Perth to Greenbushes 1983

Perth to Greenbushes, day 1, Monday 21 November 1983. As in 1979 – 1981, I decided to take the morning Australind train and start my ride from Bunbury. My plan required me to ride from Bunbury to Greenbushes as my first night’s stop. I was still brooding over the hardships and shortcomings of the 1981 ride and wanted to do a similar thing better. This was the ride that taught me what I should already have known, that a relatively new bike, though already used successfully, has to be fixed up, tested and proved before taking it on a long country trip with hills steeper and longer than those around home.

On this ride I started wearing proper cycling shorts with a crotch-pad, and sensible shoes. I got the 9:30 am train from Perth. It took about three and a half hours to get to Bunbury in those days and I arrived there at about 1 pm. I had had ‘brunch’ on the train, sandwiches I had prepared myself.

I got the bike out of the luggage compartment, stowed the bag, donned the backpack, left the station and rode back up Blair Street to find the junction where the highways met. I started down the South Western Highway.

The difficulty was that along the South Western Highway, there was at that time no hotel a decent day’s ride from Bunbury. The choice was Donnybrook, too short, or Greenbushes, maybe too far for the first day when, due to the train schedule, I wouldn’t be starting from Bunbury until 1 pm.

Balingup pastures

I decided to try for Greenbushes, with the option of stopping short at Donnybrook if the longer journey looked too difficult. I had decided not actually to book the Greenbushes Hotel until I reached Donnybrook, when I would take a rest and decide if I felt able to continue.

I started from Bunbury feeling quite good, made 22km without even stopping at Boyanup. I rested for a while then went on to Donnybrook. It was only about 3pm, I felt good, the new bike was running well, the winds weren’t too strong and the journey was about half done, in terms of kilometres. The run to Donnybrook had seemed very easy. I decided to go on. After a drink of lemon, lime and bitters in the hotel bar I rang the Exchange hotel in Greenbushes and made my booking. They told me dinner was at six. Dinner was included in the room price so I need to make it by 6 pm and I was confident of doing so.

I set off, and it wasn’t long before the trouble began. As described in the 1981 story (Perth to Augusta Tour via Nannup 1981), the scarp starts about 1 km south of Donnybrook and on this occasion I found it unrideable. It was a shock and very hard for me, as though I had never ridden up it before. This might have been due to the memory-clouding head injury in early 1982, which made events of late 1981 sketchy.

Not only that, but some parts of the new bike worked loose. I should have checked all these things before starting out. I had ridden the new bike a bit before starting this ride but it was still relatively new, and a thorough check before starting a ride has since become routine. Also, My new bike didn’t have the range of gears for steep climbs, unless you were one of those Tour de France freaks. The wide gear range with a big uphill gear on the cluster has since become standard for me.

So I had to get off and plod up long stretches of hill. The day was growing warmer and I was anxious and irritable, and the time remaining till 6 pm, which had seemed plenty, seemed ever less adequate. Eventually I reached Kirup and rested for a while before starting the stretch down towards Balingup through Mullalyup. This had more climbs but also some downhill runs. The day was drawing on by the time I reached Balingup and I was feeling the strain and wondered if I would reach the Greenbushes hotel before 6 pm. I had a rest and noted that there were only 9 km to go to Greenbushes.

Now I was getting into new territory, onto roads never ridden before. I knew what the road was like because I had been this way before, all the way to Manjimup in a bus with my little folding bike in 1975, and before that, in a bus or someone’s car, the first time in 1960 on the way to Bridgetown with my father. However, this was the first time I had ridden up this very steep climb out of Balingup, on a curving road running past a paddock with a ruined chimney, the remnant of a house that once stood there. Now I had to do it at the end of a hard ride, on a bike that wasn’t suited to hill-climbing.

At that time the South Western Highway ran through Greenbushes, being its main street. Now the South Western Highway has been diverted so that it runs about 1 km east of Greenbushes and the old highway comes to a dead end just south of the town. This was done to allow mining to spread over the area once traversed by the highway.

I was able to ride a bit after the steep climb out of Balingup, but the going was slow because I had cramp and no strength left. The routine of regular rests and drinks that I describe in later rides did not exist at this time, I just used to go on and on and didn’t take sufficient care about nutrition and avoiding dehydration.

The 9 km took about an hour, but at last I arrived at the start of Greenbushes, with a last steep climb to the hotel. I got to the hotel 5 minutes before dinner.

There was just time to check in, dump my stuff and get into the dining room. At that time all the guests sat together at a bench table and got served a three course meal. I was absolutely spent, hanging my head as I sat at the table and wasn’t much company for the other guests who were working men travelling about. I might have mentioned my ride from Bunbury. It was a good traditional country meal and I ate it all up, though I didn’t feel very hungry. I remember nice sweet corn with little spikes to pick it up.

The distance from Bunbury to Greenbushes is about 77km. I can’t remember how I slept – in those days I didn’t carry a lot of pills on rides, if any.

Charles A. Pierce

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Tags: Balingup, Boyanup, Bunbury, Donnybrook, Greenbushes, Kirup, Mullalyup, Perth

Perth to Greenbushes 1983

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