Cycling The Globe

Distance: 126.48 km
Ridetime: 06:20:17
Average: 20.0 km/h
Total distance: 13602 km

One of the joys of cycling is that you see the landscape change almost from day to day. So far there has been a thick bush vegetation on both sides of the road (which gets very boring to look at after a few days) but today the landscape changed to more open spaces of flat land. The night temperature also drops a few degrees every night by now as I’m getting further and further away from the sea.

At some of the rest areas along the highway you are allowed to camp for free overnight. I probably come across one such free camp site every second day, but as I want to be cycling from sunrise to sunset I usually pass without stopping. Today I saw a sign for a free camp site just as the sun was setting. Perfect timing!

As usual my arrival attracts a fair amount of attention. The Australians are not shy to stop by for a chat – after all there are not many cyclists out here. I’m also getting offered a lot of free food. Today ham, cheese and a whole glass of homemade wild berry jam. Yummy!

A few moments later another camper van rolled into the rest area. Out came Vytautas from Lithuania and Wan from Taiwan. They had bought their old camper van for 400$ and were now touring Australia. We had a great chat – some of it which Vytautas even turned into an article you can read here if you happen to understand Latvian (or know how to use Google Translate).

One night in a pub and the next surrounded by super friendly people at a free camp site. My outback experience has certainly not been as lonely as I would have expected. I’m enjoying every day of it.