The CrossingFirst day on the 90 Mile Straight
Cheerio Balladonia, Hello 90 Mile Straight
The last Amazeballs carried me out of Balladonia and onto the western end of the 90 Mile Straight. Ahead was 146.6 kilometres of highway that seemed to have forgotten how to bend.
Balladonia Roadhouse had been a useful stop, but it had also made the next section feel a lot more real.
Fuel was expensive. Drinking water was expensive. Phone coverage was patchy. The next few nights were expected to be unpowered rest areas. We were only 180 km from Norseman, and already life out there was teaching us to treat water like gold bullion.
So, naturally, I posted that morning that I could not believe we would be saying “cheerio” to Balladonia so soon.
When I woke up, it turned out we had been camped next to Scott, a guy cycling across Australia. We were comparing notes in some ways: different crossings, different methods, same strange pull to put a line across the map under your own steam.
That morning conversation mattered later, because Scott had come up from Esperance via a track or road that would come into the story again before the morning was over.
There were a few things sitting in the day before I started walking. It was my Dad’s birthday. We were down to 99 days remaining, which meant the countdown had slipped into double digits. The 90 Mile Straight was ahead. And depending on exactly how the totals were being counted at that point, we were either about to pass the 1000 km mark or had just edged past it the day before.
The exact arithmetic was already getting a bit messy. The meaning was not.
After more than 1000 km on foot, the hopeful cluster of dots near Perth had stretched into actual distance. The tracker map was finally starting to look as if we had genuinely travelled somewhere.
Balladonia had no laundry facilities, so Ben and Ols hand-washed clothes while I kept moving. One person walking, two people making sure the strange operation didn’t collapse around him.
The Eyre Highway gave us one of its more surprising details during the day: a section used as an emergency airstrip by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I knew remote Australia was remote, obviously, but walking over runway markings on the same bitumen I was following east made that remoteness feel concrete. Out here, the highway doubled as a lifeline, runway, supply line, and route.
There was also the bloke who stopped and asked me for directions.
On the Nullarbor.
On a single east-west highway.
In fairness, he was looking for the track toward Esperance that Scott and I had been talking about that morning. I told him it was about 15 km further on. He said something like, “Oh, just around the corner then.”
“For you, yes”, I said, “For me that’s been a morning’s work!”
That was one of the strange recalibrations happening all the time. Distances stopped meaning the same thing depending on whether you were sitting in a vehicle or moving one step at a time. A short drive could be a full session. A roadhouse “nearby” could be tomorrow. A sign saying Caiguna 181 km was not information; it was a multi-day assignment.
Somewhere out there I also got my first proper taste of Nullarbor roadside art: two figures made from rocks and dressed in clothes. They made me laugh, and I appreciated the fact that someone had taken time to make them. Maybe it was boredom, maybe humour, maybe a small mark left by someone else passing through. Whatever the reason, it made the place feel less empty.
It felt like a tiny bond with a stranger I would never meet.
By mid-afternoon, I reached the western end of the 90 Mile Straight: Australia’s longest straight road, 146.6 km of bitumen pointing stubbornly east.
I’d thought about the Nullarbor for months. Now one of its most famous features was no longer “up ahead”. It was under my feet, impressive and slightly absurd.
I still had 15 km left for the day.
That was the part people sometimes missed. Reaching the sign was a milestone, but the walking did not stop just because the milestone had been photographed. There were still kilometres to bank, and by the end of the day I had put together 44.3 km across four sessions: 15.8 km, 13.5 km, 8.4 km and 6.6 km.
The final post that night called it another solid day’s work: about 1000 km into the overall journey, a few kilometres along the 90 Mile Straight, and a good routine developing nicely.
We were learning how to repeat the long days: where the breaks went, how much distance to take early, when to eat and when to get off my feet. Ben and Ols kept the van, food, water, laundry, supplies, morale and common sense moving while I did the visible part.
Then came the small tragedy. We ate the last pack of Amazeballs.
Videos From The Day
Scott riding on the Eyre Highway
Scott riding along the Eyre Highway after we discovered we had been camped beside another person crossing Australia.
Open on YouTubeChatting with Scott about 1000 km from Perth
Scott circling back for a brief chat on the Eyre Highway: one person walking, one person riding, both about 1000 km from Perth.
Open on YouTubeImages From The Day
