With a heavy heart, Jerome sold his much-loved Diamond to pay for a passage to Sydney. After his arrival, he caught a train to Adelaide for a public reception before going back to work in Broken Hill with a water supply company. Wherever Jerome went, he thrilled audiences with tales of his adventures. Yet, while he quietly enjoyed his new-found status as a cycling hero, he never disguised the extent of his suffering. ‘Nothing, I assure you, would induce me to undertake the trip again. Once is enough,’ he told a reporter. ‘That I didn’t go right off my head is a mystery.’
Postscript
Australians were still talking about Murif’s ride a decade on. When Henry Dutton and Horace Aunger failed in their attempt to drive a motor car over the same route in 1907, even more respect and astonishment were heaped upon the pioneering cyclist.
As for Murif himself, little is known about his life after the ride. We do know that, being desperately short of money, he went back to work as an engineer and explored some mineral leases before migrating to San Francisco in 1903. He died there in 1926, unmarried and childless. Records show that while living in California he took out a copyright on a few of his musical compositions. It’s unclear if his bicycle-spoke instrumental ‘Across the Continent in Pyjamas’, written on the banks of Burt Creek, was among them.
Chapter 3
The Loneliness of the Long-distance Cyclist
Arthur Richardson dreamed of becoming the first man to ride a bicycle around Australia. To even entertain the notion took daring: to take the first pedal strokes on that 18,000-kilometre journey would take another level of courage entirely. Arthur made his plans, ignoring the ‘prophets of doom’ and the doubts in his own mind. On Monday 5 June 1899 he rode off into the unknown.
Arthur was not new to this game. Three years earlier he had ridden from his home in Coolgardie on the West Australian goldfields to Adelaide. In doing so, he inscribed his name in the history books as the first man to cycle across the Nullarbor Plain. Perhaps then, and only then, did the idea of riding a full lap of the continent take seed in his imagination. Young and fearless, Arthur already seemed destined for athletic greatness. But he was not alone. Intrepid riders, it seemed, were everywhere.
During the 1890s talented and bold riders crisscrossed the country in an endeavour known as ‘overlanding’. Indeed, barely a day went by without the newspapers enthusing about yet another cyclist’s titanic struggle across the vastness of the continent. Percy Armstrong and Robert Craig led the way in 1893, riding 3,200 kilometres from the Croydon goldfields in Queensland to Sydney, averaging 80 kilometres a day. The indefatigable Percy continued on alone to Melbourne, thus completing the longest bicycle ride undertaken in Australia to that point. In 1897 William Virgin powered his way from Perth to Brisbane in just sixty days. His 6,000-kilometre trip crushed Percy’s long-standing distance record. Just two months after Arthur blazed the trail, Bill Snell snatched the record for riding the Nullarbor, when he rode well over 3,000 kilometres from Menzies in Western Australia to Melbourne, in just twenty-eight days.
But as for riding round the entire country — was that even possible? Of the courageous few who joined the ranks of the overlanders, even fewer would consider cycling through the northern reaches of the continent, the wild frontier of white civilisation. The prize for being the first to conquer the entire country by bicycle dangled before them. But what kind of man would it take not just to dream it, but to do it?
* * *
Arthur’s moment had arrived. Perth’s main street buzzed with excitement. An unassuming man who shunned the limelight, Arthur looked out of place amid the crowds and the hullaballoo.
Stern-faced gents hovered in the background: agents, advertisers and company men. There was good coin to be made from these overlanders — just not by the riders themselves. Former overlander, and now cycling salesman, Percy Armstrong was the sole agent for Humber bicycles. A successful trip, properly promoted, could lead to thousands of new sales. He stitched up a deal with the West Australian newspaper whereby Arthur would be paid to send in regular updates via telegram about his progress. Exactly how much he was paid, and what he was expected to say in these reports, remain mysteries. With reputations on the line, a request to tell the unvarnished truth was unlikely to have been among those instructions.
Dunlop Rubber, after initially rebuffing Arthur’s request for sponsorship, was now in this up to its neck. Glowing reports from a bona fide overlander like Arthur would be marketing gold. The circle of commercial interests was complete. Good copy from Arthur meant Dunlop and Armstrong would spend more on advertising in the newspapers. Percy and Humber would sell more bikes, and Dunlop would maintain its stranglehold on the tyre market. Everyone would be a winner.
Spectators craned to get a look at the bike that would carry Arthur through the wilderness. His Humber path-racer was a picture of simplicity: a sturdy steel frame, one gear and no brakes. Would it stand up to the rigours of outback travel? Or would its rider be left stranded in the desert? This journey would be as much a test of the machine as of the man.
Introverted and strong-willed, Arthur craved neither company nor conversation. He had the perfect psychological make-up for an outback endurance rider. At twenty-seven he was in his physical prime. He didn’t drink or smoke. He liked cycle racing and going for long walks.
Arthur was also a planner. To prepare for his round-Australia trip, he devoured as much information as he could find. He wrote to the Surveyor General of Western Australia, who provided maps and other information to help him negotiate the less settled parts of the colony. Some of the men he met on the goldfields had firsthand experience working and travelling in the Kimberley and western Queensland. He soon learned from them that while his journey would be arduous it could be done. As for the Aboriginal people he would encounter on the way, his strategy was simple: ‘I will need to camp well away from water and avoid them as much as possible.’ He carried a revolver, just in case.
Arthur reckoned he would finish the trip in five months, six if he got held up by bad weather or mechanical problems. Travelling fast and light was the plan. Carrying little in the way of provisions or spare clothes, Arthur planned to purchase meals and supplies at cattle and sheep stations along the route. He pedalled out of Perth with an escort of local riders, looking as if he was heading out for a weekend jaunt.
By starting in June and riding clockwise, Arthur assumed the rains would ease by the time he reached the tropical north. Alas, a longer-than-expected winter brought cold temperatures and heavy rain. The first day was a shocker. Only hours into the ride, the rain started coming down in sheets. Of course, he didn’t carry a waterproof cape.
Working his way north, Arthur found most of the waterways in flood. He waded through fast-flowing rivers and creeks, some running so high that he had to hold the bike above his head. ‘The country for miles upon miles was a perfect quagmire,’ he said. He pushed his bike for hours through unrideable slop. At times, the chain became so clogged with mud he had to remove it altogether to allow the bike to roll freely. He headed inland, in a vain attempt to find drier country.
Arthur’s lightweight set-up had another, more serious, drawback. Somewhat recklessly, he was travelling without a tent, groundsheet or sleeping bag. Tiny, sputtering fires made with damp wood did little to keep him warm. He spent many a miserable night