The flight was not my greatest delight.

Silly words, but I was decanted from the 777 into Perth airport feeling like absolute shit. Sod all the advice about jet lag, I NEEDED sleep. The baggage trolley was awful, only the back wheels steering.

“What is the purpose of your visit, Mister Ellison?”

The immigration, customs, whatever wonk had, oddly, a strong South African accent.

“Um. Sorry; bit shell-shocked. Purpose? Cycle tour. Going to go round the coast”

“You’ve got a tent?”

“Yeah. Scrubbed it with a toothbrush. Same with the bike tyres”

“Do you have any food products?”

“A packet of mints?”

All I got was a raised eyebrow, without even a hint of a smile.

A taxi managed to fit my bike box into its rear, and we set off for the cheap hotel I had booked. Check-in was straightforward, and they had me on the ground floor. The box slid along the carpet, the door didn’t slam shut on my fingers, and there was a double bed right in front of me.

I felt like shit, even more so when I woke at two in the morning, local time. That advice about jet lag turned out to have been absolutely correct, but simply too difficult to follow. My head had been saying “Yes, absolutely!” while my body simply mumbled and crawled under the top sheet. The hotel was dead around me, apart from the faint sound of another guest’s snores further down the hall. Sod it. I pulled on a T shirt and shorts and started to assemble my Dawes. Get a few hours of the night past, maybe do a quick urban spin before breakfast, and then use the standard body clock cosh of a few beers to prepare for the second night.

The streets were quiet, the terrain alternating between areas of level road and sharp ridges, a little like a ploughed field’s furrows. As the sun rose, some odd bird and its friends were competing to see which could make the most peculiar wail. Breakfast; birds could wait.

Tea, hot and properly strong, sausages, eggs and---beef mince? The waiter was giving me an odd look, which I had sort of expected, but after a prolonged stare, he simply shook his head and got back on with refilling the hot platters. Once full, I approached the receptionist.

“Morning, Miss..ter Ellison! How can we help?”

“I’m off tomorrow morning”

“Yes indeed, and back in six weeks?”

“Yes, exactly”

“What are you planning?”

“A ride round the coast”

“On a pushie? How far?”

“Looking at Kalgoorlie, depending on how it goes”

“Really?”

She asked more questions, then more, and it was such a change from the airport. I was in an anonymous hotel in a big city, and she was talking to me as if I were a friend. More than that, I got the impression she wasn’t just being polite, but was actually interested. She still seemed to have difficulty bringing me into focus.

Ah, well: I had expected something like that would happen.

“I do have one question. When I fly back out, I’ll need a bike box. Do you know of a cycle shop nearby I might find one?”

“What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?”

“Bit difficult to carry with me”

“Oh, why not just leave it here? We’ve got room”

“You sure? Would save me a load of trouble”

“Ah, she’ll be right, Mister Ellison!”

“Ellie, love. Short for my surname”

No it wasn’t, but never mind.

“Okay Ellie! I’m Carly. What are you doing with the day?”

“What do you recommend?”

“Ah, there’s free buses round the CBD, but I’m guessing you’re not looking to shop yourself out. Trip to Rotto Island be good, but wind’s up. King’s Park’s lovely, and there’s a nice caff by the entrance. Boat trip to Freo’s fun, dolphin watch on the way back? Tickets down by Garrison, the Swan Bells?”

“Thanks, Carly. I’ll think on”

“No! No more naps, ey? You’ll be like death that’s not even been defrosted, Ellie”

I laughed, and went up to my room to sort out a day walking pack. Cameras, binoculars, a looser T-shirt after her stares, and then out of the door.

I followed two of her suggestions, after a short session in the shopping district. The trip to Fremantle was a delight, and I did some real damage to the space on my memory card, including a boat ride to ‘Freo’ and a delicious lunch in the suggested place. My bird list was exploding minute by minute, and I was shocked to see the time pass six in the evening while I was still wandering. Carly was back on the desk, and at her suggestion I hit a nearby pub for a ‘counter meal’.

That night, I slept solidly, and not long after I had finished breakfast, I was in a storage room at the back of the hotel, sliding my empty cardboard box onto the top of some steel cabinets. Oddly, Carly was on duty again, and I asked why.

“Oh, couple of things, Ellie. First is that this is my family’s place, and Mum and Dad are off in Bali for a fortnight, so, yeah. Muggins turn, ey? Second is…”

She took a couple of backwards steps.

“What are you, Ellie? I mean, I saw your passport, so I know what it says, but you’re not right. No: That’s not right, itself. What I mean is that I can’t see you, not how your passport says”

It had been on the cards from the moment I had booked the tickets, but I still wasn’t prepared for it, at least not fully. I doubted I ever could be, to be honest, so I decided to pull those last three words to me.

"Um, yeah. Got passport issues, as well as routing. Had to come an awkward route to get here, cause of all that”

Her eyes closed for a few seconds, squeezing shut before opening once again.

“I’m right, aren’t I? That name, it’s not a nickname, not from your surname, is it?”

“No. Sorry”

“No worries… girl. Am I right, on that one?”

I nodded.

“It’s Elspeth”

“Right… Now, you’re… Start again, Carlita. You’re not going to need your passport for hotels and crap outside the city, right? Just, well, you going to sort of relax a bit once you’re outside the city?”

She waved at me, specifically at my chest and hair, and I grinned.

“Bloody compression vest, Carly. Called a binder”

“Christ on a bike. Just change over well before you stop, when you do. Why, Ellie? Why all this way? And almost the hottest time of the year?”

“Well, bit of a story”

“Bugger it. Time for a cuppa?”

“Yeah. Not in a hurry, exactly, am I?”

“Grab one of the seats by the door, and I’ll watch the desk from there. Go on!”

I did as instructed, and she was back with two mugs of tea, settling herself in the chair opposite mine.

“So tell!”

“Ah. Cycling friend of mine, years ago. Bit like me”

“Like you as in ‘just like’ you?”

“Yes. Another one like me. More ways than that, cause both of us ended up in limbo. Like you said about choosing the spot I change over on this ride”

“You’re saying you might not be strong enough to…”

“Yes. Sandy was like that”

“And?”

“She went on a cycle tour, let it all, well”

“Stopped playing games?”

“Sort of”

“You’re dodging the question, Ellie”

“Oh, bugger it. She went out on her own, came back with a boyfriend. Got married. Happy”

“Christ on a—I need to stop saying that, ey?. Is that what you’re dreaming of? You know what it’s like RFO?”

“RFO?”

“Right Fucking Outback. Kalgoorlie, they’ve even got a brothel museum, and strippers for barmaids. Like that bloody film. I mean, that was really Coober Pedy in SA, but a kicking is a bloody kicking”

“Priscilla?”

“Yeah.. Shit, Ellie: got a phone?”

“Yes”

“Get a SIM card for it, local one. You get any… No. You text me, let me know you’re safe. Let me know where you are. Seen that other film, ‘Wolf Creek’? That’s from WA. I mean, the original killings, they were up north and over east, but shit, they were real”

She looked away again.

“Your friend. Brought back a hubby?”

“Yes”

“You hoping for that?”

“God, no! Don’t swing that way”

“Well, best if you don’t swing ANY way RFO, woman. Shit. Go and get ready; I need to do the counter, but I’ll see you off, okay?”

I nodded, uncertain how to take her sudden passion, and returned to my room for my panniers. I had my hair in a ponytail, a cotton cap under my helmet to give at least some protection against the sun, and by the time I was ready to roll I was slathered with sunblock, lip salve and all sorts of other stuff. Carly was waiting, and despite my protests about the creams, she wrapped me in a crushing hug, whispering into my ear.

“Little hint, Ellie. Mate’s sister, out by Subiaco, girl like you, she was. Wrong bloke, ey? Doing life, but, Christ, text me”

I made my promises, and as I worked my way out of the city, I found her words tumbling over each other in my head. What exactly WAS I thinking, if I was doing any of that in any meaningful way? Wishful thinking, if any. Sandy’s experiences, filtered through a bloody great glass of Glen Dronach, and its friends, spiced with desperation.

Anyway, what was the worst they could do, apart from rape, dismemberment and burial in a shallow grave?

Bloody flies. I wasn’t in that grave, but I might as well have been, given how many of the bastards were on me.

Three days saw me as far south as Dunsborough, cruising it at fifty miles a day or so until I had my touring legs back. I had stopped in a cool lane marked as the Tuart Forest to get rid of my binder and replace it with one of the three soft-cup sports bras I had buried at the bottom of one of my panniers, and I started off once more in rather better comfort. I finally seemed to be escaping the bricks and concrete, as well as many of the crowds. Dunsborough itself was heaving, so I pushed on for a campsite marked as being at Cowaramup, not far from Margaret River.

Surfers, and people cooking ‘barbies’. The campsite had its own gas-fired range, and the shop sold ‘barbie packs’ as well as beer, and so I followed the locals. Two nights booked, and some swimming for the next day.

“Hey, love! You two eating on your own?”

I looked around to see who the man was talking to, and noticed another woman craning her own neck.

‘Another woman’: remember Carly’s advice, Ellie.

The other woman concerned pointed at herself, and the man, who was probably in his fifties, nodded.

“Yeah, and blondie over there as well! Got the family with me, and the missus always makes too much cold stuff for the barbie. Gotta eat it on the first day, or it’s wasted. Want a share?”

That other woman looked at me, so I shrugged, then nodded. He was with a family. Safe. I extended a hand.

“I can match that offer. I’m Ellie. Here for two nights, and there is absolutely no way I can eat one of those barbie packs in one go”

“Great! I’m Phil, my missus Val, and the two others are Tran and Lachlan”

Val, who I learned was from Vietnam, showed me a table loaded with all sorts cold treats, including prawn salad, and the other woman laughed out loud.

“I see what you mean! I’m Jacky, by the way, and yes, me too with the meat feast purchase. You local, Phil?”

“Mundaring, East of Perth. We come down here each Crimbo, for the beach. You?”

“Toronto. Lot further east. Christmas is certainly not beach weather for us! Ellie?”

“Originally a place called High Wycombe. You might have seen the area on the telly. Ever see ‘Vicar of Dibley’? Opening credits are about two miles from my place. No beaches at all, though”

Val was laughing which seemed her default state.

“I love that show! That the bit on the highway, down through the rocks?”

“Spot on. Shall I grab my meat?”

Phil’s turn to laugh.

“Not like that, our family! You collect your food, I’ll get the eskie for the beer”

A wonderful evening followed, and I got my first kangaroo pictures as they grazed through the camp once we had full darkness. I could do this.

I ended up spending the next day with Jacky, as she had a little van, and a short drive took us to Gracetown, where there was a beach, a few ospreys and a hell of a lot of surfers. I had changed into my costume back at the site, so had no striptease to worry about, and we spent the day only notionally together, as I swam and bird-watched and she stalked the surrounding slopes for decent pictures. We took lunch in yet another ‘general store’, and while Jacky shared her own reasons for travel, in pressing her restart button after what sounded like a rather nasty divorce, I kept most of my cards off the table.

“It’s supposed to be very redneck up in Kalgoorlie, Ellie”

“Yeah. Girl in the hotel, back in Perth, she called it RFO—right fucking outback”

“Yup. The boonies indeed. Remember to pedal harder if you hear banjos”

More jokes, and an equal increase in my relaxation. Straight woman, Jacky. Safe. She still insisted on taking my Aussie phone number, for the same reasons as Carly.

We really pigged out that evening with Phil, Val and the boys, and yes, beer was consumed in rather larger quantities than I had intended. I was still up earlier that the others, and decided to slip away while I could. I took breakfast at some place in Margaret River, and by the end of the day, I was at a much simpler campsite at the end of a side road. Fire pit, tinned stew cooked in its can on top of the stove; nothing like the food of the past two days, but it went down well, and I slept contented for the first time in months.

The next day was a right mixture, for I went from farmland, a little parched, through what I thought of, in my innocence, as ‘real bush’, and then, in a shock to my legs, the gently rolling road turned into a complete bastard of hills, all clothed in thick forest. I had about four days of that, and while the trees did keep some of the heat off, they also blocked any wind, and I was being sweated to death. I passed a couple of towns, or at least they called themselves that, and finally found myself at what billed itself as an old logging site, where there were showers as well as water laced with sand.

“Tank water, darling! It’s all we have”

I did my best to filter it; all of the clean stuff went into my Camelbak, and the cooking was all with what came out of their tank. I was coming to the harder part of the journey’ better get used to it.

The last kookaburra I saw was at that site. The roadkill, on the other hand, with its stench, would only increase.

A very cold night, surprisingly, and it rained hard. It was only a week till Christmas, and I wondered exactly how my wife was going to celebrate it.

Stop that, Ellie: ex-wife. Former wife. No longer wife. Out of your life wife. Unable to deal with who you really are wife. Move on, and not just by bike.

Up before the heat built too high, and back on the road. There was one absolute monster of a hill late in the day, just before a place called Walpole, and then the road was easier. A giant picture of a splendid or superb or magnificent or whatever fairywren (it was blue) marked the next town, Denmark, and I took a bed in a backpackers’ dorm. That was another little test, because the place separated forms by sex, and I was put in the women’s, without any close inspection or challenge. I needed to slow down a little, but there was nothing much in Denmark. The next morning I rode for Albany, and another backpackers’ place, busier this time in a very international way, and I booked four nights there.

That was a mistake. The place is a small town that imagines itself as a major city, and it was the first place since Perth where I saw women in heels having laptop-enabled conversations seated at tables in pretentious coffee shops. I tried a local pub, with its own brewery, and try as I might, I couldn’t taste the difference between any of the lagers they brewed. One other pub I was directed to did a normally excellent real ale as a keg, complete with gas pressure.

Just no.

My second breakfast there was thus a little less optimistic, and I was considering cancelling and riding on, when I saw a familiar face.

“Hiya, Jacky! You stayed last night?”

“Ellie? Good morning! Yeah. Rolled in late, crashed out right away. Don’t like driving at night here; potential roadkill’s a bit supersize”

“Try smelling it, Jacky”

“I do. Even with aircon on”

“No, woman. Try riding past it at my speed so you can enjoy it fully”

“Oh, heck. Got you. What’s your plans?”

“Ah, stayed two nights here. Bit disappointed with the city. Booked in for four nights, but thinking of bailing”

“That bad?”

“Bit pretentious. Not sure what else there is to see”

“I’m down for three more nights. There’s lots of places round the town. Not the same with an engine, ey?”

She slurped her coffee.

“Fancy a lift out to see some of them? If you’ve paid for the nights, it would be a shame to waste them”

“You sure?”

“Sure am. Be nice to have someone familiar to talk with”

“I’m not that familiar”

“You’re more familiar than anyone else in this country. Up for it?”

“Why the hell not? Deal!”

I had a dress with me, a simple sundress, so I decided that if I had a companion, my boat could be pushed out a little more than I had planned. There were all sorts of rock formations for Jacky to snap, as well as the amusingly named ‘Vancouver’, which set her chuckling.

“I do believe this Vancouver’s a bit warmer than ours!”

I extended my bird list surprisingly far, I didn’t have to linger over the aroma of well-aged kangaroo meat, and I almost regretted being on my bike. Almost.

We ended up in the brewery pub for both of my remaining nights, as it was better than many of the others, and I saw Jacky wincing as she surveyed the very young women around us, in their minimal clothing and extremely pointy shoes.

“I know clubs in downtown Toronto where they dress up less than here”

I nodded.

“What gets me is what’s outside the city, and it’s bugger all. Nothing but RFO”

“Yeah, and what’s outside Toronto is, well, loads more Toronto. Can I ask a personal question, Ellie?”

Shit. I’d been watching her, and I couldn’t decide whether it would be a come-on or a sod-off, as in being read for what I really was.

“Depends; might not answer”

“Kay. My old man’s an asshole. No two ways about that. He was screwing two of his colleagues, and he tried to get into the pants of our help. Er, cleaner? When I called him out on that shit, he got physical”

“How physical?”

“Welp, I spent some time in the emergency room with a concussion. He’s now spending time in a cell. His choice. This trip is seeing how I cope on my own. Spent too many years living with him, having him make the choices, the decisions. Always wanted to see this place, and he always wanted to go to fucking Florida. Every year, same shitfuck. Fucking Disney shit”

I realised she was moving quickly past ‘somewhat merry’ to ‘absolutely pissed’, so I kept her talking, on the basis of slowing down her drinking.

“Not a fan of Disney?”

“Couldn’t give a shit about it. It’s FLORIDA. Fucking fascist assholes running the place. We got a travel warning in our province, for gay people, rainbow folks. ‘Don’t go there’, it says, not if you’re LGBTQI whatever other letters”

“You’re okay with LGBT people?”

“Fuck, yeah. My brother’s a fucking drag queen, and my sister, who do you think took the asshole down when he tried to kill me? Funny, that; her transit..transh… transition don’t seem to have slowed her down none”

She drank more lager.

“But you, Ellie? What’s put that stick up your ass? What’s your problem?”

That needed a little care on my part. Jacky was just about wrecked, but how drunk was I? My mouth went its own way.

“Separation so far, Jacky”

“He another asshole?”

“She. No, not really. Just a bit sort of stuck in her own world”

Jacky stared at me for a few moments.

“Didn’t realise you were… hope y’understand, ‘m not like that. Straight”

“I know, Jacky. Making this my last one, okay? setting off tomorrow, don’t want to be too hung over”

“Ellie?”

“Yeah?”

“What you doing for Christmas?”

“Honestly? God knows. I’ll be somewhere between here and Esperance, so not much choice”

“Yeah. Well. Look… Clarice, yeah?”

“Who?”

“My sister. Was my bro. Had a thing about Judy Foster”

“Jodie”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Clarice”

“What about her?”

“Think you and her, Ellie. You understand. Stuff. You get it. All I say… don’t burn bridges less you has to”

I saw her back to the dorm, where her snores had some people moving out to the common room to sleep. In the morning, before she rose, I was on my way.

Shit, that stretch was hard. I spent the best part of a week riding across a whole series of dried-up watercourses, each with a rapid descent followed by a horrendous grind back up. Flies even crawling up the inside of my sunglasses as I slowed down. Each night was spent in a marginal camp site, because there simply weren’t any, and more than a few were spent lying in the open, between thorny brush. It was really, really shit. Sod the rednecks ‘RFO’, the landscape was doing far worse that any man ever could.

I ran out of water on Boxing Day. Fortunately, I was only ten hours out of Jerramungup, and I spent a night there sleeping on some scabby ground near the garage. That brought a surprise, when a couple of the lorry drivers brought me a packet of muffins from the shop.

“Hi, love. Not exactly Christmas cake, but this’ll do yer as right as we can manage. Trev says he’ll fill yer water for yer. Not like yer one of those wankers from the city, ey? In a bloody Range Rover? Anyway, happy bloody Crimbo!”

Deepest ebb, swiftest flood. Bless them, rednecks, RFO, whatever.

It wasn’t as bad after the garage, but once the land levelled out and the camping was easier, of course there was a town there, Ravensthorpe. Just when I didn’t bloody need it. I carried on, and it was a few miles short of Esperance when the mobile phone started to chirp from its little pocket at the top of my Camelbak, as I finally came within range of a signal again.

Carly and Jacky both, with texts politely demanding news. I left it until I was settled on a pitch right by the sea, in Esperance itself.

Doing well. At Espy. Happy Christmas.

It tool me three days before I could face moving on, but I filled my time by eating, consuming food, having meals and enjoying the local cuisine, as I had run out of food two days out of Albany. I really hadn’t understood the scale of my challenge. The morning I started off once more, heading north, I got another text from Jacky.

Yeah, Ellie, if I got you and sis wrong, shit. Sis says no road maps. No set way of transition. Me, I say don’t write your wife off. Comes bad from me, with my asshole ex, but hey. At least ask. Send her an HNY or shit. You lose nothing; might gain a lot. And MCAAHNY, woman

Nice thought; no chance. I rode off for Gibson and Kalgoorlie.

Gibson, I met Ralph, the man who cleaned the road signs and removed the road kill.

Grass Patch, they treated me to a New Year’s Eve meal in the pub, before I slept on gravel in the car park. Bromus, some grey nomads gave me a beer and a meal, before refilling my water.

Norseman, they let me know how Ralph had passed the word up, and people had been looking out for me every yard I had cycled from Esperance. I looked at Jacky’s text once more, and made my decision. My text was as anodyne as I could make it, while still, I hoped, getting my point across.

Hi. Been a tough ride. In Norseman; got signal here. Need to decide. Keep riding east across Nullarbor, or come home. Would love to come home. Just need a home to come back to. But either way merry Christmas and a happy new year. Love Ellie

I spent four days in Norseman, because I didn’t see the point of visiting a town that celebrated brothels, and Norseman had a bus that would take me and my bike back to Perth, via a change in Esperance.

Bugger that bit of RFO. I rang Carly’s hotel, as well as Jacky.

The first bus, the driver played shit old films. The second, it was recordings of ‘Are You Being Served?’, which was even worse. I only just managed the ride to the hotel, where Carly
greeted me with “Christ on a bike, woman, how much weight have you lost?”

“You can never be too rich or too thin!”

“Oh, bugger what that Nazi cow said. Mum and Dad are back. You up for a meal tonight?”

My phone chirped again. Jacky.

Back in Perth. Where you to?

I texted straight back.

In Perth too. Out with friend tonight. You want?

She wanted.

The flight back was just as crap, but I wore my sundress this time, no binder, metaphorically waving two fingers at the authorities, so glad I had avoided routing via Dubai or Abu Dhabi. At Gatwick, I spent far longer than I expected waiting for a bike box that eventually turned up three days later, and as I headed for the Green Channel, I sent the same text to Carly and Jacky.

At Customs. Will let you know later. Sending love and thanks for clearing my head

She was there. She was hesitant, but…

She was still mine, and I was hers.

I sent the texts the next morning.