Cycle of Learning. Anne Fitzpatrick

at home being with family always, and in Grihini, continually in the company of their peers – contrasted sharply with my independence. The girls questioned me about the travel I had done and couldn’t get their heads around it. They liked the idea of seeing different places, but were baffled as to why I would do it by myself. It sounded like some sort of punishment to them.

      The times I loved the most with the girls was Sunday mornings. It was their day off from study, and they took it in turns to bathe, wash their hair, and then sit on the side of the hill combing coconut oil through each other’s long tresses until they were glossy. A group of girls would make idli – steamed rice cakes – and a chickpea curry for the special breakfast of the week. Normally breakfast was a nutritious but plain bowl of rice porridge with a dab of lime pickle in it for flavour. These idlis had the girls grinning in anticipation, and they devoured serve after serve of the heavy cakes. They were making up for lost nutrients. Coming from families with limited access to health care or adequate food, these girls were small, underdeveloped and only one or two stood taller than my shoulder. When I met some of their parents who had travelled down for an agricultural workshop I saw what the future might have in store for these beautiful girls, so full of life and energy now. The parents seemed even smaller still than their daughters – scrawny and worn down from hard manual work in the home and fields. Even though the mothers would have had their children at a very early age, I initially mistook them for their grandparents. They had wizened wrinkled faces, gnarled and calloused hands, and a certain tiredness in their eyes, which I later recognised in the faces of some of their daughters when they spoke of a family member’s death, illness or abuse.

      I don’t know all of the trials that these families had gone through. Some stories I heard from the staff. Female relatives that had been set on fire for not bringing a large enough dowry to the husband’s family. Siblings dying from asthma because the village had no clinic. Suicides to escape from shame or abuse. Parents tricked and betrayed in village politics. Family members beaten and insulted for their status as Dalits when accessing village resources.

      For all this real hardship that they lived with, I felt humbled at the apparent eruption of grief they farewelled me with when it was time for my departure in December. Along with me, they were in tears, squeezing my hands and, in a regional show of affection, stroking the length of my face with a hand on each side, and then pushing their knuckles with a “crack” against their own heads. As I got in the jeep that was taking me to the bus stand, Vimala, one of the older girls who taught me how to dance, pushed something into my hand. It was the necklace she always wore, a heart-shaped pendant with green glass around it – a precious item for her, I knew, so I tried to put it back in her hand. She wouldn’t take it, and I left with that necklace as a physical reminder of what had happened in Kodaikanal. I came to Kodai thinking I could contribute something to needy people. However, for all my English speaking and first-world experiences, I had nothing to offer. Regardless, the Grihini girls, like everyone else I encountered there, bestowed me with friendship, affection and understanding.

Sunday 20 March

      Ku-Rin-Gai Chase National Park to Berowa Heights, New South Wales

      54 kilometres – 3 hours 42 minutes

      Saturday marked my exit from Sydney. As much as I had enjoyed being in the hub of a big city and having easy access to friends and ice cream, I felt my lungs were asking for a break from all the car exhaust fumes I’d been inhaling. Bike and Trailer also seemed to be tired of being dragged up and down stairwells and getting caught in automatically closing apartment block doors.

      We took the scenic route out of the city via the Harbour Bridge and caught a ferry across to The Basin in Ku-Rin-Gai Chase National Park. We stopped here for the night in a camping ground that had no showers, and was hosting what seemed to be a festive father–child camping event. I didn’t want to investigate too thoroughly though in case Bike or Trailer started feeling sad that they don’t have dads.

      This morning I conferred with a ranger and some maps and planned a route through the national park. Just getting out of The Basin was a challenge however, since it ended up to be not so much riding terrain, but hauling Bike and Trailer up vertical inclines of loose gravel terrain. When we finally hit ridable road there was some ominous rattling from Trailer, maybe from the gravel cliffs or maybe from when he fell down some stairs getting off the Harbour Bridge the day before. Or maybe because of his father issues.

      We kept riding, but I kept my ears open for any developments. Halfway through the national park, I heard a sharp “ping” not from Trailer but from Bike’s rear wheel, and discovered one of its spokes had snapped off at the base where it was attached to the rim by the metal rivet called a “nipple”.

      Unsure what to do, I took the wheel off, ate some sultanas, and waited for expert advice. I knew this would arrive soon as the area was a popular cycling route for proper cyclists who ride fast and eat special energy bars that they store in the pocket on the back of their riding shirts. I was confident they would know more than I did about broken spokes.

      I soon managed to ambush a trio of cyclists who didn’t seem too happy to be interrupted midway speeding down a hill. They reluctantly pulled over and I did my best to impress them with my recently acquired bike part knowledge. I informed the pack that I’d “broken a spoke, which I have spares for, but I don’t have any nipples.” “No WHAT?!” was the reply. I started worrying that the bike mechanics I’d befriended just before leaving Adelaide had played a nasty trick on me. After clearing up our communication difficulties, they told me to keep on riding, as there was a bike shop located close to the national park. I made it out of the park, found the shop and pointed out the spoke that had broken off inside “… this part here”. “You mean in the nipple?” clarified the bike shop owner and set to the complicated task of replacing the spoke with just the right amount of tension. I took a number of good lessons away with me: don’t think someone’s better than you just because they have a pocket in the back of their cycling shirt, don’t talk about nipples to strangers, and always break spokes near a bike shop.

      I headed down a side road into a valley that, according to my map, had a camping ground in it. It was a careful descent as Bike and my pride still felt injured. Despite the extra care, halfway down, Bike’s rear wheel produced an exciting popping noise. This time it was a puncture caused by the tyre itself wearing through. I dismounted and walked us all down to the banks of a small river at the bottom of the valley. There was no sign of the camping ground that was clearly marked on my map, but there was what appeared to be an old, weathered sailor sitting quietly by the water smoking his pipe. (This pipe, plus his proximity to the water, was how I knew he was a sailor.) I followed my new resolution and refrained from any mention of nipples, but asked him if he knew a place to camp. He nodded and pointed his pipe in the direction of a walking track along the side of the river, which I followed and found a small campable clearing.

      The sounds of the lapping of water on the bank and the occasional fish frolicking in the shallows were soothing background music as I patched the punctured tube and replaced the tyre with the spare I carried strapped on top of Trailer. I felt so relaxed that even when I realised I’d messed up my gears again, I just smiled and took it as a good excuse to plan a walk back up the massive hill we had come down that afternoon, instead of riding it. I’m sure some cyclists would eat hills like that for breakfast, but I’m quite happy with muesli and going by foot sometimes.

Monday 21 March

      Berowra Heights to Wyong, New South Wales

      95 kilometres – 6 hours 24 minutes

      I spent nearly two hours this morning walking Bike and Trailer out of the steep valley where I’d camped the night before.

      By the time we emerged from the valley, I decided it was time for Bike to do his job again, so I squatted down to look at his gears with new resolve. Somehow, by gritting my teeth and muttering “Imagine you’re Col, imagine you’re Col”, I restored the gears to their pre-valley, functional glory.

      I had three schools to visit in Newcastle on Wednesday and plenty of time to ride the 200 kilometres there, so I hopped on Bike and headed north, not exactly sure where to aim for by nightfall.

      The