Speaker 1: The Nullaball Plane is an unforgiving place. Its desert summers
Speaker 1: are scorching, while at night the temp can drop below zero.
Speaker 1: But those extreme conditions didn't deter when Arthur Richardson, who
Speaker 1: decided the best way to experience this tough terrain was
Speaker 1: on a bicycle. Hey, welcome to the poolroom, where we
Speaker 1: celebrate the winners, losers and the weird stuff between. I'm
Speaker 1: Tony Armstrong, locals reckoned. Arthur Richardson was a quote experienced bushman.
Speaker 1: He'd been an engineer under mine and had worked on
Speaker 1: cattle stations, which I guess made him feel qualified to
Speaker 1: ride a pushbike on the surface of the sun. On
Speaker 1: November twenty four, eighteen ninety six, right at the start
Speaker 1: of summer, Arthur set out from Courgardi, a little town
Speaker 1: about five hundred and fifty k's east of Perth. In
Speaker 1: those days, it was a booming mining community with hotels
Speaker 1: and a railway line and the first public pool in
Speaker 1: Western Australia. So off he goes with nothing but a
Speaker 1: small water canteen and a puncture kit. He's riding a
Speaker 1: Rover roadster, which is basically not much more than a
Speaker 1: metal frame with a seat on top. He's twenty four
Speaker 1: years old and like the best of us, he's sporting
Speaker 1: a fancy looking mustache. It's not an easy ride. He
Speaker 1: gets a couple of punctures at one point. He rides
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty miles without seeing civilization and goes
Speaker 1: as far as eighty miles without a spot to fill
Speaker 1: his water bottle. Temperatures in the Nullibar, Arthur said, were
Speaker 1: about one thousand degrees in the shade, but he made it.
Speaker 1: Thirty one days after leaving Colgardi, Arthur arrived in Adelaide
Speaker 1: and became the first person to pedal across that formidable
Speaker 1: countryside paper said he looked sunburnt. No word on whether
Speaker 1: his kit included a hat. After that, cycling other parts
Speaker 1: of the continent must have seemed easy, and Arthur said
Speaker 1: he starts on a record to be the first person
Speaker 1: to circumnavigate Australia on a bike. He said it was
Speaker 1: a love of adventure that spurred him mom a yearning
Speaker 1: to see the country, although the money he was offered
Speaker 1: for succeeding was also a pretty good motivator. Four years
Speaker 1: after his Nullerbar crossing, Arthur started once again in wa
Speaker 1: Funnily enough, a group of other blokes actually set out
Speaker 1: at the same time. While Arthur was going clockwise from Perth,
Speaker 1: cyclists Alex and Frank White and Donald McKay were making
Speaker 1: an anti clockwise attempt, starting in Brisbane. Unlike them, Arthur
Speaker 1: was going alone. He traveled light, about eleven kilos of
Speaker 1: luggage plus a pistol. Being an engineer, he was pretty
Speaker 1: confident he could repair his bike if he ran into trouble,
Speaker 1: and it was said that failure never even entered his mind.
Speaker 1: Arthur headed north, where he'd calculated tropical rains should have
Speaker 1: cleared by the time he arrived. Not quite. He found
Speaker 1: himself up against unrideable box, camped at night in the
Speaker 1: pouring rain, and faced flooded rivers and creeks through the
Speaker 1: pilbra tracking through mud on foot, his bike chain sometimes
Speaker 1: became so clogged up he had to remove it in
Speaker 1: and he was often forced to carry the bike above
Speaker 1: his head. Eventually, the weather came good and Arthur continued
Speaker 1: his journey. He rode stretches of country overrun by huge rats,
Speaker 1: following horse beaten tracks. Under a full moon. The surfaces
Speaker 1: changed from crack limestone to rocky mountains and flat land
Speaker 1: where sheep grazed. As he neared the territory border, the
Speaker 1: rivers and creeks were teeming with fish, so many, he said,
Speaker 1: you could catch enough to feed twenty people in an
Speaker 1: hour for dessert wild figs. The trip continued across the
Speaker 1: top End, where people were few and far between. Arthur's
Speaker 1: bike took him north to Darwin and he followed the
Speaker 1: telegraph line to the old Power Creek station. Occasionally he'd
Speaker 1: meet a cattle muster or station owner, and he had
Speaker 1: plenty of interactions with blackfellows, who he greeted with the
Speaker 1: kind of hostility you'd expect. Western Queensland brought hot and
Speaker 1: northerly winds and hard flat land. It was forty six
Speaker 1: degrees in the shade. Then who should he bump into?
Speaker 1: But he's anti clockwise competitors, the White Brothers and Donald McKay.
Speaker 1: They warned him about what might happen if he carried
Speaker 1: on the conditions They reckoned meant certain death. Sounds like
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of thing someone would say if they
Speaker 1: wanted to be the first person to circumnavigate Australia on
Speaker 1: a bike. If Arthur was afraid. He didn't show it,
Speaker 1: but his mental state was under some serious strain. He
Speaker 1: was constantly tempted by the shimmering mirage that seemed to
Speaker 1: follow him everywhere. After conquering the northern regions, things got
Speaker 1: a lot easier. Nearly five months after his journey began,
Speaker 1: Arthur reached Burketown and probably made a bee line for
Speaker 1: a cold drink. Riding to higher ground, he was greeted
Speaker 1: by the fine streak of blue of the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 1: and then I guess it was just downhill through Sydney
Speaker 1: and into Victoria. He copped a bushfire or two en
Speaker 1: route to Melbourne, then made an easy run up to
Speaker 1: Port Augusta in South Australia. From there he simply crossed
Speaker 1: the Nuller Ball once more. In total, he rode for
Speaker 1: eight months and covered more than eighteen thousand kilometers. Arthur
Speaker 1: Richardson was briefly famous, especially in Wa, but just as
Speaker 1: quickly faded to obscurity. He moved all over the place,
Speaker 1: working in West Africa, South America and England, and was
Speaker 1: badly wounded in World War One, and he got married twice.
Speaker 1: But the lesson about that the better. Arthur's ride around
Speaker 1: the country lives on in infamy. The record breaking adventure
Speaker 1: wasn't just an athletic achievement, it was also an engineering
Speaker 1: feat showing just what the bicycle was capable of. Journals
Speaker 1: said Arthur's trip showed that the machine could be a
Speaker 1: rapid means of locomotion in all classes of country, and
Speaker 1: one that would change the way modern twentieth century Australians
Speaker 1: got around bikes. You can ride them fast, even in
Speaker 1: the desert. Thanks for listening to the poolroom with me,
Speaker 1: Tony Armstrong. This has been an iHeart production. Join me
Speaker 1: next time for more cracking sports stories. See you then,