A stop at a gas station café for donuts, ice cream, and refueling with food and drinks before continuing my journey. I strike up a conversation with a guy working there and learn that he emigrated from Slovakia to Australia in 1998 – so at a very young age! He likes it here, but starts talking about the country’s politics… That’s something we’ll elegantly skip over in this blog.
I notice again and again that Australians travel incredibly little! Not just long distances, but even short trips are like expeditions for them. When I ask about the road to a town or village, I often hear they haven’t driven there for SEVERAL YEARS – and we’re talking about a measly 40 kilometers! Completely different from Northern Norway, where most of us from the Mørsvikbotn area know the roads to Bodø, Narvik, and Lofoten like the backs of our hands – not just the E6 highway, but also all the winding shortcuts across the sea.
Time flies, and I see the poor guy behind the counter starting to stress because he took too long a break with me. I jump on my bike and pedal off into the darkness. It’s dead silent around me, almost no traffic, and then – BAM! – after just 10 km, my back tire suddenly goes flat. Typical! Nothing to do but stop and fix it. I don’t have any more tubeless sealant with me, so I decide to put on an inner tube instead. Fortunately, that goes fine.
My Honest Australian Travel Advice: Going to Australia and through the desert? BUY TELSTRA! But not just any SIM card that claims to have “Telstra coverage” – no, you need GENUINE Telstra! Companies like Telsim, Boost Mobile, Woolworths Mobile, and ALDImobile all boast about using the “Telstra network,” but they only get access to a limited part of it. The others have such limited coverage that it’s ridiculous. ONLY Telstra actually works in the wilderness. Don’t be fooled by the smiling salespeople at the airport saying, “Optus or Virgin work just fine” – they DON’T! I’ve fallen for that trick several times. Yes, they’re cheaper and offer more data, but that doesn’t help when you’re standing in the middle of nowhere without coverage!
Penong – More Than Just a Stopover
First stop is Penong, about 50 kilometers later. This small place is actually home to Australia’s “windmill museum” – a collection of over 20 historic wind pumps reaching towards the sky! I indulge in coffee, ice cream, and donuts, and surprise absolutely no one when I say it’s only 8 o’clock, but it’s already scorching hot.
I notice police checkpoints everywhere. Speed limit or drunk driving checks? It’s Saturday morning, so maybe there’s a local problem with party-happy drivers?
I pedal on with a bit of wind at my back – delightful! – but the heat just keeps rising and rising. I stop at all gas stations, but they’re so insanely far apart that I have to lug water barrels on my back. The water in my backpack stays okay, but the water in the bottles on my bike? It gets so hot it burns my mouth to drink it! Next time I’ll bring a steel or titanium bottle – a smart investment when the temperature creeps up to 38 degrees and there’s not a single tree providing shade!
Nullarbor – Where the Trees Said Goodbye
I’ve decided to reach all the way to Nullarbor today. This isn’t just a small stopover – it’s the gateway to the world’s largest karst plain! “Null-arbor” literally means “no trees” in Latin, and when you see this endless landscape, you understand why. Hardcore cyclists from around the world dream of crossing this stretch!
About 100 kilometers before I arrive, I find a tiny place with a gas station and – HALLELUJAH! – mobile coverage. I call and book a motel, but receive strict instructions: “After 8:00 PM, NOBODY is present, so you MUST arrive before then!” I look at the clock, calculate my speed, and take a chance. Will I make it?
It’s a close call! I arrive around 6:30 PM, exhausted but happy, and manage to buy food and drinks. At the motel, I discover warnings about deadly snakes everywhere, with detailed instructions about what to do if I see one, and reminders to shake my shoes before putting them on. Just another day in Australia!
Eucla and the Incredible Encounter
Up early the next morning! The plan is to reach Eucla, across the border to Western Australia. The first 50 kilometers go like a dream, but then – WHAM! – the headwind hits like a wall. It’s so brutal that I can’t maintain more than 14 km/h no matter how hard I try. At that speed, I’ll never arrive before doomsday! There’s 130 kilometers left, and I’m fighting for every single centimeter on the bike. It’s so tough that I’m cursing in three languages.
Fortunately, the wind begins to ease after a few miles. At the border, I stop, eat ice cream, and guzzle water as if it’s my last chance. There’s a border control here – just one mile left to the motel!
A fascinating fact about Eucla is that this tiny place has its very own time zone – Australian Central Western Standard Time (UTC+8:45) – an unusual 45-minute offset used by only a few hundred people, which made my clock suddenly jump to a time I’d never seen before!
At the border control, the most incredible thing of the entire trip happens. A young woman checks my luggage, sees the Norwegian flag and – seriously – starts speaking NORWEGIAN to me! Oslo dialect!
“Are you from Norway?” she asks in perfect Oslo dialect.
“Yes! Are YOU Norwegian?” I reply, completely shocked.
We start chatting, and she tells me she lived in Arendal for a while.
“I’ve actually also lived in Arendal,” I say, “on Tromøya! I worked at Agderposten, but we moved north in 2016.”
She looks at me with wide eyes and asks: “Did you live in the last house on Ugelsmyra?”
“Ja,” svarer jeg forbløffet, “Skareveien 303!”
She smiles broadly and says: “It was my boyfriend and I who bought your house in 2016!
I’m almost speechless! Imagine meeting the person who bought MY HOUSE – at a border control in the wilderness of Australia! The world isn’t just small, it’s MICROSCOPIC! I ask if we can take a picture together, and she’s totally fine with it. This needs to be documented, otherwise nobody will believe me!
With my head full of this incredible coincidence, I cycle on to the motel. There I order a steak so big it hangs off the plate, and chat with a guy from Perth who’s driving his newly purchased used motorcycle from Adelaide. We exchange travel stories late into the night.
By the way, Eucla isn’t just a border point – it’s also home to the mysterious “Eucla nymphs,” the world’s only white cockroaches that live in the sand dunes by the beach! But after today’s experiences, even white cockroaches seem pretty ordinary…
At the end of this long, adventurous day, I discover to my horror that my charger is gone – I left it at the motel in Nullarbor! In the midst of the joy about the incredible encounter and the delicious steak, panic sets in when I realize my digital lifeline is now on borrowed time, and the adapter is several hours of cycling back at a motel where nobody knows me. How am I going to document the rest of my trip without power for my phone? Typical that such a thing happens in the middle of nowhere!
The adventures continue, and tomorrow new challenges await on this wild cycling trip through Australia!
