10 Short Stories

YA TSU GA TAKE

Aug 2004. South Australia.

I had been riding alone for days after separating from my Singaporean partner.

At the Marla Roadhouse where I was going to camp, I met Yoshida san, a 58 years old cyclist from Osaka Japan who came here to cycle Darwin-Adelaide, all 3000km of it on the transcontinental Stuart Highway.

As we were all going south, we teamed up. Though twice my age, Yoshida san was a fast cyclist. Our patterns were rather similar as we both cooked our breakfasts and dinners while lunches were mainly bread with peanut butter and fruits.

Dinners were always fun to be had with Yoshida san. We would BBQ our zucchini and beef on our stoves and then apply a little salt and pepper, while being enveloped by the greatness and emptiness of the great Australian outback. Though the plains can be featureless, like a plain should be, the 2 cyclist had great fun sharing their food and tales.

Yoshida could speak some English and I knew few phrases of Nihon-go so we could still converse. I could still remember the Japanese serial "Oshin" that I watched when I was a small boy and asked if Yoshida had too.

That became a conversation starter, which lead to us talking about Miura Tomokazu and Yamaguchi Momo E.. At times when my Nihon-go failed me, I would write in Kan-ji (basically Chinese characters) to help me in my conversation.

Miura Tomokazu and Yamaguchi Momo E. are Shan-Pu-You-He and Shan-Kou-Bai-Hui, respectively.

All in all, we spent some 10 days cycling together. At Port Augusta, we stayed at the Blue Fox lodge. The dormitory had a well equiped kitchen that Yoshida and I spent a lot of time in. Usually we would each have a can of beer before dinner, share some tales before we start to grill our beef and prepare our salads. We would then eat our meals together, have a couple more beer before calling it a day.

Subsequently, we had to part as I wanted to rest for another day but we met up again in Adelaide where we shared a meal and tales in the food court of the city centre.

Other than cycling, Yoshida san also did trekking. One of the pacts we made was to climb Ya Tsu Ga Take in winter. I subsequently chose to cycle Central Asia over it. I however, still hope that I will be able to climb that mountain range in winter with Mr. Yoshida. Though decades older than me, Yoshida is a keen sportsman, he was telling me that he would be taking part in an Ironman race.