Taking your baby around Australia in a caravan? That’s easy. This month, Lisa and Greg meet a couple cycling from Port Douglas to Cooktown with a bub in tow
There are whispers in the caravan park. “Have you heard about the couple from Manly in Sydney?” a woman asks me, wide-eyed. “They’re travelling on bicycles, with a baby! He’s about the same age as your boy. They’ve cycled all the way from Sydney and they’re sleeping in a tent.”
We are in leafy Mossman – that’s Mossman in far north Queensland, a sugar town on the edge of the Daintree National Park. It’s a very long way from both Manly and Mosman on Sydney Harbour, particularly if your own legs got you here.
In a caravan park full of grey nomads, David Griffiths and Jessica Smithard are not difficult to identify. We find them sitting at a wooden table, near their tent, eating lunch. They are straight out of central casting for cyclists, youthful and lean with splendid muscle tone and six-pack tummies. They first met, I learn, when he was a surfing instructor and she went on his surfing safari. Their baby boy, Jonah, is all chocolate-coloured eyes like his mum and floppy brown hair like his dad. Jonah and my boy, Joe, size each other up and decide they would rather make friends with the drainpipe than each other.
The caravan park whispers, it turns out, are of the Chinese variety. David, Jessica and Jonah are from Sydney but they haven’t ridden all the way here. They’re not as kooky as I first thought, although they did dream to be.
“The original crazy, mad idea was to ride from Sydney to Perth, but when we actually looked at the logistics, we scrapped that plan,” says Jessica.
Instead, the family flew to Cairns and planned to ride to Cooktown from there. But an experienced local cyclist advised them not to ride the first leg of the journey, because the road is very narrow. They followed the advice and caught the bus to Mossman, north of Port Douglas, where the adventure is to begin. They’ll spend the next few weeks riding to Cooktown – a distance of almost 200km.
The plan is to take it slowly, to only ride between 15 and 30km a day, and to set out early in the morning when the traffic is light. “We’re not pushing ourselves,” says David, although he does expect “sore legs and a sore bottom”.
While David and Jessica try to eat their avocado sandwiches, my partner Greg and I lob question after question their way. We’re particularly interested in the little carriage Jonah rides in. It’s a Canadian design called a Chariot. It reminds me of a motorcycle sidecar, but the Chariot sits behind the bicycle, not beside it.
“It’s a baby carrier but it’s got all these different attachments,” says David. “You can cross-country ski with it… you can hike with it around your waist and it converts to a pram, as well as a jogger and a bike trailer.”
Greg and I have been on the road for four months and these guys are the most adventurous travellers we’ve met. We ask them to join us for dinner. This afternoon they’re riding to Wonga Beach, further up the coast, and Greg organises to collect them from there. We ask them whether they’d prefer beer or wine. “Water is fine for us,” says Jessica. “We don’t drink.” We are slightly surprised. They seem like a couple who would enjoy a beer or two.
At the appointed time, Greg picks them up and brings them back to Mossman where I give them a tour of our caravan. For the first time, it seems palatial. For starters, we have a microwave, a fridge, a shower, a toilet and a queen-sized bed.
David and Jessica are travelling with next to nothing. They have a tent, a small stove, two roll mats, two sleeping bags and a baby cot that is so compact it could be mistaken for a fat Frisbee. They each have two sets of clothes that fit into one small day-pack. “We’ve used a fresh set of clothes on you guys tonight,” says David, smiling. “I hope you appreciate that.”
We put the boys to bed and then sit for a few hours over dinner. They tell us how much they enjoyed cycling through the sugar cane fields this afternoon. “It is a beautiful way to see the country – travelling at that speed you get to see so much more,” says Jessica.
There were anxious moments too, particularly worrying about Jonah. Jessica says she had her heart in her mouth a few times when 4WDs sped past. David heard Jonah crying a little at first. “I thought, ‘Oh, we’re doing the wrong thing. DOCS are going to be coming after us,’” he says. Before long, however, Jonah settled into the ride and so did David and Jessica.
I’m wondering after such an experience what they’ll attempt next. Will they try something even more ambitious? David’s response is so unexpected that, for a moment, Greg and I are stunned into silence.
“We are slightly hamstrung by a kidney disease that I have,” he says. This trip, it turns out, might be the first and last of its kind. “I’m facing dialysis, so we thought, well, we better go and have an adventure.”
At 34, David is staring into a future full of restrictions. His livelihood – working on film and television sets – will be affected, as will the day-to-day freedoms most of us take for granted. “It’s quite a horrific thing to have to look at – three days a week, locked into hospital.” On average, says David, it takes seven years to get a transplant in Australia and even then there’s no guarantee of success.
He’s also conscious of the impact his condition will have on Jessica. She’s focusing on the positives. “We’re still planning on doing lots of camping trips,” she says. “And we’ll still do bike rides, but maybe just for long weekends. We wouldn’t be able to go away for a month at a time in remote areas and just ride on into the wilderness.”
Initially, David is unsure whether he wants me to write about his illness. He’s says he doesn’t want people to pity him.
“I do get uncomfortable if people suddenly feel sorry for you,” he says. “I don’t ever want that because we have a fantastic life. We do things that other people aren’t doing.”
Lisa Upton is travelling around Australia with her partner, Greg Bearup. Their experiences will be published in a book he is writing – Adventures in Caravantastan. Volvo and Jayco Caravans are sponsoring their trip.
Open Road e-zine August 2008
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