Day 53 - Finally on the road again - Unfinished Business

June 22, 2023

Day 53 - Finally on the road again

Why start with this photo? Well, two of them keep popping up despite my efforts to delete and save. It must be my love of Eucalyptus.

THE REAL START - all pictures today

Finally, on the road again. How exciting! Sure, it sounds like a typical country music track but I'd go to Tamworth to hear it. My good intentions for an early start disappeared when i realized that Dili's population were still in bed and that I could get photos onto my blog. Then came the mandatory leaving photos.

It was 9 when I finally pedaled away. I was amused immediately when I came up behind two slow motorcycles. I realised that one was running and the rider was pushing the other along with an extended leg and a foot on a foot-rest of the dead machine. That's not easy. They even crossed a major intersection.

Ten km saw me at Dili's new Tibar Bay Port thinking that if I could do that distance 400 times, I'd be near Singapore. I assumed that the Chinese built the port, but it was a French conglomerate.

By day's end - the border town of Batugade, I'd cycled 109 km on decent roads (but with many rockfalls), little traffic, fantastic and variable scenery, and some brutes of hills. These weren't long - a couple of km, but they were steep, and the temperature and RH were 33C and 70%. On one hill. I jumped on the opposite shoulder to avoid a ridiculous gradient on a LH hairpin. There were constant reminders of the brutality of the past.

Eucalyptus alba - native to Northern Australia, Papua and Timor.

Typical drab scenery. Apparently, everyone uses that blue stuff in their toilets.

Dry season riverbed with workers sifting sand for a pittance. How does one harvest and store the water? Discuss.

Split timber destined for cooking skewers of meat in Dili.

They played a sponsored tournament on this field.

If anything, it was an incredibly colourful ride with much beauty.

There's always a bougainvillea - red, white, orange ...

The water was deep so I couldn't land my bike. Otherwise, Graham would have been tossing in money.

Four rice balls and a fish cost a dollar. Eight and two charged me for the next leg.

The Loes, one of the few perennial rivers in Timor' north (with thanks to Ian Douglas for telling me)

A vast rice paddy. The Loes River is nearby.

Such gorgeous scenery but I understood the meaning of the headland!

It's pretty obvious that you need a satellite dish when you live here! I later learned that these are Uma Lulik or holy houses. They accommodate the ancestry soul, fireplace and elder's bed,

I felt as though I'd done something when I arrived at Batugade, 2 km from the border with Indonesia. I expected a substantial town but found a place with no accommodation and just a couple of small eateries. But it did have a disco! Panic? No! Within minutes I had somewhere to stay. So much easier than dealing with phones, online forms, or the chat bots of the companies that sell plans.

Today's ride: 109 km (68 miles)
Total: 4,445 km (2,760 miles)

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Graham SmithIan I’m delighted to read that Tamworth’s musical culture has osmosed your blog. Willy Nelson’s “On the Road Again” is a perfect anthem for cycle touring.

Slightly more seriously, given the tragedy of recent history in the Dili region, a Slim Dusty song (written by his recently departed wife Joy McKean) seems more appropriate. “Looking Forward, Looking Back”.
Amazing how resilient the East Timorese are. Their acknowledging the horrible past, but being able to energetically move on and shape a better future is very impressive.
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1 year ago

Victa CalvoIan,
Really enjoying your journal, especially your pespective on Timor Leste. Keep pedalling, keep writing.
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1 year ago

Ian WallisVicta - always nice to get a comment like yours. Unfortunately. I'm leaving Timor Leste behind tomorrow.
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1 year ago