Early start to avoid the heat
I set the alarm for 4. It’s smart to start earlier so I arrive before the greatest heat. It’s still dark outside, I’m going to stop by the petrol station to buy coffee and some snacks to take with me on the trip. Pack everything, get the bike and head off. Put the light on my helmet so I’m extra visible.
It’s very much uphill. When it gets lighter, I discover it’s overcast – maybe I won’t get sunburnt today. Everything is going as it should, the sun is actually starting to come out too, but the day isn’t too warm yet, it’s early.
Around 9 am I think about having breakfast. It was a lot of uphill and a bit downhill before I reached a place/town called Crookwell. A baguette and 2 colas are fine. They also have other sizes of bottles here: 375 ml or 440 ml instead of 330 ml as in Europe, and 600 ml bottles, but they use both kilometres, kilos, and litres like us.
I’m going on, but the short break made me start to feel the heat. It’s uphill to get out of town, but eventually, it gets a bit easier and the countryside opens up. Lots of agriculture and cows.
Thirsty in no man’s land
I come to a junction and have to decide which way to go. It looks like it’s deserted here – no places where you can buy water or food. I see a village on the map and think I can buy something to drink there: Rugby. I approach the village and am surprised that there is no shop here. Hmm.
I don’t think I have enough water with me, but I have to keep going. There are 30 km left, but with very uneven terrain, and it’s hot. I see a fire station with a man working outside. I ask him about the nearest shop.
Boorowa, he replies.
Ugh, I think, it’s 30 km there. I ask if it’s possible to fill up water somewhere here. He comes with a whole tray of small bottles of water. I drink 3 at once and take 4 with me to have for later. We talked a bit about the trip etc. A younger man came and joined the conversation, but he spoke such a difficult dialect that I actually only understood half of what he said.
Palpitations to Boorowa
I cycle on and make it with heart palpitations to Boorowa where I get a hotel room. Small town, not much to do there.
Boorowa turns out to be a sleepy little agricultural town that lives off wool production and sheep farming – where sheep is king as the locals say with a twinkle in their eye. It’s located in the Hilltops region, known for its vineyards and fruit trees. Once a year, the town comes alive during the Running of the Sheep Festival, an absurd parody of Spain’s bull run, where hundreds of sheep run through the main street while tourists take pictures. Right now, it’s just me, the heat, and a couple of tractor-tanned farmers looking suspiciously at my cycling kit.
I talked a bit with the people working at the hotel-pub-restaurant, and heard some local stories. An old man tells me about the Yowie – Australia’s answer to Bigfoot – which allegedly lurks in the forests around Boorowa. My grandfather saw it in 1937, big as a bear but walked on two legs, he insists while taking a sip of his beer. Another local tells about when the neighbouring town Young organised a lizard rodeo in 1998, and how the crocodile escaped and was found in the mayor’s swimming pool two days later. I nod politely, unsure if I’m being fooled or if life in the bush is really that surreal.
Simple room without a toilet. Australian luxury at its finest.
New Year’s Eve on two wheels
The next day I also start before the sun rises, it’s smart. I don’t know how far I’ll manage to get today. It’s forecast to be very hot. I take lots of water with me in case there are no places to buy.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I cycle well, and around 12 pm I start to feel the heat getting to me. A lot of headwind today, and I call it a day in a town called Temora. 133 km, that was enough for today.
I go to town, buy lots of cola and sweets to start early tomorrow too, maybe even earlier.
Temora, this sleeping giant of an airport town, turns out to have the Temora Aviation Museum with aircraft exhibitions that attract aviation enthusiasts from all over the country. I decide to go there since it has air conditioning and a hiding place from the relentless sun. For a cyclist with heatstroke, air conditioning is akin to a religious experience. I spend two hours staring at old Spitfire planes while wiping sweat and drinking ice-cold water.
On the way back through town, I stumble upon Hotel Temora, a pub rescue that looks like a time capsule from the 1970s. The server – who introduces herself as Shazza – has hair that defies gravity and a laugh that makes my glass vibrate. You’re a long way from home, Viking, she says as she pours me a Victoria Bitter. We’ve had Norwegians here before – they drank us under the table and taught us some songs that made the pastor not want to talk to us for a month. I smile and promise not to sing.
New Year’s Day Cycling towards Griffith
I start when it’s dark, heading west. I’ll try to get to Griffith. A lot of headwind, also hot. Completely open and no forest or shade.
I arrive in Griffith. It’s January 1st, so the town is empty, but the kebab shop is open. I get to talk to a man from India who runs it – he has friends in Norway and enjoys living in Australia.
I see there’s a bike shop that closed down a while ago. Rusty’s Cycle Emporium is written on the faded sign, with windows covered in dust and posters from the Tour Down Under 2016. Curious as I am, I peer through the glass pane. Inside, time stands still – bike helmets from the last decade still hang on the walls, and a couple of old Malvern Star bikes stand abandoned in the middle of the floor, like a cycling Pompeii.
A local walking past tells me the story: Old Rusty lost the shop when they built the new Walmart-like giant on the outskirts of town. He refused to sell e-bikes, said it was ‘cheating and tomfoolery’ and that ‘real Australian men use thigh muscles, not batteries’. Poor old bloke lasted three years before he had to give up.
I peer through the window at a bike workshop that looks like a time capsule – wrenches and mismatched wheelsets hang where they were left on the last day. On the counter is a coffee cup with what must be the world’s oldest coffee grounds, and on the wall hangs a picture of Rusty himself – a sunburnt man with a red face and an enormous moustache – proudly posing with Cadel Evans after his Tour de France victory in 2011.
He moved to the coast, the local continues. Apparently starting a surf shop now. Same concept – no beginner boards, no wetsuits, just ‘true surfers’. Give him two years before he’s back here. I have to laugh at the story, but also feel a pang of melancholy. Another small business lost to time and pace.
Griffith – Italy’s outpost in the outback
Griffith, this strange oasis in the middle of nowhere, turns out to have a fascinating history dominated by Italian immigrants. The town is known as Little Italy in the Riverina region, and produces most of Australia’s wine and citrus fruits. But locals also whisper about the town’s darker history linked to the mafia – The Griffith Gang – which allegedly controlled the Australian drug trade in the 70s. As I cycle through the empty streets and past vineyards stretching towards the horizon, I reflect on how surreal it is to be in Australia’s Little Sicily on the first day of the year.
Had the town been open, I could have visited the Pioneer Park Museum with its collection of early settler homes, or the iconic Hermit’s Cave – a bizarre home carved into a hillside by the Italian hermit farmer Valerio Ricetti over 23 years. Instead, I sit at the kebab shop and slurp cola while the fan above my head fights a losing battle against the heat. The kebab man Raj tells me he came to Australia to study, but ended up marrying a Griffith girl and opening Best Kebab Down Under. Life is strange, he says philosophically as he stacks meat on the spit. You never end up where you plan. Like you – did you really plan to sit here, soaked in sweat and sunburnt, on the first day of the year? I have to laugh at how accurately he punctures my seemingly adventurous cycling journey.
