Germs of the Australia Ride #1

Why does one go on an extensive bike ride?  For the Australia Ride, there were a number of catalysts. Here is one.

TRACKS: THE MOVIE

Over three years ago, I chanced upon a movie called “Tracks.” The main character, Robyn Davidson, a spiritually sensitive soul, ends up in Alice Springs, a town literally in the middle of continental Australia, unsure about herself and unsure about life. It was 1975.

Through the course of two years, she becomes determined to walk across the Australian Outback toward the Indian Ocean with 3 camels and her dog in tow. A true story, it aroused my curiosity as to what I might find if I were to do the same thing.  But at that point, that’s all it was– curiosity.

Yet months, and even years later, I found myself thinking about the story. I ended up reading Ms. Davidson’s reluctant first-person account on which the movie was based. I then picked up her other books, which revealed more of her philosophical musings.  Walking the Outback was not “an adventure” to her.  There clearly was something else driving her outward actions.

There was a sense that justice was unfulfilled, that the life existing in the world now is not the life that should be. That spoke to me.  To Robyn, that led her to head out into the Outback.

Does going into the Outback alone change the world for the better? Maybe not. But perhaps that is the only available option for the yearning of a better world.  When one is frustrated about the “civilized” life and overwhelmed with the immensity of its wrongs, maybe all one can do is do something contrary to it. The world doesn’t change– but you do.  And maybe– just maybe– that alone is enough. Certainly there is something in the subconscious that says “Do it.”

Years later, as I watched the movie again for the third time, I noticed a quote at the end of the movie, which somehow slipped my attention before.  Attributed to Robyn Davidson herself, it read: “Camel trips do not begin or end, they merely change form.”  It was as if the director put it there to spur others on their own journey.  The spell cast by that quote hit me– I began to dream.

“Camel trips do not begin or end, they merely change form.”

I understand, though, that the Outback of 2019 is not the same as the one back in 1977, over 40 years ago. In an age where GPS and complete Google Maps in phones exist, where water stops can be found at least every 200 miles, and where vehicles crisscross the desert with more frequency, my journey will be far less exotic and dangerous than Robyn’s. Still, I do know, as Robyn Davidson sensed, that the desert, even today, offers something spiritual, something that one may not be able to find elsewhere.  That alone makes it worthwhile to take a trip.