If you are looking for a Christmas present to buy yourself for cycle touring inspiration, this book by Daniel Oakman is a contender.

The bloke in the photo has a good bike packing set up!

Mike that’s the famous Francis Birtles. That frame bag is made of brass and could hold about 7 litres of water. Unlike the alternative, canvas bags, the brass was water proof. 

And one of the pieces of luggage attached to the front fork is a rifle. Useful for obtaining fresh tucker. 

Thanks for this. I just downloaded it on my Kindle, but not before searching using only the title. Very interesting search. It is a popular title, and I leave it to you to guess most of the subject matter 😂.  Adding the author got me to the right spot.  We will be in Australia in March, a family trip, and I know I will enjoy the book. 

Kathleen I’m glad you’ve been able to source the book. I hadn’t considered the possibility of false search leads into nefarious websites, but yes now you mention it, the title is a bit ambiguous.

I’ve now finished reading Daniel Oakman’s book and thoroughly enjoyed it. It complements another fairly recent book called “Overlander” by Rupert Guiness. Reading this inspired me to do a 3800km cycle tour from Canberra to Perth. 

All the best for your visit to Australia. Will you be doing any cycle touring? 

Great stuff, Graham.  Love the hats in the photo!  Will look into this as a diversion from Stuff Outside:  winter has arrived, mid-morning temp is -10 as I write, forecast down to -18 tonight, and that's without windchill.  Softie that I am, no cycling for me in these conditions. 

(Much colder than -18, and even skating on natural ice is difficult -- the pressure of the blades on the ice creates a wee bit of water, allowing the skater to glide, and below -20, that wee bit of of water starts to freeze. Friends in Saskatchewan often say, "Whatever global warming is, it's probably too little, too late.")

Cheers,  John

John at least two of the pioneer expedition riders featured in the “Wild Rides” book ventured to South Africa as well. None to Canada. 

The slightly mad looking guy with the hat is Francis Birtles. He’d be much more famous except for a dreadful coincidence of timing. 

After his unique cycling exploits, Francis turned his adventure interests to cars, and became the first person to drive from Britain to Australia. It was an extraordinary journey. However he arrived in Oz the same day that The Titanic sank. So that literally scuttled any media coverage of his record journey. 

If you Google ‘Warren Brown’s biography of Francis Birtles” I’m fairly sure you’ll find material of interest to help the long winter pass. 

We are so looking forward to Australia. The background is that our youngest son set out to Eastern Canada (Montreal) for work, which is 4500 km away…further than Sydney to Perth. I suggested while living there he should only date women who came from British Columbia. I was teasing of course, but regardless, he didn’t listen. He is back in Victoria now, and married to an absolutely wonderful woman he met in Montreal…who is from Perth Australia. She has an equally amazing family, and so this will be our third visit to Australia. For the first three weeks our son and daughter in law will be with us, and we will start in Sydney where she has a brother and then head to Perth to see the rest of the fam. From there Keith and I are thinking Tasmania. We have never been and have heard it is fabulous. 

We are seriously looking at G Line Bromptons to take with us so there may be some biking involved, or maybe not. We need to make some decisions soon about flights to Australia. Flights within Australia we feel a little more relaxed about. 

I have only peeked at Wild Ride. I am just finishing a book called Climbers about the Tour de France. Wild Ride will be next. Then Overlander. I am looking forward to both and to visiting your fabulous country again. 

It sounds like you have a great trip planned.

I have a 16” wheeled Bike Friday folding bike which I use often to help get around Sydney and Melbourne when visiting family there. It combines well with bus, train and car transport. It packs ok into a suitcase for flights too. 

My experience cycling in Perth is minimal, but I found it to be fairly bike friendly. So is Hobart. 

As you probably discovered on previous trips, domestic flights here a tad expensive compared to many other countries, as there’s not much real competition on the main routes. Nevertheless flights are frequent and safe. 

If you use Facebook Marketplace, it’s quite a good source of affordable second-hand bikes if you wanted get bikes here rather than fly them all the way over. 

I have just finished Wild Ride and really, really enjoyed it.   I had some private chuckles at some of the roads, sand dunes and challenges that were encountered, knowing what a complete princess I can be. We don’t bring the tent when we tour, and I do love a soft bed, a fluffy white duvet and a hot shower at the end of the day.  I kept my iPad close for the occasional translations from Australian. Thank you so much for recommending the book. It also enhanced my knowledge of Australian geography, never a bad thing!

We are really looking forward to our trip to Australia. We have had to shorten the trip due to a flooded basement just before Christmas caused by an atmospheric river (a fancy term for heavy rain) here in Victoria. We need to upgrade our perimeter drains (very important here on the wet coast) and put the fully finished lower level back together and probably won’t have it all done before we leave. Things could be much worse though, we only had an inch of water to contend with. Others had much more. We are still coming your way regardless, and looking forward to it. I am excited.