next day. The team soon became scat-
tered with Conrad and Vonna a few
kilometres ahead of Duncan and me.
Wally, preferring to start later, after
his morning nebulising session, was
fetching up the rear. Ed waited ev-
ery five kilometres for the group to
pass as, after nearly forty days on the
road, we were becoming extremely
fatigued. Thredbo was a mere twenty
three kilometres away, though for a
man with cystic fibrosis, a hemiplegic
and a blind guy often travelling at two
kilometres per hour, it might have
been a world away.
After a pasta lunch and a litre of
Hydrolite we took on the second
and toughest of the three passes to
be crossed that day, Leather Barrel.
With gradients of up to 17% all of
the team had to dig deep. At points
Duncan found he could increase the
speed of the tandem by dismounting
and pushing while Paul pedalled and
steered. Walter, having only 38% lung
function, was forced to use his oxy-
gen saturator; he looked rather out
of place cycling up the steepest hill
in Australia with plastic pipes going
up his nostrils. Walter was diagnosed
with cystic fibrosis at age eight when
it became obvious he wasn’t your av-
erage kid; skinny arms, pot bellied
and always coughing. We nicknamed
him Darth Vader because of the sound
of his nebulising each morning and
night.
After a day of rest at Thredbo the
team headed down Crackenback and
into Jindabyne. The next morning we
embarked on the last pedalling day of
the trip - from Jindabyne to Charlotte
Pass. This was another twelve hun-
dred meter climb. We cycled up into
the snow with Matt Newton’s drone a
constant companion. The gate at Per-
isher was opened three hours before
we arrived there, thus allowing us to
cycle the remaining 12km up to Char-
lotte Pass. The spring melt was well
under way. Nevertheless, there were
snow banks by the road side several
TRAVERSE
99
metres deep and cornices overhang-
ing the outer bends of swollen silver
streams. The whole scene was one of
magic.
Charlotte’s actually felt like the end
of the trip as the snow would prevent
us cycling the last 9km to the sum-
mit of Australia. From here we would
have to trek. Lachlan, the resort own-
er, opened the door to the staff quar-
ters and after a dinner of high prote-
an salmon, we crashed out and arose
at 4am. We had decided on an alpine
start so that the surface of the snow
would be frozen enough to support
our weight.
The pools of head torch light re-
vealed a crusty solid surface as we
trudged through the darkness. Walk-
ing was a struggle after 42 days sat
down on a cycle; it was as if we had
forgotten how to do it. By the time we
had reached the Snowy River we were
in a wonderland of alpenglow and the
dawn had scattered twinkling dia-
monds on the snow cover. We had giv-