The rest of us continued south to
Leigh Creek on baby’s bottom smooth
sealed road where we sped along at a
twenty-seven kilometre-per-hour av-
erage. What a joy after ‘Corrugation
Street’. We talked to forty kids in the
school there, and challenged their
notions surrounding disability: we
are not poor victims in need of help,
as many adults (admittedly) see us,
nor are we heroes succeeding against
overwhelming odds; we are just peo-
ple, ordinary people, working with
what we’ve got; as we all do. But there
was a lot of excitement and laughter
when we asked the students to play
a disability simulation game: open a
Mars Bar with one hand behind their
back and without using their teeth.
The students we talked to throughout
the trip were mature enough to get
what we were saying, but usually en-
joyed sitting on our crazy contraptions
a whole lot more.
As we were climbing a particu-
larly rough hill up to Blinman in the
Flinders Ranges the back wheel on
the tandem seized. There was no oth-
er choice than to call Greenspeed and
order a new one. As this could only be
posted to Broken Hill, about ten days
away, we resorted to cannibalising
Conrad’s trike for the back wheel.
From now on he would ride Walter’s
emergency bike. Conrad was proving
his worth at fixing bikes and from that
moment on became the expedition
mechanic. In the Flinders Dan re-
turned and it was good to see him back
to his old self.
The reactions to the team from the
broader public were noteworthy to
say the least and, as one of the rea-
sons for venturing on this ride was to
challenge common misconceptions
they were of great interest. For the
most part we had positive responses,
such as the shearer who had Duncan
touch the wool of a sheep. But we still
faced institutionalised ableism on an
almost daily basis - be it the camp site
owner who came up behind Dan, who
was in his wheelchair, and tucked his
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