dotty

You were game, riding your bike so far, and on such interesting roads, Peter. I, like several of the other posters, have not been on a bike since I was about 17 - several hundred years ago.

I have really enjoyed your report, even if your trip was a few years ago. You are a clever writer, making your travels sound so effortless. It is interesting to read about places I have been to, in the luxurious confines of a bus or car, for example Deniliquin - yes, a Kiwi who has travelled there AND spent two days looking around. I found it an interesting place, especially when the children encountered what we were told was a redback in the motel's swimming pool - a variation on the redback on the toilet seat! I never did find out if it was one, although it certainly looked like one. The other children in the pool weren't fazed.

I look forward to the next instalment over the summer, when I will have more time to enjoy reading it. School goes into its nightmare stage very shortly, which lasts until Christmas.

Peter_S_Aus

Dotty, I do write a bit attimes. If you enjoy the way I string words together, you might enjoy a diatribe that I wrote in Venice a couple of years ago. It's here:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...st-verbose.cfm


Cheers

Peter

peterSale

Peter - thought you might like this if you haven't seen it already.

Cheers
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...ce/newman-text

Peter_S_Aus

I was not sure what to expect at the Barunga cultural festival – anticipating a heap of tribal dancing, painted body decoration, maybe some boomerang throwing, didgeridoo playing, and wondering if it had been worth riding about 30km off the highway.


I was totally wrong. There were groups from all over the Northern Territory, Cape York, South Aus, and even the remote communities from Western Australia, Toyota 16 seat buses drawn from thousands of kilometres away, and they were in Barunga to party and catch up with friends. I’m not sure how many people were there, but at night there were little camp fires all over the place, and I think that maybe three thousand Aboriginal people were there, plus a couple of hundred Europeans. That was a new experience for me, being in an ethnic minority, and I think that the Aboriginals were much more tolerant of the Europeans than it would have been if the numbers were reversed.

So there was almost no tribal dancing or stuff like that, although a group of women from the Tiwi community did a bit of a dance. I asked one of the women what it might have meant, and she gave me to understand that it meant that tomorrow they were going into the bush to do some secret women’s business. I don’t know if she had a slight tic in her eye, or if she winked at me, but I suspect that she winked.

I was talking with a bloke, and he referred to us Europeans as “Youse ballanders” in quite a kind fashion – “ballander” is a common term for Europeans in the top end. I was to later find out where it came from – the first Europeans to reach those parts were Dutch, Hollanders, corrupted to ballander. I can visualise Dirk Hartog coming ashore, saying to the locals “we’re Hollanders, can we interest you in some clay pipes, some lace from Bruges, it’s the finest quality, or maybe a replacement shaft for yonder windmill". Met by blank looks – the Aboriginals were doing just fine before we ballanders mucked things up for them.

So the culture consisted of football matches, basket ball, boxing, both in the ring, and a few impromptu matches the were quickly broken up, and a bunch of music. Rock groups from Thursday Island, and an amazing performance by an African percussion group, and a performance by Vicka and Linda Bull. A very harmonious mob, a happy time.

margo_oz

G'day Pete

Weren't you going to Venice again? Did you go? Have I missed anything? (else)

Peter_S_Aus

I must say that it’s an odd business writing this – right now I’m in Venice, here for a couple of months, and yet writing about things that I did, things that happened, in June, 1995. Well, better late than never, I suppose. And it is such a contrast, Venice, where bicycles are pretty useless, where you can’t walk down a street more than a couple of metres wide, and Australia, where the road reserve may be 40 chains wide, space for travelling stock.

I left Barunga before the mob, wanting to hit the highway before running the risk of being bounced off the road by about 300 small buses, headed to Katherine for a quick look around, then to Katherine Gorge. Katherine Gorge is probably one our less discovered treasures. The camping ground is nice and grassed, level, a convenient shop for necessities for the itinerant cyclist, so I was happy to pitch the tent there, about 5,100 kilometres on the clock. There’s always a community of travellers, citizens of the road, on the wallaby, I suppose, and I was able to amuse a couple kids as they watched me setting up camp and cooking a meal. Lots of people pull their children from school for a few months, and give them a different sort of education, seeing things first hand. School is a good place for kids, so long as there is nothing better to do.

People take these motorboat cruises up the Katherine Gorge, and it is pretty spectacular. However, if you hire a canoe, it’s even better – you are closer to the water, and the cliffs just tower over you, you feel like an ant in a canyon. And better still, is if you pack a sleeping bag, air mattress, petrol stove and tucker in a four gallon drum, hire a canoe and camp out in the Gorge. Which I did. I just paddled upstream until I ran out of other people, and camped. It means dragging the canoe over some rocks, the odd portage, and is so worth it. I could say that I camped under the stars, but the stars were extinguished by a full moon that rose about the same time that the sun dropped over the rim of the gorge, there were these two great balls of light, the sun and moon, chasing each other.

Back to Katherine the next day, figuring on a couple of easy days to Darwin, two days at 160 K’s a day – too easy. So I rolled out of Katherine, got delayed in a pub, too many mosquitos to set up camp, too late to find a camp, and just kept on riding. It was pretty amazing, replacing the headlight globe at 1:00 AM, rolling through the countryside at 3:00 AM, stopping to boil the billy every two or three hours, bacon and eggs at an early opening service station. And rolling through grass fires also, because it was the burning season. Hit Darwin the next morning, 320 km under the front wheel, hitting Darwin at peak hour. Belting through the morning traffic on a bicycle, headed for downtown, panniers flapping, find the Youth Hostel, and a much awaited sleep. I do think I was a bit out of the habit of riding in traffic.

YvonneT

Hmm, we migh see an upsurge in tourists (ballanders, even) on cycles in the NT, perchance?

No results expected for awhile in your rivetting state election. I'm sure this will keep you awake at night.