Australia - Posted On
They call it the wheat belt, just because they grow wheat around here. And when Australia say ‘around here’, it usually means a territory as big as France is. It takes me 6 days to cover the 700kms of it, which isn’t bad. I left Seb at the start of the road, and literally flew through the country, feeling the great exhilaration of freedom! How good it is to be on my own since being with someone was frustrating and feeding anger!
The little towns I cross do not see many tourists, as they usually prefer the coast road. Therefore I get a very warm and generous welcome, since what’s rare become precious. I even find a free public hot shower in one of the town, not a common thing around here. In Harrisville the local pub whose tenants are three supernice girls, make a big thing of me arriving sweaty and tired, pouring me beer after beer, give me meal after meal, I must tell my story twenty, thirty times! Long after will I remember of these good people.
Once I get into the huge city of Perth, everything changes. First feeling: I arrived in California! Warm climate, rich people going to the beach, everyone is ‘cool’, it’s a nice feeling even though the gigantism of the sudden civilization shocks me in the first place. This comes even stronger when I get onto the highway, after two months in the bush. Impressive feeling of being a stranger in the civilized world!
Biloute and Beun hosts me in their place and I take a complete month off, kitesurfing, working on my equipment, getting ready for the next half of Australia and flying here and there. Two sites appeal me a lot. One is directly in the city, Mossman they call it. Very tricky little place where there’s not much of a bottom landing apart from the seawater. But the view is spectacular and some say in some good days the air can take us really high in the sky giving an absolute overview of the whole city around.
The other is called Mt Bakewell where Sam and a bunch of local pilots take me one day, in a very welcoming manner. That’s what I really enjoy about paragliding also: the locals always want to show me how good their site is and the welcoming is always great! This day I perform quite a good XC with a landing 33kms from the take off, rising 1600m from the ground. The yellow colours of the surrounding immensity is beautiful, I love it!
After a month, it’s time to get back on the bike, saying goodbye to Luc, Ben, Biloute and the others I have lived a little time with.
Ben made a custom design of a Ikon land kite for my kite bike project, with a extralight control bar, 110g with the lines, very impressive! Although it’s heavier, this kite flies better into the headwind and should be giving me more opportunities to kite on the bike.
Ahead of me lays 4000kms of desert, Western Australia is said to be the wildest and the biggest of the states. I should be able to find some good spots to kite bike, paraglide, feel lost, feel extremely remote and I can’t wait for all this!