Have you ever had your sleep disturbed by noisy neighbours, droning traffic or the inevitable car alarm sounding off at 2 o'clockin the morning? If you have ever longed for that elusive peace and quiet then sleeping out on the Nullabor Plain could be the answer to your problem. During our recent cycle trip we found the nights on the Nullabor to be the most peaceful of all. As we lay in our sleeping bags under a carpet of stars the only noise we could hear was the rustling of the wind through the low scrub. Before we drifted off to sleep each night we would count the satellites and shooting stars miles and light years above us.

One of the main danger cycling across the Nullabor Plain was from speeding truckies on their long haul across the continent from Perth and sydney. The possibility of being knocked over by the wind from one of these massive juggernauts always scared us but fortunately we could see the dust cloud a long way off. We were not sure whether our main danger was Man or Nature but what we did know was how to survive. After all we hadcycled 13,000kms on some of the worst roads in Europe and Asia, not to mention copeting with the various forms of transportfor our piece of the highway. We had flown into Perth from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and our destination was Sydney, 4,700kms to the east. After only two days in Australia we were still growing acustomed to the distinctive dry smell of the eucalyps and still being horified at paying a dollar for a cup of tea.

The name Nullabor is a Latin word meabning "no trees' and the plain itself is 692kms long and 402kms wide. Although we refer to the Nullabor as being the section between Norseman and Ceduna, it is not until you approach the small settlement of Nullabor itself that you actually cross a tiny section of the true 'treeless plain'. The bulk of this treeless desert lies to the north of the Eyre Highway

After eight days of enjoyable cycling through the wheat belt of Western Australia we arrived in Norseman, the gateway to the Nullabor and still 1,200kms to Ceduna in South Australia. As we were debating which service station to take our weekly shower in, a young Canadian cyclist on his way around Australia, pedalled into view. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to exchange stories of our exploits with someone who had the same inspiration and spirit of adventur as us but as time was of the essence it was not long before we parted company and, as he set off for Kalgoorlie we tossed a coin to decide who would be first to have that shower. Due to weight saving measures earlies en route we shared one towel so, while one washed the other ate breakfast and guarded the bikes.

Feeling clean and refreshed we filled our back panniers with plenty high energy food from the local supermarket and loaded our front panniers with two 5 litre containers of water. We had leftScotland with only one sleeping bag and neither tent nor cooking equipment and so by the time we reached Norseman we were carrying only the basic essentials. As we cycled out of town into the perennial headwind we could see the undulating road stretching out ahead of us, mile upon mile, Struggling against the wind is one of the occupational hazzards of cycling and although we were not normally to paranio we did feel that someone up there did not want us to reach Sydney.

Contraty to popular belief the Nullabor is not always as hot as 40C and we soon found out how cold it could become. Our second night out turned into an epic as a thunder and lightning storm hit us as we lay huddled together under a small tree. Our inadequate piece of plastic, purchased in Turkey for such anoccasion but never used, began to diintegrate with the force of the wind and evebtually took off into the surrounding darkness. For the next few days it was a mixture of showers and blue sky but fortunately it did not rainagain at night.

We discussed many topics out there on the endless road and came closs to solving the world's problems on many an occasion. At times we became quite lonely, however our existence was constantly enlivened by encouters with many "weird and wonderful" people. Late one afternoon two young travellers nearly wrote us off in their panel van then reversed at the same speed to ask us if we had found God or the source of the Ganges. They were so pleased when we told them we had seen the source of the Ganges that they brought out their esky to celebrate and passed the cold stubbies around. An hour later they drove off even more drunk than before but with the knowledge that God could be found. Whether their search was hindered by the Highway Patrol which passed shortly after they departed, we will never know.

It was just past Madura that a car stopped next to us and the driver shouted out,"Are you Louise and Colin?" Our reaction was one of total surprise but our question was soon answered. Whilst puting a new kitchen in Louise's mother's house in Sydney he had learned of our exploits and as he and his family were driving to Perth soon after, he promised to say hello. A few days later a fella in a tue pulled over in a cloud of dust and oferred us a drink of ice cold orange juice from his on-board fridge. I think it must rank as the best cold orange juice I have ever tasted. He then promised that he would leave the rest of exactly 10kms up the road under a bush. The next hour was perhaps the slowest and thirstiest part of the trip and true to his word, under a bush, covered with an oily rag and marked with a paper flag was the bottle of cold orange juice. His name and address was attached to the flagpole and when we arrived in Sydney we wrote and thanked him for the very kind gesture.

Every day brought new people into our lives; we had morning coffee with a lonely German girl in her kombi van on the road to nowhere, breakfast with a bus full of West Ausralians armed with ice-axes on their way to Kosciusko and afternoon tea with a retired couple caravaning their way around Australia at their leisure. We were constantly being overtaken by gangs of bikes in a hurry to reach Bathurst for the races. A week later they were on their way home, battle scarred and weary but still able to wave to us. We became known to the coach drivers and could see them mention us into their microphones as they sped past. At the too infrquent roadhouses the passengers would give us a progrees report of the two American and the Japanese cyclists a day or so ahead of us.

With monotonous regularity we were warned of the dead camel ahead of us. It had been killed in a collision with a car and both lay by the roadside exposed to the elements. We soon knew when we were approaching the scene of the accident as we could smell the decomposing flesh some distance away. One thing the smell did not do was put us off our food and we looked forward to that day's roadhouse as often we had no food left.

It is hard to describe how one can have an emotional reaction at the sight of a drab roadhouse but each one represented a milestone to us and oferred the only source of comfort across half of Australia. Small things such as a bag of chips, a cup of tea or a conversation with another person took on a new significence. At one such roadhose we were rather taken aback when we were asked to pay 26 cents per litre of water but we were more than pleased when a Dutch family offered us some ice-cold water from their own supply.

Ten days after we had left Norseman we entered Ceduna where we were stopped by the agricultural control who asked us if we had any fruit to declare. We had absolutely no food left whatsoever so we just stared at him increduously and uttered some remark about the last greengrocer's being some 1,200kms to the west. That night in the soft bed of an on-site van and with a full stomach we drifted off into a deep, deep sleep knowing that the most trying section of our marathon trip was over.