In 28 sleeps, myself and my brave big cousin, Steve, fly to Boome with two recumbent bikes and luggage to start our cycling trip from Broome to Kununurra, via Derby, Windjana National Park, Tunnel Creek National Park, Fitzroy Crossing & Halls Creek.
The day before, on the Saturday 21st June I will have meet up with equally brave and game friends, Birgit & Uwe who have flown from Germany to Perth to join Steve and I on this ride, from the Perth International airport. Thanks to the wonderful lack of facilities at the Perth International airport, there is no way, other than taxi for Birgit & Uwe to transport their bikes from the International to Domestic airports. Now as any West Australian will know, getting a taxi in Perth at midnight on a Saturday night can be hard, but for it to be the type that can carry two bikes, near on impossible. So the plan, for lack of a better idea is for me to meet the guys with my combi at 1am Saturday morning with a friends trailer. We then drive to the domestic airport some 12 kms away and sleep in the combi until about 5am. Birgit and Uwe have a 7am flight to Broome to catch, with bikes... So we need to check in very early on account of the fly-in-fly-out(FIFO) workforce in WA and ineffective booking system.
After I have managed to get them on the flight, I then have to drive the combi home and lock it up for 5 weeks in my shed, swop the trailer to my Suzuki car, load my bike on the trailer and return to my friends (AM & John) who live near the airport for the night to sleep on their floor. Steve and I fly out at around 9am ish to Broome Sunday...
Now you might be wondering what happens at the other end... My friend, Jill, currently living in Broome has kindly offered to put us all up in her back yard for a few days and to assist in getting taxi's from airport to her place so we can relax and unpack our bikes on either Saturday or Sunday arvo.
Now why are Birgit and Uwe meeting me in Broome? It starts a few years ago... On the cool and exciting Saturday night, 17th June 2006, i was leaving Hanstholm, Denmark for Iceland. 5 bike riders huddled and chatted, or attempted too, for around 3 hours whilst we waited to be the last to ride our bikes on to the ferry, bound for Torshavn (Fareo's Island) and ultimately iceland. Birgit and Uwe, made up 2 of the group of 5 and of course, me with Patience, and we got to know each other a little bit. Once in Iceland our respective trips took us to different parts of the island and on differening times, however as luck would have it, on the 5-7th July, Birgit & Uwe and I were to catch up again, at Hveravelir. I had taken the bus there, whilst these two had ridden the Kjolur trail, punishing themselves with 100km winds and having to walk the last 20kms to camp pushing fully loaded bikes - legions!.. At the time I was camping with a Danish chick, called Denice... and on a cold afternoon, huddled between mine and Denice's tent, Birgit, Uwe, Denice and I drank hot chocolate and discussed Australia... Denice was keen to immigrate for 12 months and Birgit & Uwe wanted to know if it was worth visiting Australia for only 4 weeks... This conversation started a seed growing in each of our minds.....
So as luck would have it Denice did immigrate to Oz for 12months - Melbourne to work as a nurse. She arrived on the 6th January 2007 and is now currently touring Oz... more on that in a moment.
In September 2007, Birgit & Uwe sent me an email say they had 4 1/2 weeks to visit Oz and were keen to cycle... Now back in Iceland I had planted a seed on riding in Kimberley to Darwin. And by October 2007, this became the plan. Whilst we can only ride the Broome to Kununurra bit, Darwin is our goal and will be achieved with the help of a plane... more on that plan latter....
Then at my 40th birthday, and I think my cousin Steve is beginning to wonder why, he said he wanted to join the bike trip. Now at the time I don't think Steve has been on a bike for 40 year, nether did he own a bike of any kind and was determined to buy a recumbent. As they say, when you set your mind to something, things work in that direction for you and for Steve a WAHPV friend set up an Recumbent import business in Dec 2007... So Steve was able to buy his bike... Its had to go through a few mods, mostly because its a road bike and it needs to be a bit more of an off road bike...
All of us have had to make some kind of change...
Birgit & Uwe have bought new bikes for the trip. In Europe its common to ride with 28" rims... in Oz finding tyres, tubes or spokes to fit a 28" rim is a rare as hen's teeth and that's in our big cities, out back of Broome - forget it. So new bikes were the fix... and a new bike trailer to carry water
Steve the bike, bob trailer, Rohloff hub, mods to the frame
Me the decision to take my very modified Ran's and not Patience for this trip. Whilst I know patience can do the trip a long wheel based bike is just so much more relaxed for the wide open space for Oz..
Oh and you might be wondering were Denice fits into all of this with her touring of Oz... Denice is planning to meet us all in Broome on the 21st June for a few day! What a hoot
So the trip packing begins:
STUFF
To night I have packed in a box to post to Jill in Broome the following:
Tent, poles & pegs
Spare Bike cables
Spare Brake pads
Spare seat lace
Sunscreen
Bike flags
Large bike panner x2
Small spade & loo paper bag
knives & forks (thanks to QANTAS)
Flask
Tent mat
Cable pliers
Tamper proof allen keys
Rohloff Manual (so glad Bigit & Uwe are German!!)
Patches
Spare mirror
More on packing and things in my next blog... Photo of the Ran's, Steve's bike and Birgit & Uwe (younger couple - with Uwe in red and Birgit with curly hair) and then Denice and me in hot tub back in iceland...
