ribbons. With one final river to cross
I was almost in tears with exhaustion
and fell off right in the middle of it. As
water flowed round me, a couple on a
moped appeared, helped me get the
bike up and led me the locally-known
safe way onto the far bank. Apart from
them and some men cutting bamboo
in the jungle, I hadn’t seen a soul all
day. I was rewarded that night with
the most fantastic experience. A 100
year-old green turtle struggled and
wheezed up the beach to lay dozens of
eggs, swiftly removed by rangers for
incubation out of harm’s way. We had
both had an exhausting journey to get
there.
Next morning I was allowed to re-
lease some baby turtles into the surf
ready to start their long lives. Like my
difficult journey to get to Indonesia, I
was rewarded for my struggle and val-
ued it all the more. Who appreciates
an easy life!
I retraced some of the route when
leaving and wondered how I’d done
it in the dark, on the fully-laden bike
when feeling utterly drained. The ex-
cursion had left me tired and later on
a quiet country road in the hot sun, I
went to sleep whilst riding the bike! I
jolted awake with the sound of the en-
gine revving as my right hand slipped
off the throttle. It must have been
only momentary but came as quite a
shock.
I’d heard about a road which went
round the rim of Mount Bromo, an ac-
tive volcano and decide to cross The
Sea of Sand to get there. The Enfield
and I don’t like sand and on each of
the countless occasions when I fell,
I had to unload the luggage, pick the
bike up, reload the luggage and ride
on for the next 500 metres or so un-
til it happened all over again. But
seeing the sunrise over the crater on
horseback after a jolly night with the
park rangers was worth every drop of
sweat. The 30km freewheel down the
other side was also worth the over-
heated engine I’d had coming up the
previous day.
My visa close to expiry, I rode rap-
idly to Bali where strangely, I was re-
quired to sew the bike into sack-cloth
for the boat voyage to Timor before it
was craned aboard. After busy Java, I
felt I had Timor all to myself, stopping
for swims just off the roads which ran
along the flat coastline. My Indone-
sian rescue package was over. I was
almost at the jumping-off point for the
Australian leg of my global adventures
and would soon leave the continent
of Asia behind after three years. The
stuffing which had been knocked out
of me on the sea-voyage there had
been restored by this beautiful, soft
country with its potholed roads and
fiery volcanoes contrasting with its se-
rene, easy-going nature. But strangely,
this stage of my journey ended in the
same way it had begun. As I crossed
the border into East Timor, army he-
licopters flew over my head and sol-
diers carrying guns waved me through
the checkpoint. Drama and conflict
on a larger scale this time but some-
how with the UN there as peacekeep-
ers, I felt somewhat safer than I had
on a small sailing craft on the sea. JF
Jacqui Furneaux and her trusty
Royal Enfield Bullet are travellers,
travellers of note. Her epic journey
around the world, twenty years ago, is
stuff of legend ... thankfully Jacqui put
it all in a book Hit The Road, Jac! It's a
must read. Jacqui continues to travel
and she's currently exploring Austra-
lia, aboard the Bullet.
TRAVERSE 92