10,000km Bike Ride In The Desert
Sun Herald
Sunday March 19, 2000
Helen Leudar judders through the rugged red heart on a mountain bike.
IT was those three magic words that finally persuaded me to say yes . . . back-up support vehicle.
I'd been reluctant at first to venture out with an outfit called Remote Outback Cycle (ROC) Tours it all sounded too much like hard work. As its name suggests, the company sets out to explore by bike isolated areas of Australia's red centre and west coast usually accessible only to 4WD vehicles.
The itinerary consists of four separate legs, which together cover 10,000km and take a gruelling four-and-a-half weeks to complete.
I joined the five-day MacDonnell Ranges leg, which at 1,000km is the shortest of ROC's trips but involves the most cycling. Its main appeal was a chance to explore isolated areas between Ayers Rock and Alice Springs.
We would be cycling on gravel, rock, corrugated dirt roads and sand paths but the battle along rough terrain, I was assured, is rewarded by spectacular scenery.
Our trip began at Uluru and we spent the first morning cycling round the base of the Rock and getting used to the bikes. Of our group of six, I was the only one who hadn't cycled since childhood.
It's difficult to prepare for a trip like this. Rob, 23, was used to swooping along roads through England's Cotswolds. His main worry was the harsh sun and the almost complete lack of shade.
Bruce, 32, from Victoria, coped well considering his biking experience was limited to laps around the block, chaperoning his daughter who was on stabilisers.
Tony, 37, from Perth had spent the previous few weeks cycling up and down his local beach. But firm sand at low tide was to prove a poor preparation for the sand we encountered deep, soft and usually at the foot of a steep gravel hill.
Fortunately we were encouraged to cycle at our own pace. For me, this meant gravitating towards the back of the group, struggling to complete the 10km and 13km legs.
But I was never alone incredibly, Bruce and Rob cycled even more slowly than I did. Steve and Linda, the trip leaders, were always close behind offering words of encouragement, a glass of water or (in my case) a lift for those final few kilometres.
A friendly couple in their late 20s, they lead every trip personally. It's an unusual marriage, spent entirely on the road. When I asked what they did in their spare time, I wasn't entirely surprised to learn that they head home to New Zealand and do the same thing there.
``You're mad," I said. ``Bike mad," qualified Steve. ``It's the only way to get close to things." And get close they do. After driving 200km towards Kings Canyon, Steve unloaded the bikes 17km short of the camping ground. Cycling into the canyon allowed us to adjust slowly to its towering walls, some more than 200m high.
We soon discovered that what the trip lacked in luxury, it more than made up for gastronomically. Linda's gourmet camp fire skills were nothing short of incredible. She could regulate the temperature of an oven to within a few degrees by adjusting hot coals.
Her supper of olive and sun-dried tomato focaccia, lasagne and chocolate cheesecake looked so good that even Steve took a photo of it.
WE soon got used to the drive-cycle-camp routine. The three-hour drive to Palm Valley was along a deeply gouged road sun-baked as hard as rock. By contrast, the roadside was carpeted with brightly coloured flowers.
Before we clambered on our bikes for the final, spectacular leg to the camp ground, Linda handed us huge slices of fruitcake. Immediately suspicious, we asked what the road was like. ``Weeeeell," began Steve, ``it's ... challenging."
This proved to be the understatement of the trip. Fist-sized rocks covered the main road and took a bit of getting used to as did the occasional tooth-jarring pothole. The monotony of this was broken only by the need to dodge stones the size of soccer balls.
Trying to prevent a fly from crawling into my left nostril, I attempted a conversation with Laura, a property manager from Western Australia. It's not until you've biked along miles of corrugated dirt road that you really appreciate bitumen.
As I emerged from a cloud of self pity, I began to appreciate my surroundings. We were cycling along the dry bed of the Finke, one of the world's oldest rivers, and the setting sun crept over the cliff walls, staining them a dramatic red.
``This is what it's all about," sighed Laura. ``And just think how few people have cycled here."
Very few indeed, to judge by the lifts we had been offered by passing vehicles.
It wasn't until we passed stranded vehicles that we fully appreciated the freedom our bikes afforded us. All-terrain trucks were stuck at impossible angles, as if in the aftermath of an earthquake. ``Glad we didn't accept a lift," said Laura.
For most of us, Palm Valley was the highlight of the trip. As we emerged into a desert oasis, the effort was forgotten.
``You've got to get off the main roads," explained Steve, ``there's no other way to escape the tourists."
He demonstrated this with our next lunch destination, lonely Gosse Bluff, reached by dirt track. It's the site of a comet crater 5km in diameter that struck earth 140 million years ago.
Despite my getting a lift for the first 10km, it was only half an hour before Bob at 50, the oldest in the group gave me a cheery wave as he whizzed past.
The ground switched from rock to sand. I tried to remember Linda's tips: low gear for sand, pedal quickly, lean forward to put your weight at the front.
It wasn't until the final 15km run from Simpsons Gap into Alice Springs that I realised how well adapted to rough terrain we had become. Faced with a purpose-built cycling path, we scorned it. We were much too rugged for that.
THE LOWDOWN
* Remote Outback Cycle Tours (08 9244 4614) operates from April to September. The MacDonnell Ranges tour departure dates for this year are: April 12, May 24, July 12 and August 30.
* The price of $650 per person for the five-day, four-night trip includes mountain bike hire, most meals, camping accommodation (tent, sleeping bag and self-inflating air mattress) as well as all camping fees. Note that park entry fees are not included in this cost.
* For further information, visit the ROC website at www.cycletours.com.au
* Other trips cover Perth to Ayers Rock (five days), Alice Springs to Darwin (five days) and Darwin to Broome (14 days).
© 2000 Sun Herald
