With Every Step Page 7

  About twenty cyclists raced and, without prior notice, one of the cyclists, Lane, asked Cad to say a few words and present the winner’s prize. ‘Next thing Lane dropped the “now Cad wants to say a few words” bomb on me. I froze like a shit in a dead cat’s arse and blurted out a couple of words, thanks for coming and handed it back to Lane. He said, “He’s not usually a man of few words,” but to check out my website and see what it’s all about.’

  Cad’s Tassie ordeal was over. He’d added a 345-kilometre stretch from Devonport to Hobart to his around-the-mainland sojourn, but it had taken thirty days since he first crossed the Bass Strait, instead of the planned nine. It involved three ferry crossings, a flight, bus rides, hitchhiking, six days of pain stranded in Campbell Town, several nights partying hard in Hobart and Melbourne, hours at a tattooist – which put a large hole in his cashed-up pocket after selling his house – and he’d made many new friends.

  Two days later, with new shoes in which to place his orthotic soles, he was back to life on the bitumen … until his next diversion, less than two weeks away.

  5

  MELBOURNE TO CEDUNA

  After a day and night in Melbourne to socialise (Andrew went hard, as usual) with the new crew he’d met en route, Cad encountered problems getting out of Melbourne’s environs. As he could not walk on the freeway he had to improvise, which meant taking to the Federation cycle path and sleeping in wetlands the first night. The next day – due to being misled by Google Maps, he claimed – he ended up in Melbourne Water land next to the highway but had to skull-drag his rig through long grass, over logs and barbed-wire fences he’d flattened, and breaking padlocks on gates with rocks to avoid a 10-kilometre and two-hour detour. With a tender leg (due to his fresh tattoos) adding extra pain as he scratched and scraped his way through thick overgrowth and temporary fencing, he was determined to live up to the one rule that was non-negotiable on his trip: ‘Backtracking is just not an option.’

  So it was tough going until he made it to Geelong, where an old friend interviewed him on his local radio show, put him up for the night in Torquay and drove him back to Geelong to resume his journey south towards the Great Ocean Road, which he regarded as the most striking scenery he encountered on his around-Australia stroll.

  The countdown had begun also to his thirtieth birthday – or ‘reaching the dirty thirties’, as he put it. He’d planned to return to mate Kaine Dobbs’ wedding to Lucy a week before his birthday and have a premature birthday bash on the Central Coast, but that also put pressure on him reaching Adelaide for his birthday on 9 April; he was hoping to have a decent celebration in a major city.

  Then it was to the western edge of South Australia for his longest respite before taking on the Nullarbor Plain, the challenge he’d been warned about since he first started discussing the walk.

  Let’s pick up the story from Geelong.

  DAYS 70–72, 6–8 MARCH 2011

  PORT MELBOURNE TO BELLBRAE (107 KM)

  After an interview with the Geelong Advertiser newspaper, Cad hit the road in a new pair of Asics shoes he’d bought for $200 in Geelong, only to almost immediately have a difference of opinion with a road gang that was not going to let him walk through the highway roadworks. He let go with a typical Cad tantrum after initially being stopped, only for the foreman to utter, ‘Are you finished now?’ before explaining he’d escort him around the works and show him a short cut. ‘Talk about making myself look a dickhead!’

  No sooner had he got over that than we had a blue on the phone over something I had failed to do for him, leaving him to diarise: ‘It made me realise if I want anything done, I have to do it myself.’ It was an attitude he carried with him for many, many more weeks every time something didn’t go to plan.

  DAYS 73–74, 9–10 MARCH 2011

  BELLBRAE TO SEPARATION CREEK (66 KM)

  Next day he came across a Spaniard named Aitor, who had left Egypt on his bicycle two years earlier. He’d cycled through Asia, down the Stuart Highway from Darwin and was en route to Melbourne, from where he was going to fly to Auckland. ‘He was flat broke and needed to get a job fruit picking for a few months before he could ride back to Asia and beyond. I asked him if he has been getting out and having fun, he said no way – one beer is like two meals for him. I didn’t dare tell him I just spent $2000 [on tattoos].’ He was one of a surprising number of travellers from all parts of the world using all sorts of modes of manual transport that Cad would encounter around Australia.

  Andrew made it to Lorne at 8.30 pm, wet from the intermittent rain and freezing cold. Next morning, he came across a farmer from south of Perth who told him how much he would enjoy the Nullarbor, a stint he had been pessimistic about. ‘He was the first person to say that I’m going to love the Nullarbor and that all the rest areas are full of people and he reckoned heaps of people will stop to see if I’m okay. He said there aren’t really any stretches bigger than 200 kilometres. Sounds like I’ve got nothing to worry about; everybody I speak to has been saying how crazy it’s going to be and have been stressing me out.’

  The mood darkened, however, when Andrew, feeling satisfied after banking $350 for the Cancer Council, was harassed by a Lorne local, and not for the last time he plunged into a verbal battle. ‘When I came out there was this big guy in his forties waiting for me. He was all worked up and barked, “Is this yours?” pointing to the pram. Yeah, I replied. Are you going to try to walk that to Apollo Bay? I said I am going to walk it to Apollo Bay! I don’t know where this tool came from, I gathered he had seen me down the road and charged around looking for me until he saw my pram. He starting blurting things out like if he was the police he would put a ban on me so I couldn’t walk on the road, I didn’t let him get too much more out before I started with, “Well, guess what? You’re not the police and it’s not illegal to walk on the road.”

  ‘He just kept saying, “Let me finish, let me finish,” and I just kept interrupting him. It was going nowhere fast and I’d heard enough so I put my earphones on and told him to keep his opinions to himself and walked off while he was still crapping on. He decided to follow me, barking into my face the whole way across the courtyard, “You’re going to kill yourself and you’re going to kill someone else,” ra ra ra. PING! I’d heard enough – to be honest, I don’t know how I managed to cop it for as long as I did before I snapped. I started screaming at him, causing an even bigger scene in front of everyone at a café.’

  There’s probably no need to document Andrew’s tirade, but suffice to say the man complained about his language before Cad restrained himself and walked away. ‘That was probably one of the top ten angriest moments of my life, my heart was pounding and my head was racing … he was crapping on about how he had my website and he was going to ring all the media and the cancer organisations and tell everyone what a bad person I am. I started stressing and thought maybe the Cancer Council will drop me, then I thought, ‘Well, good if they do – in seventy-four days on the road I haven’t had so much as an email from them.’

  Indeed, he received very little contact or support from the Cancer Council, despite raising over $25,000 for them; that was why by the time he reached Perth he’d decided to switch his allegiance to the Leukaemia Foundation, with whom he struck up a terrific relationship and who were there to cheer him on when he passed the finish line. The Leukaemia Foundation, through the lovely Nina Field, also supported Chris and me after Andrew’s accident, with several representatives attending his memorial service. Andrew never heard from the Cancer Council during his walk, nor has his family since.

  Always a sponge for information, Andrew was fascinated to learn about William Buckley and the Aussie saying ‘Buckley’s chance’ during that day’s walk. He wrote: ‘The Great Ocean Road is pretty off its head, hairpins winding around headlands, cut into the cliffs as far as the eye can see. It really is breathtaking. I stopped at a lookout to eat and read a plaque about William Buckley, who escaped a convict settlement in 1803 and was livin
g in a cave below the lookout. As winter set in, he wasn’t in a good way and decided it was time to turn himself him. On his way back to the settlement he was rescued by the Wathaurong Aborigines, whom he lived with for the next thirty-two years. He eventually popped out at some farm at the age of fifty-seven and was pardoned by the Governor and made head Aboriginal interpreter. He married and lived out his days in Hobart until seventy-five. And that’s where the saying “you’ve got two chances – Buckley’s and none” comes from. I must have said “you’ve got Buckley’s” over a thousand times in my life.’

  DAYS 75–76, 11–12 MARCH 2011

  SEPARATION CREEK TO LAVERS HILL (71 KM)

  For those who knew that Andrew never drank tea or coffee before he embarked on his walk, this was a red-letter day: the day he consumed his first full cup of coffee, at a place called Kennett River. ‘There were tourists galore and half a dozen buses pulled up. I went into the shop and Sue, Keri and Chris were expecting me [motorists had advised them a walker was not far away]. They were nice ladies and gave me $60 between them and handed me a cappuccino. I was going to ask for a tea but they had already made it. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it – I think that was the first cup of coffee I ever have actually finished. I’ve been missing out. It’s funny how you hate something your whole life then all of a sudden you like it.’

  Cad, for the first of many times, found the humidity unbearable next day but kept pacing the highway until he came to Lavers Creek, altitude 500 metres. There he was invited by the local policeman, Laurie, to bunk at his place and enjoy a meal at the pub – copper’s shout. Laurie introduced Cad to the pub population and suddenly his hat was full of coins and notes.

  Soon after, he found himself in a compromising position with an English girl. Before you get the wrong idea, let him explain: ‘Matt and Jenny came over with an odd request for Jenny to piggyback me while she pushed the pram. She was a redhead from Slough in the UK and had tattoos on her arms; she lives in Melbourne and works for Triple J doing the jmag. Matt was an old local who lives in Tasmania now, playing footy. She explained that she has a website called “Hey Man Now You’re Really Living” and she is doing something different every single day for a year and blogging it. I was only too happy to oblige.

  ‘Me and Laurie went over and got the pram, I jumped on her back and she pushed us both along out the front of the pub while Matt took pics – how random! Matt told me later that it’s bloody killing him trying to help her think of new things to do every day; he said he had been racking his brain for something to do tonight.’ A great photo was posted on Facebook and the Oz On Foot website.

  DAY 77, 13 MARCH 2011

  LAVERS HILL TO PORT CAMPBELL (58 KM)

  Cad had been looking forward to viewing the Twelve Apostles, the remarkable rock formations off the windswept coast, but was not as impressed as he’d expected to be. ‘I was actually a bit disappointed – I’ve seen some pretty cool shit over the last few years, from the Colosseum to the Grand Canyon to the Giza Pyramids, and they just weren’t cutting the mustard. It’s funny how you build things up in your head and they never quite meet your expectations.’

  Despite the howling wind, he recorded this day as his best to date for donations, with the Great Ocean Road crawling with tourists. That was the day’s good news. The bad news was that it wasn’t until he was seven kilometres off course that he found he was walking away from Warrnambool and not towards it, and had to break his golden rule of not backtracking. After being attacked by two dogs, an eventful day finished with him camping in the centre of an Aussie Rules field, after first considering pitching the tent in a graveyard.

  DAYS 78–80, 14–16 MARCH 2011

  REST DAY, THEN PORT CAMPBELL TO TOWER HILL (77 KM)

  Cad loved the scenery but not the winding and steep road, which made his safety a little treacherous at times. ‘It was really cool scenery today, the road ran along the orange and yellow cliffs, at times close enough to see the sandy coves below; there were no trees, just shrubs everywhere. I guess this is what the Nullarbor is going to be like. I stopped at the Bay of Islands lookout and this one was spectacular, for me it was better than the Apostles, it was a big bay guarded by limestone pillars jutting out of the ocean at the mouth. There were dozens of them in all shapes and sizes stretching up the coast.’

  Andrew recorded a meeting with a man who had been touched by cancer; it was one of many such meetings he diarised, stories that obviously affected him deeply. ‘I got back out on the road and K. Saddler had stopped to have a chat, he was very interested in what I was doing because he had recently lost his four-year-old grandson to brain cancer and was planning to do a charity walk from Brisbane to Cairns, leaving on the same date and at the same time as when he passed away. He told me all about it and said that they kept smashing him with chemo time and time again for a year before he died, it left him so unhappy that he decided to travel around Australia to try to clear his head.’

  Cad banked $1100, which showed how lucrative the previous few days had been. He picked up a pair of orthotic soles from the post office that had been posted to him from the podiatrist he’d seen in Melbourne, and as he unwrapped them he found an envelope with a $60 donation inside from the podiatrist, along with a note that said to break them in for fifteen minutes a day … Buckley’s chance!

  Instead, he knocked out a 52-kilometre day, the start of him getting back into his routine eleven days after leaving Melbourne. That night he couldn’t pass up the chance of ticking from his bucket list the experience of sleeping in a cemetery. ‘I stood at the gate unwinding all the wire keeping it locked and then pushed the big, rusty, creaking thing open, it was a scene straight out of a B-grade horror movie. I set up camp next to James Patrick Casey, who died at twenty-nine on 25 April 1916; I don’t believe in ghosts, when you’re dead, you’re dead. I set up in the dark because there was a house nearby and I didn’t want them to think there were kids mucking around and call somebody.’

  DAYS 81–84, 17–20 MARCH 2011

  TOWER HILL TO PORTLAND (90 KM);

  PORTLAND TO LOWER GLENELG NATIONAL PARK (115 KM)

  As he was leaving Portland, four young women passed him and he heard one say ‘that’s him’. ‘One of them came running back with a $50 donation and then the other three followed. I started telling them what I was up to and they said they knew and had been watching my blogs. One of them had just gone and tried my hash brown on a cheeseburger trick, too funny!! I can’t believe someone tried it after I crapped on about it.’

  This was the day he heard the Lynyrd Skynynd song ‘Free Bird’ for the first time (I am surprised it was in his music library considering the song was nearly released in 1973, on an album I bought as a teenager). It soon became something of a theme song for him (and an anthem I played over and over, trying to get a reaction from him when he lay unresponsive in hospital). ‘I had a good afternoon singing away at the top of my lungs, “Free Bird” by Lynynd Skynynd came on my iPod shuffle, the lyrics really caught my attention. They seemed so fitting for my walk and what was going on with Jaime. I must have listened to it ten times in a row.’

  Cad woke with a plan: to walk 65 kilometres today, 55 kilometres tomorrow and 100 kilometres the next day. He trooped through dense pine forest, crossed the border into South Australia and walked well into the night to make Mount Gambier, 32 kilometres into South Australia. He became agitated at high-beam headlights blinding him, and when drivers did not turn them off he would give them ‘the bird’. A car stopped and turned back towards him; Cad thought he was in for a confrontation, so took out a knife he’d packed for self-defence and picked up a large rock. ‘The car turned down a side street and left me standing there shaking with rage. It was lucky for both of us because they would have needed a new windscreen and I would have either ended up in the cop shop or bashed and left lying in a ditch. I calmed down and started thinking, “You need to chill out.” I was in such a rage – what if I had done something stupid with that
knife? I only got it out for show but it was a bad idea; no more getting the knife out when I’ve got the shits.’

  He made it to Mount Gambier at 10.15 pm, low on food and water. ‘I’d had enough for the day and wanted to crash but there were drunks stumbling around the streets and P-platers cutting laps up and down the main street yelling shit at me, so no way I was sleeping in town.’ He cleared the town by nine kilometres and at 12.15 am thought he would attempt his first 100-kilometre stint, but the clouds soon closed in and it started pouring. He hastily set up camp on a track off the highway and spent more than half an hour, in driving rain, deafening thunder and lightning trying to set up shelter. He fell asleep exhausted at 2 am, the wind almost blowing his tent out of the ground. He’d walked 74 kilometres, a record to date but one that would be broken two days later.

  DAY 85, 21 MARCH 2011

  MOUNT GAMBIER TO TANTANOOLA (25 KM)

  Next day he didn’t wake until 10 am, ‘blistered, sore and wet through. But I decided to stop being a pussy and gave myself a kick up the arse and got out in the rain and started packing up.’ He climbed out of the tent to find he’d camped on someone’s front yard, so bad was his visibility, and saw the elderly resident peering at him. He walked over to explain. Soon after he was inside having coffee, zucchini soup and homemade bread followed by zucchini chocolate cake with Judith and Brian, retired schoolteachers who had invited him to have a break at their home.

  He made Tantanoola by mid-afternoon, walking into the pub to be greeted by five surprised locals at the bar. A woman he’d met on the road earlier said she’d arrange a room at the hotel but there were none available, so next thing he has been shunted across the road to the home of ‘Cuddles’. A middle-aged man who had not long before split with his wife, Cuddles had little furniture so Cad sat on an esky chatting to him. He was in bed at 10 pm and set the alarm for 2 am so he could embark on his 100-kilometre stint that the weather had interrupted two days earlier. Cuddles arranged a mate who had a regular freight run to pick him up the next afternoon and give him a lift to Mount Gambier, from where he could catch a bus and train to Melbourne for a flight to Sydney for Dobbsy’s wedding.