“I just wanted to do something grand.”
After riding his bike 4700km over 48 days from his home on the Gold Coast to Perth – raising more than $80,000 for charity in the process - it’s fair to say Tom Forbes (Class of 1997) can probably tick that goal off his list.
The 19-year ABC veteran completed his journey on the weekend when he dipped his tyre in the Indian Ocean at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach in front of delighted family and friends.
There was much he loved about his great adventure, Forbes says. There’s also lots he won’t miss.
The headwinds, for instance.
And those road trains can get in the bin.
But mostly he won’t miss headwinds with road trains.
“I didn’t go on about it too much because I didn’t want to upset people back home, but there were lots of near misses. Too many in fact,” he says.
“You can’t hear what’s coming up behind you when you’re cycling into a headwind.
“You feel pretty bloody vulnerable pretty bloody quickly when you’re tangled up in the turbulence of a 100km/h road train, especially when you had no idea it was there.”
Although the weather was reasonably kind across the month-and-a-half Forbes was away, the wind was definitely his biggest day-in-day-out challenge.
“The Nullabor was a predictable breeze-affected slog, but it definitely wasn’t the worst of it,” he says.
“There was a stretch across the Hay Plain in southwest NSW where I had to turn off my cycling computer because I didn’t want to actually know how little progress I was making. It would have been way too depressing.”
For all the exhilaration that comes with the freedom of adventure, the low points were many.
“There were a couple of thousand bottom-outs in total I reckon,” he says. “The mood swings really surprised me actually. I’d be experiencing the most glorious highs, but next minute I’d be irrationally angry or upset. I spoke to a friend of mine who knows a bit about these kinds of things. Apparently, it’s a fairly common phenomenon when you’re constantly in this kind of heightened fight or flight state.”
Even for a bloke who’s spent plenty of time living and working in the bush, the sheer magnitude of Australia still surprised him.
“I had no real concept of just how flat, dry, and vast Australia is,” he says.
“It’s such an enormous place. And there were constant reminders along the way that would blow your mind. I remember talking to a fella at a roadhouse along the way. He lived on a property that covered a million acres. A million! There was 95km between cattle grids.”
Often the intimidating scale around him would give way to breathtaking wonder.
“The Bunda Cliffs along the Nullabor were an absolute highlight,” he says.
“All that flat earth to the north that just falls away into the Great Australian Bight. Dolphins playing in the ocean below contrasting with all that emptiness inland. It’s just beautiful.”
So too were the many people Forbes befriended along the way.
“There was John the real-life highwayman who’s literally spent the best part of 50 years on the road. The grey nomads with their caravans going this way and that. And the others who were doing what I was doing. Cyclists from France and Germany and elsewhere. I loved swapping stories and the sense of camaraderie.”
Despite the immensity of the physical challenge, Forbes says his body held up well. He went to bed sore and needed a stretch to get going when he woke up. But once his legs started ticking over, muscle memory kicked in.
“You simply adapt. You just keep on keeping on. The human body is an amazing thing.”
He says it’s a strange feeling having finally finished.
“It’s bit like coming home after spending all summer at camp,” he says. “But the fact is I had a big idea that I vocalised and then acted upon. And now I’ve done it. I love that I saw the whole thing through.”
And that sense of accomplishment certainly made the ceremonial dipping of his bike’s front tyre in the Indian Ocean at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach on the weekend especially memorable.
“I was so elated,” he says. “And definitely surprised that so many had shown up to welcome a sad old man to the other side of the country. But extremely proud that I’d set out to achieve something really hard and finished the job.”
It wasn’t achievement just for achievement’s sake.
Early on Forbes attached his adventure to childhood cancer charity Redkite because of the wonderful support it had offered his in-laws when their son was battling leukaemia.
“I set out to raise five grand. It ended up being $83,000. It’s been an extraordinary response from all sorts of people – some I know, some I met along the way, strangers. For a small charitable organisation, it’ll make a pretty significant difference. I’m so happy for them.”
So now that he’s back, any plans to jump back in the saddle?
“My bike is packed up in a box,” he says.
“I don’t think it’ll be coming out any time soon.”