Weeks of hard effort had stripped Jerome’s naturally wiry frame to its bare essentials. He spent his time socialising and gourmandising with the locals, and made sure to put on some decent ‘condition’ for the lean times ahead. Local men asked, as they always did, why he had volunteered for such foolhardiness. Surely, it must be because he had lost a bet? Well accustomed to the question, Jerome liked to say that he was just like a chicken at the edge of a road and simply wanted to reach the other side.
The Alice Springs Hotel and ‘those good things which it contained exercised strong magnetic attractions’. It was a hard place to leave. But after a five-day spell, Jerome was ready to start out on what he thought would be the most dangerous and difficult part of the journey. Ready to farewell the intrepid rider, a good gathering of locals stood outside on 13 April. With his knapsack full of provisions, he rode through the MacDonnell Ranges and along the telegraph line to a lovely waterhole at Burt Creek, beneath the Enbra Hills. Missing the conviviality of town and in melancholy mood, he picked up a stick and began thrumming the spokes of Diamond’s front wheel. He dubbed his impromptu composition ‘Across the Continent in Pyjamas’.
Jerome made steady progress on well-defined tracks. On faster sections he enjoyed sweeping around the trees, ant hills and other obstacles. Looking at the dense mulga scrub that surrounded him, he marvelled at the ‘brave and venturesome’ European explorers who had forged a path through dangerous country. By contrast, the knowledge and skill displayed by the people who had lived there for thousands of years made little to no impression on him.
The three days from Alice Springs had been uneventful but tiring. When in mid afternoon he reached well-known Tea Tree Well, he decided to stop for the evening. Dense ‘nigger-harbouring’ scrub made him nervous, as did a scattering of naked footprints in the sand. But he found the courage to remain and drew a bucket of sweet water from the well, fed by the nearby Hanson River. He distracted himself by turning his engineering skills to a tiny adversary that had been slowing him down since his journey began.
At certain times of the year, a spiny weed sprays its fruit across great swathes of the country. The distinctive burrs, known as cat’s heads or three-cornered jacks, were the bane of cyclists everywhere. Depending on their size and density, the burrs could tear through a tyre like a machine-gun. More commonly, each revolution of the wheel would drive them deeper into the tyre until they pierced the inner tube.
Even Jerome’s extra-thick tyres were no match for the larger thorns. Fixing punctures under the blazing sun was demoralising and exhausting. Fed up, Jerome turned his engineering skills to the problem. He flattened an old tin matchbox he found by the well and attached it between the forks, bending the edges so they almost touched the tyre. The metal edge knocked troublesome burrs from their toehold before they had a chance to become more deeply embedded. While a few persistent thorns did breach Jerome’s ingenious device, over the rest of his trip he saved countless hours patching tubes under the hot sun.
At dusk, Jerome lay down in the sand to sleep. Still a little on edge, he fell asleep thinking about what to call his invention: a ‘burr-catcher’, ‘ejector’, ‘arrester’. Or, perhaps, a ‘burr-dissuader’. No sooner had he closed his eyes that an ‘unearthly wailing’ echoed along the river. Dingoes. Jerome fired his revolver in the general direction of the noise. The ‘howling nuisances of the bush’, as he called them, went quiet. But minutes later they started up again.
In the morning, once Jerome got moving, the sight of Central Mount Stuart momentarily shook off his tiredness. The bald, dark red sandstone mass rises over 800 metres above sea level: it owes its name to the fact that it was once believed to be only a few kilometres from the dead centre of the continent. He paused to take in the impressive sight, but a notebook entry suggests that he really longed to see something else: ‘Would have preferred a brewery.’
Jerome believed in three things: good health, good luck and a good bicycle. For a remote adventure of this magnitude, even these three were not enough. Jerome’s cavalier approach to planning very nearly ended in disaster. From Barrow Creek Station, he faced a daunting haul of 257 kilometres before the next opportunity for food and supplies. But, instead of stocking up on essentials, Jerome resolved to set out with water and piece of cake tied to his bike’s handlebars. In his journal he quipped with his usual irony that he would be very hungry by the time he arrived at Tennant Creek, at least three days’ ride away.
The first morning did not go well. Over the bumpy trails, the poorly secured cake soon bounced off the bars, never to be recovered. The creek where he expected to replenish his water supply was dry. Worse still, as he searched the dry bed, his bike fell over and the stopper dislodged from his water bag, spilling his dwindling supplies into the sand. As his thirst intensified, the salty meat he had eaten for breakfast became a source of real regret. He rode all afternoon without a drink. There was still no sign of the next creek as the light began to fade. ‘Diamond, we must make a dash for it! On, on!’ he said to no-one. In his panicked state he crashed heavily, dislocating a kneecap. By now it was dark. Jerome reset his swollen knee and tried to sleep.
After a restless night, he awoke dehydrated and sore. Unable to ride, he limped along with his bicycle through the sand and scrub, following a crude map drawn by the resident trooper at Barrow Creek. After an hour he reached a faint ‘pad’ that led to Wycliffe Well. Hobbling as fast as his swollen knee would allow, he found a waterhole ‘filled to overflowing with “the nectar of the gods”’. He lay down, plunged his head into the water and ‘drank with rapturous delight’. A lifesaving find, no doubt, but 130 kilometres still separated him from Tennant Creek.
As he rode on next day, Jerome pressed gingerly on the pedals, sparing his knee. Spectacular rock formations offered some distraction, and he imagined giant hobgoblins coming along to play with them. (Today, they are known as the Devil’s Marbles.) Despite his injuries, by dusk Jerome had covered the 60 kilometres to Bonney Creek. He arrived in spectacular fashion, coming a cropper while trying to ride through a pebbly crossing. A group of Aborigines scattered into the bush. Although frightened, Jerome refused to leave the water. He gathered firewood and inspected their now abandoned camp site. He decided against tucking into the goanna and ‘frizzled snake’ left on the fire, and had to be content with his last remaining soup tablet. Hungry and miserable, he went to sleep with his head shoved into his spare pair of pyjama bottoms to protect himself from the ‘athletic mosquitoes’.
Now on his third day without food, Jerome resolved to cover the better part of 100 kilometres to Tennant Creek by nightfall. Even under the best of conditions, it was an ambitious goal. But this time Fate was against him. At Gilbert Creek he lost the trail and wasted valuable hours finding his way out of a billabong he mistook for the main watercourse. Following the telegraph line also proved to be much slower than expected. By this time, many of the original wooden poles used to support the wire had been replaced by steel poles. Workers often left the old poles right across the track. Unwittingly, they created a tedious obstacle for bike riders, who now had to cycle into the scrub to avoid them, or lift their bike over each one.
Jerome’s luck turned, however, when he chanced upon two white men with three Aboriginal boys. He quickly accepted their offer of hospitality and a place to camp. ‘You’ll not think I’m a beast, will you?’ he asked by way of an apology for his voracious appetite. ‘I’ve eaten nothing for three days.’ They did not. In the outback, as Jerome discovered, no-one stood on ceremony or looked askance at a man devouring enough food for three people in a single sitting.
In the morning his luck continued. Smooth roads eased the burden of the final 50 kilometres to Tennant Creek, which he reached on 21 April. The brevity of his telegram to The Advertiser in Adelaide spoke volumes about the state of his mind and body. ‘Am well,’ he fibbed: ‘Three-and-a-half days from Barrow. Intend spelling here for a while.’ Possessed by an ‘unnatural-seeming craving for food’, he ate almost continuously. ‘My happiest thoughts were centred around the dinner table,’ he wrote later, ‘and there was a savage delight in the partaking of every meal.’
Jerome had learnt his lesson. When he felt strong enough to continue,