The Nullaball Plane is an unforgiving place. Its desert summers are scorching, while at night the temp can drop below zero. But those extreme conditions didn't deter when Arthur Richardson, who decided the best way to experience this tough terrain was on a bicycle. Hey, welcome to the poolroom, where we celebrate the winners, losers and the weird stuff between. I'm Tony Armstrong, locals reckoned. Arthur Richardson was a quote experienced bushman.
He'd been an engineer under mine and had worked on cattle stations, which I guess made him feel qualified to ride a pushbike on the surface of the sun. On November twenty four, eighteen ninety six, right at the start of summer, Arthur set out from Courgardi, a little town about five hundred and fifty k's east of Perth. In those days, it was a booming mining community with hotels and a railway line and the first public pool in Western Australia. So off he goes with nothing but a
small water canteen and a puncture kit. He's riding a Rover roadster, which is basically not much more than a metal frame with a seat on top. He's twenty four years old and like the best of us, he's sporting a fancy looking mustache. It's not an easy ride. He gets a couple of punctures at one point. He rides two hundred and twenty miles without seeing civilization and goes as far as eighty miles without a spot to fill
his water bottle. Temperatures in the Nullibar, Arthur said, were about one thousand degrees in the shade, but he made it. Thirty one days after leaving Colgardi, Arthur arrived in Adelaide and became the first person to pedal across that formidable countryside paper said he looked sunburnt. No word on whether his kit included a hat. After that, cycling other parts of the continent must have seemed easy, and Arthur said he starts on a record to be the first person
to circumnavigate Australia on a bike. He said it was a love of adventure that spurred him mom a yearning to see the country, although the money he was offered for succeeding was also a pretty good motivator. Four years after his Nullerbar crossing, Arthur started once again in wa Funnily enough, a group of other blokes actually set out at the same time. While Arthur was going clockwise from Perth, cyclists Alex and Frank White and Donald McKay were making
an anti clockwise attempt, starting in Brisbane. Unlike them, Arthur was going alone. He traveled light, about eleven kilos of luggage plus a pistol. Being an engineer, he was pretty confident he could repair his bike if he ran into trouble, and it was said that failure never even entered his mind. Arthur headed north, where he'd calculated tropical rains should have
cleared by the time he arrived. Not quite. He found himself up against unrideable box, camped at night in the pouring rain, and faced flooded rivers and creeks through the pilbra tracking through mud on foot, his bike chain sometimes became so clogged up he had to remove it in and he was often forced to carry the bike above his head. Eventually, the weather came good and Arthur continued his journey. He rode stretches of country overrun by huge rats,
following horse beaten tracks. Under a full moon. The surfaces changed from crack limestone to rocky mountains and flat land where sheep grazed. As he neared the territory border, the rivers and creeks were teeming with fish, so many, he said, you could catch enough to feed twenty people in an hour for dessert wild figs. The trip continued across the top End, where people were few and far between. Arthur's bike took him north to Darwin and he followed the
telegraph line to the old Power Creek station. Occasionally he'd meet a cattle muster or station owner, and he had plenty of interactions with blackfellows, who he greeted with the kind of hostility you'd expect. Western Queensland brought hot and northerly winds and hard flat land. It was forty six degrees in the shade. Then who should he bump into? But he's anti clockwise competitors, the White Brothers and Donald McKay. They warned him about what might happen if he carried
on the conditions They reckoned meant certain death. Sounds like exactly the kind of thing someone would say if they wanted to be the first person to circumnavigate Australia on a bike. If Arthur was afraid. He didn't show it, but his mental state was under some serious strain. He was constantly tempted by the shimmering mirage that seemed to follow him everywhere. After conquering the northern regions, things got
a lot easier. Nearly five months after his journey began, Arthur reached Burketown and probably made a bee line for a cold drink. Riding to higher ground, he was greeted by the fine streak of blue of the Pacific Ocean, and then I guess it was just downhill through Sydney and into Victoria. He copped a bushfire or two en route to Melbourne, then made an easy run up to Port Augusta in South Australia. From there he simply crossed the Nuller Ball once more. In total, he rode for
eight months and covered more than eighteen thousand kilometers. Arthur Richardson was briefly famous, especially in Wa, but just as quickly faded to obscurity. He moved all over the place, working in West Africa, South America and England, and was badly wounded in World War One, and he got married twice. But the lesson about that the better. Arthur's ride around the country lives on in infamy. The record breaking adventure wasn't just an athletic achievement, it was also an engineering
feat showing just what the bicycle was capable of. Journals said Arthur's trip showed that the machine could be a rapid means of locomotion in all classes of country, and one that would change the way modern twentieth century Australians got around bikes. You can ride them fast, even in the desert. Thanks for listening to the poolroom with me, Tony Armstrong. This has been an iHeart production. Join me next time for more cracking sports stories. See you then,