22 June 2026

The road begins

And we were off.

After all the planning, preparation and anticipation, Bob and Tom were finally riding from Broome towards Bowral.

Day One would take us 178 kilometres along the Great Northern Highway to Willare.

It didn’t take long for our first little bit of reality to arrive.

Tom got a puncture.

Bike down, wheel off, tools out and Tom set about fixing it beside the support van. Remarkably, it would be one of only two punctures he had during the entire 5,290-kilometre journey.

Then we were moving again.

Breakfast on the Great Northern Highway

The Kimberley landscape was already beginning to change.

Termite mounds appeared beside the highway, the first of thousands, if not millions, we would see over the weeks ahead.

We also had our first roadside breakfast.

The table and chairs came out, and we set ourselves up behind the vans. The vehicles were parked parallel to the highway, barely a metre from the bitumen, so we stayed behind them, putting something substantial between us and the traffic thundering past.

It was the beginning of a routine we would become very familiar with: stop, set up, feed the boys, pack everything away and move further up the road.

The Country beneath the road

We had left Broome, or Rubibi, on Yawuru Country. Yawuru people have occupied and cared for the lands and waters around Broome since Bugarrigarra, the time before time. Their traditional Country extends beyond the town, across the Roebuck Plains and the surrounding pastoral lands.

As the Great Northern Highway heads east towards the lower Fitzroy, it passes through a much older cultural landscape than the road itself. By the Willare area, we were within the Nyikina-Mangala native title determination area, and the Fitzroy River, known as Martuwarra, holds profound cultural significance for Aboriginal peoples of the Fitzroy Valley. It is part of creation stories and songlines and has sustained communities along its length for countless generations.

Willare

Eventually the signs for Willare appeared.

Our home for the night was only five kilometres away.

At Willare, another set of road signs stopped me for a completely different reason.

Broome was now behind us. Fitzroy Crossing was 230 kilometres ahead.

And Perth was 2,240 kilometres away.

I’d already driven from Leura across the Nullarbor, down to Esperance, up through Perth and all the way to Broome to get to the starting line.

I looked at that number and thought, Geez, I’ve come a long way.

Tomorrow wasn’t exactly going to be gentle either.

Fitzroy Crossing: 230 km.

A little piece of Willare history

Willare sits beside the lower Fitzroy River in the heart of Kimberley cattle country, but even the roadhouse has an unexpected history.

According to Willare Bridge Roadhouse, part of the complex began life as barracks associated with Talgarno, a tracking station used during Britain’s post-war Blue Streak missile program. When Talgarno was dismantled after the project ended, buildings were relocated and became part of the Willare Roadhouse.

The river crossing itself has also shaped travel through this part of the Kimberley. The Willare Bridge opened in June 1968, designed with the enormous floods of the Fitzroy in mind. Decades later, the river continues to demonstrate just how powerful this landscape can be.

For us that night, though, Willare was simply home.

The candle

There is one photograph from that first night that tells a story nobody could know simply by looking at it.

Before leaving home, I’d packed a church candle. My reason was entirely practical. Those candles burn for hours and are protected by fire-retardant plastic, so I thought it might be useful for drying damp kindling if we ever needed to make a fire.

But on this day I learned that a friend had died by suicide.

So that night the candle became something else.

I placed it between the vans and lit it for her.

It stayed alight all night.