A CAMEL ODYSSEY COMPLETE

We return to Sophie Matterson’s solo crossing of Australia, where highways replace deserts and new challenges arise.

- SOPHIE MATTERSON 

I HAD THOUGHT traversing the vast, remote, waterless deserts of Australia would be the hardest part of my journey across the country with camels, but now I was facing a completely different challenge: traffic. This was the worst of the busy roads I had encountered thus far – a winding, narrow road with a speed limit of 80km/h that climbed a hill leading to the outskirts of Lismore in the Northern Rivers region, New South Wales. I only had one more week of walking until I reached the most easterly point of mainland Australia, Byron Bay, and the shores of the Pacific Ocean, the end goal of my trek across Australia.

I hugged the far left of the road, pushed up against a guardrail that squeezed me and my five large camels between speeding cars and a steep drop below. The scene was quickly becoming more chaotic. Just as we had begun our ascent, the UHF radios my partner, Jimmy, and friend, Keirin, had been using to communicate with one another and direct traffic safely around the camels had gone flat. Jimmy was running ahead of my slowmoving camel string, his shirt drenched in sweat as he rounded the blind bends in advance, frantically waving his arms to slow the speeding oncoming traffic. Keirin was driving at a snail’s pace up the hill behind me and the camels. Attached to her ute was a yellow “Traffic Hazard Ahead” sign – a futile attempt to stop cars from passing me on the narrow bends.

Without communication between my two-person support crew, neither knew when it was safe to let cars pass. Drivers were becoming impatient and overtaking with complete disregard for my nervous animals; at times their legs were only inches from the wheels.