Author: Will Scammell

The flat coastal riding south of Adelaide was a nice way to ease back into things. I’d made some good mates at the hostel where I’d been living and working, so it felt strange to leave that little routine behind and hit the road again.

The terrain became much hillier as I reached the Great Ocean Road. Despite the traffic, it was a beautiful stretch to ride. I detoured into the Otway forest to camp for the night, then rejoined the road and continued into Geelong to catch the ferry to Tasmania.

The ferry was slightly stressful — I didn’t know the process, so when they told me to remove the bags from my bike I ended up stuffing all my damp clothes into random bags. This came back to bite me when the Tassie biosecurity dog picked out every one of them. I had to unpack everything to prove I wasn’t carrying food, much to my embarrassment as I emptied piles of wet clothing onto the floor.

Heading down the west coast of Tasmania was incredible. Quiet gravel roads through wild, empty country — it felt like being back in New Zealand. It was brutally hilly, with short rolling 20% climbs winding through burnt-out forest.

Passing through the historic mining towns of Zeehan and Queenstown felt like stepping back into the gold rush era.

Next I took another ferry out to Bruny Island. Unfortunately the far south of the island was closed due to a forest fire, but I still found an amazing camp spot along Four Mile Beach — a definite highlight.

Reaching Hobart on a Sunday, I rode straight through the city. The centre was deserted, almost boarded-up, so I continued east to ride the other side of the island north. There were some fantastic logging roads winding through the forest, along with some very rough firetracks.

After a few grim days of rain, I made it up onto the Central Plateau — a huge lake-filled landscape at around 1000 m. The riding was perfect with a massive tailwind pushing me across it.

My last few days on the island were spent riding back to Devonport to catch the ferry to the mainland.

I had just three weeks left in Australia, and all that remained was riding from Melbourne to Sydney before flying to South America. Wanting to get my bike checked over, I booked a service in Melbourne, only to find out I’d been riding on a cracked rim. It took almost two weeks to get it replaced, so making it to Sydney was going to be tight.

I set off along the Great Victorian Rail Trail, making fast progress, before heading into the Victorian High Country. I tackled a few big climbs through the Falls Creek ski area and over the Tom Groggin track.

All that stood between me and New South Wales was the Murray River. After heavy rain the night before, I was worried it might be too deep to ford, but I made it across — waist-deep water, carrying my gear in three separate trips.

Joining the Alpine Road, I had one last major climb before the flatlands. It topped out at around 1500 m, and I started the ascent in light rain. It got heavier and heavier as I climbed, but with no shelter and trust in my bags waterproofing, I kept going. Near the top, thunder and lightning rolled in and fog closed around me. With only a hundred metres left to climb, the rain suddenly turned to huge hailstones, stinging every time they hit. At the summit I threw on every layer I owned and began the 40 km straight-line descent, hoping the weather would improve as I dropped altitude. By the time I reached Jindabyne, the sun was out and I could start peeling layers off. From there it was one more day’s ride to Canberra through scenic farmland flanking the Snowy Mountains.

Canberra marked the final state/territory I needed to visit in Australia. With time running out, I ended up taking the bus to Sydney instead of riding the last stretch.

I was disappointed not to pedal into Sydney, but I probably didn’t miss much — a cyclist I’d met in Tassie told me the “best” route into the city was along the main highway.

Looking back, riding across Australia was everything at once—beautiful, brutal, isolated, and bigger than I ever imagined. From empty red roads to dense forests, storms to freezing nights and baking days, the country really tested me and my gear and I’m glad to have made it across in one piece.

I rode back along the highway to Curtin Springs Roadhouse after leaving Uluru National Park. I needed a shower and to charge my power banks — a few sub-zero nights seemed to play havoc with my batteries. A big storm was also meant to roll through that evening, something almost every person I met had been warning me about for the past week.

The roadhouse was horrible. I was greeted by a very unfriendly barman who repeatedly warned me about the oncoming storm and told me not to camp at the bottom of the field. The “field” was really just a dust bowl with a few portaloos and filthy showers. I squeezed my tent between a couple of caravans in the very packed campsite, using them as shelter from the 40 km/h winds.
Fortunately, I survived the night and continued heading south. Not wanting to ride the Stuart Highway again, I took the dirt roads leading towards South Australia. I loved this route — only seeing about three cars a day on the way to the Indigenous community of Aputula, where I was relieved to find the general store open, with surprisingly reasonable prices for somewhere so isolated. This would be the last decent shop for 800 km on the dirt roads.

The tracks were great fun, sometimes barely distinguishable from the gravel beside them. The storm from a few nights earlier had left the ground wet, and I finally experienced the infamous red clay mud I’d been warned about — clogging everything and forcing me to waste precious water cleaning it off.

Running low on water after cleaning the bike, I was lucky to meet Mike, who was driving from Adelaide to Alice Springs entirely off-road with only a paper map for navigation. He was parked at a fork in the road, trying to decide which way to go. After a quick chat and a photo of me standing next to his car, he gave me some much-needed water in exchange for directions. I continued on to the Eringa Waterhole to camp. The abandoned homestead was fun to explore, and it felt surreal to see a sizable waterhole — the first in about a week.

The following day I pushed south into a noticeable headwind, eventually reaching Oodnadatta and its iconic pink roadhouse. From there I joined the Oodnadatta Track, which follows the old Ghan railway. The track was awful — heavily corrugated and painfully slow to ride. With the headwind and dwindling food supplies, I had little choice but to ride from sunrise to sunset to make distance. Camping along the track, though, was incredible. Every night I peeled off the road and watched huge sunsets over the empty desert.

Still underestimating how slow the track would be, I ran out of water 50 km from William Creek. Not a disaster — about three hours of riding — but still concerning. Luckily a caravan pulled over and gifted me a cold Pepsi and filled my bottles. I’ve been incredibly lucky with water on this trip; whenever I’ve really needed it, I’ve always found somewhere to aquire it. Not long after leaving them, I spotted the grading machines on the horizon smoothing the road. Passing them was a brilliant feeling — suddenly the road became flat as a pool table and the riding effortless.

The good surface didn’t last long. In William Creek I was told that after the recent storm the road south was almost impassable with mud. Thankfully that wasn’t quite true, and I could ride it, though progress slowed again.

I was able to restock a bit at Coward Springs — a date plantation established by Afghan cameleers who built the railway and settled here in 1888. I fuelled up on date ice cream and picked up a packet of dates for the much needed sugar.

Another day and a half of riding brought me to the mining town of Leigh Creek, which felt almost like a ghost town — prefab houses, wide empty streets, and just a few caravans around. After checking into the campsite and having a shower, I headed straight to the supermarket, only to find it closed on Sundays. This was demoralising after days of dreaming about fresh food and craving a proper meal. Instead, I had to settle for a sad frozen pizza from the petrol station.

The next morning I stocked up properly and set off into the Flinders Ranges — a place claiming to have some of the oldest rocks in the world. It was a welcome change being back in hills after barely riding any since Western Australia. I joined the Mawson Trail, a 1,000 km bike route south to Adelaide, travelling through farmland and small towns. As I moved further south the temperatures dropped noticeably, this now being the middle of winter.  There were a few classic South Australian stone huts along the way offering a good shelter for the nights.

Reaching Adelaide, I decided to take a break from riding and found some work to settle down and wait for warmer weather. After five months on the road, it was nice to call somewhere “home” for a while. Riding through the outback had been incredibly rewarding — long stretches of emptiness, big horizons, and quiet days — but it was also one of the toughest parts of my journey, constantly thinking about water and hauling a heavy bike over huge distances on poor tracks.

The ride from Ceduna to Port Augusta was pretty dull. Highway 1 continued through farmland for another 500 km, and I struggled to find anywhere good to camp with fences lining both sides of the road most of the way. Every town looked almost identical — a big silo and a handful of buildings clustered around a pub.

After a few days of monotony, I finally reached Port Augusta. Turning north, I joined the Stuart Highway. Within a few hours I was in the desert and enjoying myself again. On the second day I passed huge salt lakes and felt like I was truly in the outback.

It was another 500 km to Coober Pedy. At the second of only two roadhouses along this stretch, I filled my water bottles in the toilet sink — something that had been fine across the Nullarbor, but this time I’d unknowingly loaded up on salty bore water. I only realised once I’d set up camp. Filtering it or drowning it in sugary tea didn’t make it any more drinkable.

There were a few old rainwater tanks along the road, but every one so far had been empty. I prayed the next one had something in it, but it too was dry. In the end I had to ask a caravan in a layby for some water. They were more than happy to help and even offered me a morning coffee.

Coober Pedy is propped up by the opal mining industry, and many of its buildings are underground to escape the heat. I checked into an underground motel and spent most of my stay there resting deep below the surface.

The next day I rode through the Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Area. This was a refreshing change from the highway riding through the colourful landscape.

That night, while finding a spot to camp, I managed to puncture both tubes on a patch of three-cornered jacks. It was frustrating to burn through both my spare tubes and spend the evening picking thorns out of the tyres. The next morning, pushing my bike back to the road, I punctured both new tubes again. I spent an hour on the roadside, swarmed by flies, patching the tubes, but they were still slowly leaking. My tyres were pretty destroyed after 5,000 km now offering little puncture protection, and I’d used up all my patches. I still had 200km to Alice Springs, so I was forced to kept stopping every few hours to pump them up. That evening I attempted to tape the remaining holes up and limped into Alice the next morning, heading straight for the bike shop for fresh tyres and tubes.

Now I was in the Red Centre — the part of Australia I’d been most excited about. I first set off on a loop through the East MacDonnell Ranges, exploring a few gorges before returning to Alice for a short rest.

I’d been told Alice Springs was a rough frontier town, but I never felt unsafe. I liked its down-to-earth, relaxed feel and the strangeness of a town built around a dry riverbed.

It was also great to have proper supermarkets again. I made sure to enjoy the variety of fresh food before loading up for the six-day trip to Yulara. This took me into the West MacDonnell Ranges — more incredible rock formations and freezing swimming spots despite daytime temperatures around 30°C. At the gorge car parks, caravaners often offered me food and beers, and it was fun bumping into the same people at different stops over a few days. The gorges were unlike anywhere I’d been, and I kept wondering what lay on the far side of the range, protected by the cold water and ridgeline.

The final sight in the West Macs was Gosse Bluff crater — a 5 km wide impact crater formed by a meteor strike 142 million years ago. It was spectacular, and I had it all to myself. I spent the night on a riverbed before joining the Larapinta dirt road. The road was awful — deeply corrugated — but amazing for wildlife. I saw wild cattle, horses, and camels. One night a dingo came right up to my tent, chewed my water bladder, and stole my shoe. I only realised in the morning when I could find just one shoe. After 20 minutes of searching I eventually found it with half the lace bitten off.

When I finally reached tarmac again, I headed to Kings Canyon. It was a beautiful spot but absolutely packed with people, which felt overwhelming after so much solitude.

A few days later I rolled into the outback resort town of Yulara — base camp for exploring Uluru. The cycle path around the rock was perfect, and arriving here felt like a massive achievement. A location I wanted to visit for years.

I also visited Kata Tjuta, another set of incredible rock formations. Walking around it was great, though a bit of a return to reality — defibs every 500 m and plenty of people struggling with the 2 km walk from their cars.

The stretch through the red centre was one of the best parts of my journey so far. The West Macs,  gorges, the crater, the wildlife, the long quiet roads — all of it felt unlike anywhere else I’d ridden. After so many kilometres through the outback, arriving at Uluru felt huge making it to the centre of the continent.

From Albany, I finally joined Highway 1. This road loops all around Australia and I’d be predominantly on it for the next three weeks. It felt like I was doing something completely different, riding the highways. On the tracks, you have to be constantly focused, looking out for any bad sections and trying to spot the posts dictating the route. Now, however, I could zone out easily, not get lost following the same road all day and just stay aware of the trucks occasionally overtaking. This meant progress was good, often riding 160 km a day with a strong tailwind.

The only detour I could take was riding through the Fitzgerald River National Park, which was a welcome exit off the highway. It was an incredibly quiet road towards the coast and I managed to get a swim in on a beach to myself. There wasn’t much else to see before Esperance and I arrived on the cycle trail wrapping around Pink Lake. This lake was an attraction twenty years ago, known for its deep pink colour and flamingos, but now it’s just a grey lake.

I spent a good morning in Esperance, washing my clothes, charging up everything and visiting the final proper supermarket before I hit the Nullarbor. I left with the bike feeling very heavy but with a few days of proper food and lots of fruit and veg, knowing I wouldn’t be getting much the following week.

The 200 km to Norseman was tough, riding into a headwind. Finding somewhere to camp was incredibly easy with forest on either side of the road in lots of sections. Now water was the main concern, with only one place to fill up on this stretch. It required a fair bit of planning ahead to know how much to carry and for the first time on the bike, I was really having to conserve water.

Norseman was quite the frontier town, feeling very empty except for the car park outside the IGA shop full of Land Cruisers towing caravans. Here, I bought more supplies, loading up with nine days of food to take me the 1,200 km to Ceduna. This time the bags were really overflowing, with bread having to be strapped down to the top due to no room. Along with all this food, I loaded up with 4 L of Coke, 2 L of milk and 10 L of water, my theory being if you need to carry the fluids, they might as well have some calories in them. I was in a bit of a rush to leave with darkness quickly approaching and it was quite a surreal moment setting off onto the Nullarbor, something I had wanted to do for a few years, riding past the kangaroo, camel and emu warning signs and one for no services for 189 km. I only rode about 10 km out of town and camped out by a salt lake with a very colourful sunset.

Day 2 was 150 km and very easy riding with a good tailwind. I was only stopping for a quick bite of food as anytime I’d not be moving, I’d get swarmed by flies. I very much felt like I was just a minor amusement for the cars passing by; just something to look at besides the vast emptiness.

On Day 3, I managed to load up with more water at Balladonia Roadhouse before making the slight left turn onto the longest straight road in Australia. The roadhouse had a small museum attached with a chunk of the Skylab space station that had crash-landed onto the property. I felt I had gotten used to the road trains now and would know when to get clear of them. These 60-metre-long trucks were most of the traffic on the road and always a bit frightening when they’d overtake me, occasionally forcing me onto the dirt beside the road when there was an oncoming vehicle.

Day 4 was much the same, just riding, with the only notable stop being the Caiguna Roadhouse where fortunately they had some showers, which was nice to cool down but felt a bit pointless when you put the same dirty clothes straight back on.

Day 5, I was given a few oranges from the binman who I met at one of the lay-bys. This was a continuous job, driving out to the WA-SA border and back from Norseman, emptying all the bins along the side of the road. Most of the rest areas were still full of used toilet paper and litter, being pretty horrible places to stop and only about 3 metres from the highway.

Day 6, I descended onto the treeless Nullarbor Plain. This relatively small hill felt significant after so many days of flat riding and it felt very strange to feel the bike speeding up under me as I dropped down. I crossed into South Australia and got my first views of the Great Australian Bight. This was an inspiring place and very much felt like the bottom of the map, with the cliffs stretching as far as I could see and nothing out into the ocean. Crossing the Nullarbor Plain was easy with 50 km/h tailwinds the whole way, despite a small amount of rain.

Day 7 and the winds and rain picked up even more throughout the day and into the night. It was too windy to even attempt to put my tent up. I found a shelter at a rainwater tank with a tin roof to collect the water. But the cylindrical water tanks provided little shelter. I ended up sleeping on the ground beside a camper’s Land Cruiser under the shelter and got little rest.

Day 8 and I passed through the Dingo Fence, the longest fence in the world, and the desert transformed into bushland. Now the wind was coming from the side, which made every passing road train very tense as the wind would stop once they came alongside and then I would get sucked towards them.

Day 9 and I finally made it to Ceduna, heading straight to the supermarket and buying way too much food. Refuelling outside the supermarket, I met Andy, a Brummie that had lived out in Australia for the last thirty years but hadn’t lost the Birmingham accent. He was heading west and hanging around Ceduna, trying to wait out the wind. He was very envious of my 180 km days with the tailwind; I can’t imagine the challenge of heading the other way, fighting the wind for nine days.

It was nice to have someone to debrief the Nullarbor to. The cliffs were one of the craziest views I’ve ever seen, but the rest of it was pretty bleak. The views from the side of the road were not beautiful but dirty, with decaying kangaroos rotting alongside and lots of litter and used toilet paper almost everywhere I looked. I loved the camping spot each night, dragging my bike 100 metres from the road and having an amazing sunset and quiet camp in untouched bushland.

My flight from Auckland to Melbourne landed to the tune of the Jetstar music. After a pretty cold and restless night on my airbed in Terminal 4, I was back on another flight to Perth.

I was spoilt in Perth; a great week was spent camped out in Libby’s lounge, eating some good food and trying to plan out a bit of Australia. Consulting my map of the continent, it was pretty daunting drawing on the 1,000 km Munda Biddi Trail which barely filled the southwest corner of the continent. The track heads south from Perth to Albany, mostly through forest, and seemed like a good place to start riding, with huts every 70 or so kilometres and a well-documented route.

Leaving the city was easy, following the river then a rail trail taking me to the official start where I’d be following the yellow posts with blue arrows for the next fourteen days or so.

The first few days were fantastic. I was really able to enjoy the single-track sections on my new bike with bigger tyres, and having a hut each night was a welcome relief from the overnight rain. The wildlife was also a big change. I was chasing countless emus and kangaroos down the trail and getting totally disorientated in the forests, just following the signposts and not really knowing where I was going.

On day six, however, things took a downturn. My brake pads were almost completely worn out. Fortunately, I had spares, but I couldn’t undo the bolt to loosen the current ones. After failing a few times, I managed to strip it (I later learned this was due to my old multi-tool being too worn down) and now had no hope of fixing it without some better tools. Not really having a choice but to keep moving, I set off early that morning with barely functioning brakes into what was predicted to be 80 mm of rain. The first 50 km went well, but then the brakes failed altogether on a downhill and I came off, heading straight into a tree. After getting up, the front rack had taken all the impact, wrapping around the tree, and I also punctured the front tyre. I wasn’t too badly damaged, but my leg had a nasty cut and I was getting cold standing in the rain, unsure what to do. After fixing the front flat, I kept moving, mostly just walking my bike, occasionally riding on an uphill or flat section, when I came upon Donnelly River. This was an old timber-felling settlement that had now been converted into a remote holiday village. When arriving, I was greeted by Gus and Harry, two other cyclists who had been there a few days sheltering from the rain and seemed pretty confident they could fix my bike, looking for something to do, stuck in this tiny village with no internet signal.

There were a few options for accommodation: a house which was definitely out of my budget. Then also the old primary school had been converted into dorms and a kitchen and shower. For $30 you could get a night in a dorm, or for $15 you could get access to the facilities but had to find your own place to sleep. I chose the latter, opting for the sofa in the kitchen. After a warm shower and a packet of noodles to eat, we were ready to repair the bike. With a pair of multigrips to undo the brake bolts and a mallet to bash the rack back into place, the bike was mostly rideable again. This meant I could enjoy the evening relaxing in the shelter, which felt straight out of an ’80s sitcom.

The rain continued through day seven and I opted for a short 20 km ride to the next hut in an opening in the weather.

The next few days went better, making it to the coast and enjoying the amazing views out into the Southern Ocean. The final stretch of the track took me through a wind farm perched on the hills west of Albany; listening to the sound of the turbines was impressive. In Albany, it felt strange seeing the final trail marker. From here it would be mostly on the highways. I booked into a campsite for a few days, repaired the bike, also attaching as many water bottle cages as I could squeeze on, preparing for the next section across the Nullarbor.