Nerd Em's Adventures
There is a famous quote by author Ed Abbey that goes like this: It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and … Read more About
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The bike went for some love upon return from the ride. The derailleur couldn’t be saved. It was $270 for a new one. The bottom bracket got a service and a brake cable got replaced. Atlas is now ready for the next adventure.
I sequestered myself in a cabin at a caravan park on Lake Hume and pounded out the journal entries for two weeks. And now I’m ready for the next little adventure – a short trip to America to see family and friends and go to a Bob Mould/Sugar concert.
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8 July 2026 – 101 kms – Annuello to Swan Hill
Wamba Wamba, Barapa Barapa, Wadi Wadi, Tati Tati, and Latji Latji Country
It’s the final riding day of the trip. You’d think we could casually pedal down to Swan Hill and enjoy our last day on the road. It will be sunny. There is no threat of rain.
But, no, that would be mistaken. That is just not the character of this ride. That is like driving a freeway, whereas this trip has been one of those where you always seem to be out in the lumps, bumps and weeds. This last day goes down as a string of challenges, just like so many days on this tour.
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7 July 2026 – 145 kms – Dareton to Annuello
Barkindji and Tati Tati Country
The mobile roadworks sign says River Road is closed and it is ‘local traffic only’. It says Detour via the highway. However, I think this needs further investigation. I really don’t want to do 20 kms over on the highway if it can be avoided. So last night, some internet research suggests it’s really only the last bit into Buronga that’s closed for reconstruction. I remember this was the case when I rode through a month ago. And I remember there was meant to be a bike path along that section, too. Are we willing to take a gamble this fine, dark morning?
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6 July 2026 – 120 kms – Pooncarie to Dareton
Barkindji Country
The wind swings heavily in a our favour. It was not meant to be, but it is. We are travelling south and west. The wind was meant to be out of the south and east. But that is an east northeasterly if I ever felt one. It is giving us a very good shove on the easterly runs allowing us to clock 30kph with little effort. We’re going for a ride today.
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3-5 July 2026 – 0 kms – Pooncarie
Barkindji Country
The days go by. One after another. Slowly.
We bide our time. Waiting to see if the roads might reopen.
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2 July 2026 – 240 kms – Broken Hill to Pooncarie
Wiljakali and Barkindji Country
Oh man, I’m so, so sorry. There’s nothing I can do about it. If there was an alternative, I would do it.
But everyone is just going to get a wake-up call, via a slamming door, at 5.25am this morning.
Because that is when I get out the door, and slamming the door is the only way you can get it to latch. That’s what the housekeeper told me when I was having trouble with it the other day. And she was right. You have to slam the door when you leave.
Sorry!
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29 June – 1 July 2026 – 0 kms – Broken Hill
Wiljakali Country
Well, it turns out it’s SAM’s fault. When things go poorly or not as planned, there’s always got to be someone to blame. Or some thing. Humans need to make sense of things, to know why things happened. We need closure and understanding. And to do that, to make complex things simple, we need someone to blame – think migrants taking jobs or houses or doing other things the data does not support.
So I’m blaming SAM. SAM screwed with me in spring 2022, also.
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28 June 2026 – 70 kms – Roadside Camp to Broken Hill
Wiljakali Country
Are there degrees of silence? Or is it an absolute? Are there only degrees of quiet?
Regardless, I’ve enjoyed these hours with no human sounds, no smelly goats, no thump of kangaroos, no rooting around of wild pigs (I saw some dead ones by the road yesterday). The wildlife stayed away last night, or at least poked around quietly enough I never woke. No vehicles went by.
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27 June 2026 – 65 kms – Mutawintji National Park to Roadside Camp (65 kms)
Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, Barkindji and Malyangapa Country
We head back into the great wide open, leaving behind the reliable water sources and protected valleys of the ranges. We head out into the Bancannia Trough – a basin full of sediments that the NSW Government is opening up for gas exploration. (They’ve just reduced the exploration licence fee from $50,000 to $1,000 – even though this government campaigned on stopping gas development!).
The rocks we just walked through lie underneath this basin, they were just never uplifted over here. All the creeks from the national park dump their loads in this trough via terminal floodouts, shallow ephemeral lakes and clay pans.
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27 June 2026 – 10 kms? – Byngnano Range Track, Mutawintji National Park
Pantjikali, Wanyuparlku, Wiljakali, Barkindji and Malyangapa Country
I walk up the sandy creek bed with the red sandstone creating rounded walls on each side. Trees grow from cracks, and flat surfaces on cliff walls and under overhangs reveal yet more aboriginal rock art. Water has pushed the sand into thick mounded hills in the creek bed and sculpted the rock where sand has not settled. The landscape is an oasis of water, vegetation and protected valleys that lie in the middle of the desert and its flat, open expanses. It is no wonder it has been sacred to the First Nations peoples for thousands of years.
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