Traverse 06 | Page 92

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 TRAVERSE 92