Creek was most significant but I found it very difficult to write. I  can see my own laziness and frustrating lack of talent with words prevents me from conveying the message. When I read back over it I know I shouldn't have published. The shame of poor writing motivates me to go back and rewrite, where if it were only on paper I'd probably not bother. (I think this breaks some kind of rule of etiquette, it definitely ignores the need to entertain or show respect to the reader, I apologize for that, but for now will continue to write badly, amend and republish... I am sure my readership numbers will continue to reflect the results of such tardy practice.)
 

Riding the August Moon - Day 3

Hayes Creek – Pine Creek

When I arrived at Hayes Creek I was stuffed, my spirits were in much better shape than the previous ride from Darwin to Adelaide River but I had depleted most of my energy. I thought I’d need a day to recover. Oddly, after having a good feed and a pretty reasonable sleep I was up and about bright and early on Wednesday morning. By 7am I had decided that if I started early enough I’d make it to Pine Creek easily. 

 

Hayes creek is situated at the beginning of quite a rise from the relatively low lying Adelaide River flats. After breaking camp I was immediately confronted possibly the steepest incline on the Stuart Highway until you reach the MacDonnell Ranges, although by world standards that’s not really saying much. 

The country along the Stuart Highway between Hayes Creek and Pine Creek is really quite pretty. You have to be traveling slow enough to appreciate it, and I was. There were several fresh water streams trickling down from escarpments and the geology and plant life was considerably different to most of what I’d seen so far.

Traffic on this leg was moderate and the road was a lot more manageable than my previous experience on the Highway. Although I needed to adjust to leaving the road a lot more often I had made a conscious decision to take my time, stopping to look around and to rest and drink plenty of water. 

Apparently the brolga against sunset image has been on this rock since the 1980's It was part of a well known tourism NT promotion and is easily identified as an NT icon... The words 'C-U in the N-T' are a recent addition gleaned from a 'guerilla tourism advertising campaign'

For the first time on my journey drivers started waving to me and I had a far greater sense of mastery of the road. With less traffic and a couple of days solid riding experience I felt I could anticipate bottlenecks in the traffic and get out of the way more effectively. Truck drivers gave me a wide birth and I always made sure I was off the road well before they were upon me. About half way I stopped at the Emerald Springs Road House and relaxed on their veranda for about an hour, coffee and scones with jam! Yum!

During the final leg to Pine Creek I actually felt I had found my rhythm. (The fact that I only had to ride 60km in the whole day and there was a coffee and scone break right in the middle may have had something to do with my confidence) About 15 km out of Pine Creek the pedals seized! I thought I’d thrown the chain but looked down and found it was sitting snugly on its cogs! Oh no! From the time I set out I feared this happening! I was unable to grease the bottom bracket bearings before I left home, I knew they weren’t in good shape having sat through a few wet seasons and they had been making a dry squeaky scratchy sound for most of the trip… Yes! Low and behold. The crank had seized!

A good traveler does not neglect his machine! (but I did)

After a bit of physical manipulation I managed to get the crank to turn, it was a bit wobbly but it made several rotations without jamming again. There was an ominous grinding feeling and the sound of metal scratching and bending. I figured I must have shattered the bearing casing. On these old one piece crank sets the bearings are contained in a thin metal casing, I reckon if that had dried out or become rusty, the constant revolutions of the crank would eventually chew the metal out and it would start to come apart. The bearings are much tougher and would continue to roll but the whole fit would be looser and would meet with resistance whenever a scrap of metal got caught between the bearings… That is my theory of what happened to my bike.

I was able to continue riding into Pine Creek but knew that unless I could find a replacement*, that’s as far as we’d be traveling together. Within myself I knew this was the end of the line. Rolling up to the shady park in the middle of town I put the bike down on it’s stand and raided my food supplies. Time to hit those treats I’d been saving for a desperate day in the future.

After a decent break in the shade I checked into the Lazy Lizard camp site, made a few half arsed attempts to source an old bike with a one piece crank, then decided it was no longer necessary and officially declared the ride over. There was little likelihood of fixing the bike well enough to travel another 200km and I felt like I had already taken too much time away from my family. The urge to go on was strong though! After only three days of cycling I felt an incredible magnetism to life on the road. A compulsion to go on, a singleness of purpose which revolved around, eating, drinking, sleeping and pedaling. It is pure  and uncomplicated and a treacherous temptation to the breakout man trapped within.

*(Not as unlikely as you may think. One piece cranks were the standard for ultra-low price department store bikes for about 30 years. There are likely to be 100's of thousands of them scattered all over the country, probably in prime condition considering the average punter will quit the cycling fad after the first puncture and push their bike up against a wall, where it will sit until door to door scrap metal collection ever becomes a thing again.)

(More on Pine Creek next post)