Part 2

There are abundant proofs as we steer out of Carrieton towards Cradock that we are already on the outskirts of the kingdom of the bicycle. The horses--bony apparitions mostly--have for the machine none of that contempt which tells of its familiarity to the city horse. So the bell is handy. Not so much to warn the equestrian as to soothe the bicyclist's conscience. You ring your bell and by that simple act throw on to other shoulders the full responsibility for all the frightened horse may do.

* * * *

To Cradock from Carrieton next forenoon. Thirty miles. Strong head winds. Near Yangarrie, cross a gum-lined creek of shallow running water. Travelling stock and mail route all the way.

* * * *

And on this stage a slight mishap, and an incident. Before creeping into a dam for a drink, I hung my satchel upon the fence. Having drunk, a horse took my notice: it stood listlessly against the fence, on the outside, in a paddock entirely destitute of feed--a sun-baked waste. But for the support of the fence it must have fallen.

I remembered having somewhere seen such another animal described as a barrel-hooped skeleton, held together by raw-hide.

In vain I tried to shift it. It quite frivolously whisked its tail--its only token of animation. No persuasions, no beguilements could move it. I was interested--in the cause of science, and of sport. I had inflated my tyres a little, and now desired to ascertain whether a strong blast from the air-pump would throw it _hors de combat_. Visions rose before me. I should, if I could but succeed, tell a breathless people, ever intent upon the amiable pursuit of killing one another and other more harmless things, that when in the desert I had slaughtered every one of a mob of horses with the help of a new and deadly air-gun.

To discover something so deadly--here was a Companionship of the Bath at the least!

Thus murderously inclined, I approached with the weapon. The animal raised its head, cast upon me a look of mingled sorrow and reproach, lazily lifted its upper lip on seeing the threatening inflator, and--tried to eat it!

Of such stuff are the dreams of the bush.

Thus moralising I rode off without my satchel. Had to race back four miles. And there still leaning against the fence, apparently unmoved in so much as a limb, stood the animal, a pitiful monument to the appalling severity of the drought of '96-7.

* * * *

After you leave Cradock the ranges appear to be closing in in front. But they are escaped somehow; and Hawker, 17 miles from the last township, is reached. Of Hawker I have two memories: one of a barber; the other of a "specially prepared" (_i.e._ warmed-up) dinner. Neither, I suspect, of absorbing public interest.

In the evening, a strong head-wind having calmed down, rode to Hookina (9 miles); thence, being disappointed there in the matter of "accommodation," to a place known as "The White Well," seven miles ahead.

Was it to be the first camp out? Darkness had fallen, and lone travellers who can give no rational account of themselves must ever labor under dark suspicion also. But, at a roadside cottage, the rare bicycle served me as a talisman, and secured me a supper, bed, and breakfast. For the day, 64 miles.

* * * *

The road to Hookina goes through the ranges, and for four miles there are rough and very stony hills to traverse. I took to the railway-line and rode alongside the rails; but the "metal" was destructively sharp-cornered, and the riding unsafe, because of the steep embankments and the frequency of culverts. There was also a tyre-tearing levelling-peg protruding at every chain or so between the lines.

From Hookina the track winds through soft but fair riding and level ground, with the high Arkaby ranges keeping well away to the east. Mount Alice shows up most prominently.

* * * *

On examining Diamond by lamp-light--I made a practice of looking it over every night--I was unpleasantly surprised to observe innumerable burrs sticking in both tyres. The back one, being of more than ordinary thickness, had successfully resisted their endeavors to get through into the air tube, and the strip on the front tyre, being new, had also dissuaded the attacking thorns from intruding too far.

These burrs, common to many of the agricultural districts of South Australia, and especially prolific where the ground is sandy, are known as "three cornered jacks." No matter how they lie upon the ground, one hard and sharp spear points upwards. They are very plentiful in their season from Hookina up so far as Parachilna.

* * * *

The breeze next morning, though light, was favorable. But the day was Sunday. I debated with myself, in bed, which would be the greater sin--to not avail oneself of an inviting breeze, or to continue cycle-touring on the Sabbath. Being unable to answer the question quite satisfactorily, I compromised, and made a late start.

To Parachilna (40 odd miles): Bad, bumpy road, stony and soft, or hard and guttery. Dined here.

To Beltana (24 miles): Alongside the railway line--on which trains travel occasionally, and even then for the most part only to Hergott. Some stretches of good track, but most of it heavy travelling. Much walking. Some very stony miles traversed over; country broken into low hills.

By way of change, there was fresh-looking high saltbush in the vicinity of Blackfellow's Creek--and also numbers of diamond sparrows. Blackfellow's Creek, a wider stream than had been expected.

* * * *

I met the first aborigines when close to Beltana. There were four of them, all females, fully dressed. They were walking towards me; and by way of entertaining them I rang my bell and cavalierly doffed my cap. For my entertainment doubtless they smiled, as only one of their kind can, and made grimaces. So we parted the best of friends. "It may not always be so," I thought; "the painful necessity may arise presently to shoot some of your male distant relations."

Bush country is here fairly entered upon; the wheat-producing areas ending about Hawker. The rainfall is too certainly uncertain further north. To the south it certainly is uncertain also.

The everlasting hills yet last, to east and west.

The night at Beltana; 64 miles for the day; 354 miles from Adelaide. In good fettle and with a healthy appetite.

The rough track had been very trying to my Diamond. But all was well. Sunday cycling, too; yet no accidents! Resolved to cycle on the Sabbath in future.

* * * *

From Beltana Monday morning. Hilly to Puttapa Pass. The latter the most picturesque spot yet passed. Through a jutting rocky point, a railway cutting runs at the base of a steep and rugged hill, and at the cutting's end a lofty iron bridge of many spans runs out across a wide and very stony creek, through whose bed for a mile or so the track winds sinuously; then climbs the northern bank, and so on to country far from good for cycling over.

Saw the first mob of kangaroos--a small one.

Much creek-crossing; also much walking--tiring and very slow. Still, I was in such good condition that I frequently caught myself going at a "Chinaman's trot" where I could not do any riding.

In flat country now. The track (over marshy alkaline-strewn ground) faces towards several low flat-topped hillocks, and passes close to some remarkable metalliferous-seeming ironstone mounds. Then to Leigh's Creek, at about 25 miles. Here are a railway siding and a coal mine, Adelaide owned, but the prospects are not bright.

* * * *

In front of a cottage somewhere about here I caught sight of--my first snake. A small one, brown, about 3 feet long. A frocked child was standing in the doorway keeping tight hold of a cotton-reel. To the unrolled length of cotton was attached a crooked pin, baited with a piece of bread. This precocious infant was fishing--when I chanced to come along and frighten away his eel.

On my thoughtlessly telling the mother (who, it transpired, had been having forty winks in a back room) she exclaimed, "Drat the boy!" Informed me that "the kid was always getting 'imself into some mischief--could never let things be," boxed the innocent little fisherman's ears, and took from him his tackle. "I wondered what he was awanting the bread for," she remarked by and bye; and when the child, who had gone to a corner to have his cry out, walked over to bury his face in her lap--"Lord bless his dirty little angel face," she said, as, spitting on one corner of her apron, she wiped the little angel face clean.

* * * *

From Leigh's Creek to Lyndhurst is very heavy road--now soft, now very stony, so travelling is hard work. Thus it was right through to Farina, 60 miles from Beltana, where Diamond and I pulled up about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

An enthusiastic and almost intemperately hospitable wheelman, the only one in the place, made me welcome; advised me of an excellent stretch of road up to Hergott, 30 miles on; closed and locked his store door to mark the occasion of a stranger-cyclist's arrival, and accompanied me for two or three miles along the track.

Presently some railway-workmen's cottages are reached, and here kind people provided an evening meal. And as I started somebody remarked--"Look out for a bit of a rut when you get about 4 miles on."

One rut in four miles! Yet, _mirabile dictu_, the road to Hergott came right up to expectations.

* * * *

Railway workmen up here console themselves for their miserable portion by giving their residences high-sounding titles.

Somewhere up from Hawker, a row of tents occupy the site of an old camp. A square tent standing at the top corner of the row is dubbed "No. 1, Transcontinental Terrace." A round one further along, "Euchre-ville." Here as everywhere is also a "Belle Vue House;" and likewise "The Shamrock"--_in memoriam_ doubtless.

One with the name large-written over the entrance in painfully sprawling capitals is "Marine View Cottage!" A strapping workman was at the door.

"Which way lies the marine scenery, mister?"

"Eh?" he questioned in return, not comprehending for a moment.

I pointed to the sign and repeated the question.

"Where's the marine scenery, is it!"

"If you please."

"Oh, everywhere within a rajus," sweeping his arm across the refuse-littered waste. "Marines for yez, but"--with infinite sadness--"all dead."

* * * *

At Hergott, 441 miles from Adelaide. Bleak and uninviting. Treeless, save for some Government date palms; healthy looking plants, fringing an artesian bore. The hotel people kindness personified. "Spelled" the greater part of next day and overhauled the machine; cleaned the chain, and located one or two puncturettes.

Found awaiting me here some wearables, a rug and other likely-to-be-useful articles; but hearing of depots still ahead, I re-addressed the parcel, minus the wearables, back to whence it came. Although the nights were likely to be cold, the days are very warm; and the bulk of the rug made it "impossible" in bad country. At night time, for a while at any rate, when camping out I would try how sleeping between two or half-a-dozen fires suits me.

* * * *

Oil was to be had at the telegraph stations. (Neatsfoot--I fancy for this hot climate an oil of about the right consistency; sperm oil, such as is used for sewing-machines, being to my mind too thin altogether, while castor is, on the other hand, of course too thick.) As I had so far used hardly a single feeder-full, I merely replenished my oil-feeder and left the "reserve tin" behind. I had oiled each morning regularly, perhaps using another drop or two on the main bearings during the day, and had dropped a little on the chain after roughly cleaning it occasionally. Some machines call for frequent re-oiling; others do well with very little. Diamond luckily was among the latter.

* * * *

The consensus of opinion at Hergott was adverse to the success of my project--for my intentions could no longer be completely hidden. So, rather than endure possibly irritating remarks on the subject, I moved on in the afternoon.

Several people southwards had told me of a cyclist who was coming presently with the object of attempting to ride right through. (It had got into the newspapers somehow--how I do not to this day know.) I was so lightly loaded that few, if any, of them suspected that I was the individual, "misguided," "rash" and many other things. Wherefore to me they laughed more derisively about the coming visitor than they might otherwise have done.

At one place, after obliging with his signature, a postmaster opened his heart to me. (That "somewhere about the terminus of the railway" was my destination I had permitted him to infer.) I ought to wait, he said, till the expectantly-looked-for other fellow turned up. "He is bound to come along this way," remarked the P.M., "and--unless you'd rather not, of course--it would be company for both of you."

This officer added, cheering me on my way, that he knew the country northwards well, and he ridiculed the idea of a bicycle being ridden through it.

Ah! well, we shall see whether one cannot be pushed through in that case, I thought; and so moved on.

* * * *

The road from Hergott was far from pleasant and there raged that disheartening drawback to cycling, a head wind. All flat country; soft, sandy loam, covered with loose stones of varying sizes, known as "gibbers." We shall know them better presently.

Travelled only 21 miles, and camped at Canterbury waterhole. Here was a Callanna sheep-station boundary rider's tent--a temporary shelter until the water evaporated; and I was made welcome to tea, salt mutton and--my first damper.

Before arriving at this waterhole I had to walk through a very soft, marshy salt-lake; sometimes having to shoulder the bicycle, and frequently sinking almost knee-deep into the mire. The subsequent sleep beside that camp fire was a re-creation to remember.

* * * *

At a deserted hut a dozen or so miles from Hergott I met a "hard case" of the bush who had been camped there for three days, and intended remaining there for four or five more. He was "spelling," he told me. I suggested that it was a strange place to recuperate.

"Well, 's this way," he said, in an access of confidence. "I heard ole so-an'-so had sold 'is mine to a swindicate and was goin' to stand a blow-out at the pub at Hergit. I might's well be in thet, I ses; but I found I was a week ahead of it, and now I'm just waitin' here for that----drunk. My oath, it _wus_ hard when I larnt I was to be a----week out en them drinks; my throat's peelin'. You don't happen to have----"

I cut in that I didn't happen to have----

"Then d'ye happen to have a squib?"--(squib=revolver).

I looked at my friend. He observed the glance.

"Now, now, nuthin' like that about _me_," he said. "Fact is"--in another burst of confidence--"I'm perishin' fer a bit of meat. There ain't no harm in _thet_, I hope."

We chatted (confidentially still) about this strange life of his.

"And how do you get meat?" I asked in my simplicity.

"Why, y' know," he answered with a wink, "if we see a sheep we can't stand quiet and let it bite us, now, can we? It wouldn't be human natur'." And he chuckled at his joke.

* * * *

A late start was made the following morning. An entry presently made in my note book has it thus: "Plugging away, barely moving, against a viciously strong wind, over bleak, soft, treeless, and nearly flat country, strewed with loose stones, and with a sand-hill now and again by way of change, or the marshy bed of a salt lagoon to wade through"--an experience to be forgotten as soon as possible.

Again: "There is no avoiding the badnesses. The railway line is near at hand. Tried riding alongside the rails--useless, too soft. Between the rails--too rough."

As the wind beat wildly into my face I heard it warningly cry "Go back! Go back!" and in the lulls it droned and muttered chidingly--I knew not why--"Obstinate, foolish fellow." Whereupon, as I wasn't taking any warnings, I stooped, and in a short-lived sprint exerted all the strength I had to bore a hole through the blast.

This sort of thing lasted to Bopuchie, where are some workmen's huts. Here I was treated to bread and butter and tea by a couple of kindly-dispositioned expatriated women, whose husbands were working further up the line. I was also generously presented with a good clean handkerchief, as I had been heard to deeply mourn the recent loss of my own: the wind had whisked it out of my pocket. The same night Diamond and I reached Lake Eyre cottages, where were the husbands and others, a "flying-gang" of navvies on the (some-day-to-be) Transcontinental line. Only 54 miles from Hergott. Heartbreaking work. Yet fed ravenously.

* * * *

After leaving Bopuchie, caught myself doing a cautious "Look out for the Train," glancing warily up and down the line. Then I recollected that a train came along only once in three weeks, and was reassured.

* * * *

Did you ever, travelling alone, make unexpected acquaintance with a bush grave? The lonely land has been clothed as usual in "weird melancholy." You are weary, and, perhaps, a little dispirited. And then, just behind a mulga tree, you come upon a mound--and it is the length of a man. If you are very weary you will sit upon it, and take off your hat, and think; perhaps in a minute or two shudder a little. Whereupon you will rub your eyes to try and satisfy yourself that you have been foolishly dreaming. But you will not sit again; you will move on, faster than you have been doing.

Between Hergott and Oodnadatta there are several rows of mounds. They are the vouchers for part of the cost of the at present useless railway line. For typhoid and dysentery played sad havoc in the navvies' camps.

* * * *

Leaving Lake Eyre cottages the track passes very close to the southernmost end of the lake itself: within, say, half a mile. The bed is 25 feet below sea level, and occupies an area of over 5000 square miles. I would certainly have ridden across and cycled on it had I not been told by the cottagers that the glaring, eye-paining, glistening sheet of salt, stretching away to the horizon north and east, was merely a frosted-over bog--all around near its barren, low, and stony banks, at any rate. But when the creeks have ceased to flow it soon becomes dry, firm under foot, and smooth--solid and ice-like in many respects. What a skating-rink 'twould make!

* * * *

Stony table lands, wide expanses of level country, support Lake Eyre on either side. Sand, stones, mirage, and sun--these are the "dominant notes" here.

I had been told some stories of the cattle of the region: how, for instance, an odd one had been known to chase a railway tricyclist along the line for miles. Hunting after swagmen, so it was said, was a pastime in which at every opportunity they freely indulged. I was now to have personal experiences.

When a traveller comes within near sight of a quietly grazing mob, the scattered units mass together; then nine times out of ten the amazed animals race towards him in order to get out of his way. About this proportion of times they decided to cross in front of my bicycle; and the more I endeavored to prevent them doing so, by quickening pace, the more wildly they rushed to succeed.

The ringing of the bell had a more startling and discomfiting effect on them than the firing of a revolver shot.

Not far from Stuart's Creek I came upon a bull lying dead, with his horns deeply imbedded in a mound which his shoulders also nearly touched, his head being underneath between his front legs. I had been on the look-out for this interesting spectacle, of which an explanation had already been tendered.

A "sundowner" was tramping along one afternoon when the bull sighted him and gave chase. The country was level almost as a billiard table, with the single exception of this couple-of-feet-high mound. Towards this the pair hurried. The chase was exciting. The bull gained rapidly, and was within a few yards of the swagman by the time he reached the mound. Then were some moments of supreme anxiety, till with an extra effort the man stumbled over just as, head down, the bull came charging along, on elevating thoughts intent. But not being in the habit of calculating upon the occurrence of hills, the bull collided with the mound, and broke his neck!

Each district has its own pet class of perjury. In the richer of agricultural districts they lie about the size of pumpkins; in the poorer ditto, about snakes; in the sheep country, about rabbits; here the best liars devote themselves to wild cattle. They all do pretty well.

* * * *

Occupied an hour as I rode along working out the (? musical) note educed by a tyre flicking aside loose stones. Found it to be high D. ("Pung" in cycling notation.)

When the stone is not flicked aside, but the machine passes over it, a low D is emitted--by the rider.

* * * *

Road middling to the Blanche Cup and cluster of mound springs. These remarkable features lie about two miles off the main track, to the left. I cycled over--not cutting across at right angles, but gradually edging away from the track on sighting them.

There are eight or ten of the cone-shaped, flat-topped rises, all within a radius of half a mile. Roughly, I should say their average vertical height is twenty feet. The summits of most of them are merely small swamps decorated with rushes and bogged cattle in various stages of decomposition. Little driblets of water trickle down the sides.

Two of them are well worth journeying far to see.

The Blanche itself is an elevated circular pond of good drinkable water. On one side a lip has been worn through the impounding rock, and by this passage the cup gently overflows. The water so escaping streams down the sloping side, and forms into a shallow swampy creek.

The other is locally known as the Boiling Spring. Flowing much stronger than the Blanche, it boils or bubbles at the centre, not from heat, but because of the force with which the water is driven to the surface. The temperature of the water is about 100° Fahrenheit. A circle of sedimentary sand, three feet in diameter, is kept in constant motion around the bubbling centre, and around this again spreads a wide circle of perfectly clear water. Rushes fringe the water's edge, and the whole is surrounded by a rim of whitish rock three feet wide. About once in every half-hour the quickly settling sand so accumulates at the centre as to choke back the ascending stream. Then to the observer a big thing in bubbles heaves in sight; a low rumble is heard; a periodical clearance has been effected, and the boiling spring boils bubblingly as before.

The surrounding country is bleak and desolate--dreary in the extreme. The average annual rainfall is about 7in. per annum.

* * * *

If one is not on the look-out, these mounds, in general appearance so much alike, are apt to tantalise one. For my own part, moralising upon nature's marvellous scheme of compensation, I found myself adrift. Yet, pshaw! Bushed so soon--and a rail-track within three miles at most? It was monstrous. Refused to consult my compass; and paid for my folly by some few hours of hard labor.