The Willow Glen Resident Seek a big stretch of nothing to find yourself Carl Heintze Sitting in the doctor's waiting room the other day, I read a National Geograpic article about a former Time correspondent who rode a bicycle across Australia. It seems he had marital troubles, and he was looking for who he really was, so he decided to ride a bicycle across the continent. He didn't exactly ride straight across: He zigzagged here and there, mostly north through Queensland and over to Darwin on the north coast and finally to Freemantle and Perth--a long way. I'm not sure if he found himself or not. The Geographic to date has only published Part 1, which takes the reader as far as Darwin. The rest comes in a later issue or at least during another visit to the doctor, which I hope won't be for awhile. The article not only made me curious, but it brought back some memories. Reading about his journey made me wonder what it is that makes some people want to cross Australia. Because most people don't. Even Australians will tell you they've never done it. For to be truthful, there really isn't much in the center of the continent, not even kangaroos, or, as the Aussies--who have the maddening habit of abbreviating everything--call them, 'roos. Humans--indeed, all living things, even plants--are far apart in the outback. Most Australians live within 100 miles of the coast,be it ot the north, east, south or west. There's simply not much to support anyone farther inland. And most Australians, even as the bicycle rider, go around the edges. If they approach the interior, they're likely to fly. There are roads, I'm told, that run somewhat as roads run in Nevada--straight across the nothingness to somewhere. That, however, doesn't stop people from wanting to cross the continent. Among the more infamous were the explorers who tried to go from south to north and perished at Cooper's Creek. Like Scott of the Antarctic, they were only a day or two from the coast, but they didn't make it. And others have died even inside the 100-mile limit. Beyond the inhabited places of the east coast in the southwest is the Nullarbor Plain, a vast stretch of absolutely nothing. The Australian transcontinental railroad crosses part of it--it's one of the longest stretches of straight railroad track in the world, 300 miles or so--but hardly anyone but pensioners and American tourists now take the train across the nothingness. The outback Australian I remember most, however, was a woman, Robin Davidson, who made it from Alice Springs, sort of a jumping-off place in the center of Australia, to the west coast with three camels and an occasional visit from a National Geographic photographer. Horses couldn't have done it, but camels could. There's very little water. Robin wrote a book about it, a good book. I liked it, and I thought she had found something about herself on the journey, so I wrote her a fan letter. In due course, she answered from London, where she had gone temporarily to live, but I guess not to completely find herself. Time passed and I forgot about Robin until she re-appeared a year or so ago. She was off again, this time not in Australia, but in northwestern India where there's another desert almost as forbidding as the Nullarbor Plain. This time she was traveling not alone, but with a band of nomads who regularly grazed their herds across the desert in the spring. This journey was not quite as lonely or as interesting as the Australian trip, however. For one thing, Robin got tired of the lack of privacy. The nomads, especially the women, just couldn't get over this strange Australian. They loved to watch her even when she went to the bathroom. Unlike in Australia, she also suffered periodic bouts of illness and periodic remissions from the trail. She wrote a book about that trip, too. I sent her another fan letter, and to my surprise she remembered me and answered, reminding me that we had both been much younger when the first book appeared. I gathered she had had an unhappy love affair somewhere in advance of the Indian trip, but whether walking across the desert helped, I can't say. She also didn't tell me whether or not she had found herself. So what's the moral of all this? I confess I don't really know except that if you feel a need to find yourself, there's no better place than the Australian outback. And maybe some Australians like to be alone. Or need to find themselves. Or lose themselves--whichever comes first. I don't guarantee if you try it, it will work, but one thing is certain. If you try, you'll sure get away from people, even from kangaroos. [ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Willow Glen Resident, October 21, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.