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 July-August issue of 2003. Length: 1250 words |
Hitched Well well. After this week, the Nullarbor should be a piece of cake. I can hear you asking… what? What happened this time? Did you run out of cordial? Nope. Did they forget the egg on your takeaway burger-with-the-lot? Think bigger. Did we pop all five tyres while careening down the final ramp of the Walpole Tree Top Walk? Much much more stressful. Was Aimee bitten on the bum by an overachieving Tasmanian jumping snake? Come on, now you’re just being silly. No, friends and followers, last month the Tandem Two became one. The website is now truly Beimers.com, as Aimee and I, on a warm autumn evening in May, began our greatest adventure yet. We got… well… hitched. Surprised? Nah. Most people weren’t. Not shocked-surprised, anyway. No one said, “Married? YOU?!” although we did receive a few congratulatory emails written entirely in capital letters. No, not shocked-surprised, more startled-surprised. The kind of surprise like when you get up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and you walk in on someone else who is already in there who didn’t bother to turn on the light or lock the door. Except way way happier. Like the person unexpectedly on the toilet is actually a long lost friend. One who owes you twenty dollars. Goodness me, this simile isn’t going well at all. Anyway, we got married, and it had nothing to do with a toilet. It was a small wedding, but still satisfied all the basic requirements: the bride was beautiful, the best man misplaced the rings, the bride’s father was glad to be rid of her, and the marriage certificate and bouquet were accidentally sat upon in the car on the way home. The guest list totaled seven (and a dog), four of which (not including the dog) were involved in the ceremony leaving the other three to take a constant blur of photographs. And, it was the only wedding reception I’ve ever attended that was shut down prematurely by the hotel manager due to an unscheduled fire-dancer. We wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I’m sorry to say, however, that the bikes themselves were not a part of the wedding. I suppose we could have arrived separately, and departed in tandem. That might have been cute. Damn, I wish I’d thought of that earlier. No, the only contribution one could say the bikes had to our wedding was to prove our relationship unshakable. If it was unshakable before (which, if I do say so myself, it was), it’s darn near immovable now. And unstoppable. Philosophers cringe when they see us approach. After all, how many couples do you know that could quit their jobs, sell their stuff, hop on a bike and live strictly in one another’s company for seven months straight? Sure, you can say, “Seven months isn’t long for a relationship,” but what about just the two of you, alone, for seven months, with a severe lack of outside stimuli? Could you survive on a desert island for seven months? What about a deserted island that needs to be pedaled for nine hours a day to keep it afloat? It’s common to find someone you think can spend the rest of your life with. It’s seldom to find someone you know you can spend the rest of your life with. But it is very, very rare that you, and that someone, go willingly to the proving ground. (Not that we had anything we needed to prove. We had already classified ourselves into the extremely elite, rarely attained, can’t-imagine-spending-the-rest-of-your-life-without category. And most of our friends knew that. Which explains why they weren’t all that surprised.) We were lucky enough to have some very special guests in attendance. Oliver, my Best Man, and Marta, Aimee’s Maid of Honour, were in fact the only ones who were told to be there on a certain day at a certain time. (No one else knew until a few days before… not even Aimee’s Dad visiting from Canada!) Oliver and Marta were a shoe-in for the positions, since they saved our lives back along Cyclone Alley. Broome to Port Hedland, the emptiest stretch of highway to date, first brought us together. Two Spanish lovers under a stormy February sky, they taught us, of all things, to slow down and enjoy the moment. We taught them to enjoy the journey, not the destination, and the importance of sharing. We all learned quickly enough, however, that the longer it takes for you to enjoy the moment, the closer the cyclone gets to the Pardoo Roadhouse. By acting as our temporary support vehicle, we were able to double our speed and reach Port Hedland by the next afternoon, and spend the night in a comfy, queen-sized bed, rather than buffeted by 100km/h wind all night, camped on a cactus. If anyone earned the right to be in our wedding ceremony, it was these two wonderful, beautiful, special friends. The ceremony itself was in the lovely, ocean side city of Esperance, Western Australia. We chose it for three reasons: First, the name. In French, ‘l’esperance’ means ‘hope’, a suitable setting for a wedding (certainly better, we thought, than Mt. Disappointment). Second, the goss. There are just some places in the world that, when asked about them, everyone either responds with “You’ll love it, it’s absolutely beautiful,” or, “You’ll love it, I’ve heard it’s absolutely beautiful.” The Town of 1770, Queensland; Big Sur, California; Prague, Czech Republic; Tuscany, Italy; and recently… Esperance, WA. Sometimes you arrive and think, “Why?” but in the case of Esperance, everyone was right. Third, the location. Esperance represents to us the last oasis before the Nullarbor, and as any motorist will tell you, no cyclist has ever survived the Nullarbor. We decided that before we were to cast ourselves into the void, we might as well get married first. This way, as we wave goodbye to the Esperance caravan park, they can say, “Ah, well. At least they’ll die happy.” And we will. Oh, not on the Nullarbor, of course, but someday far, far in the future. (Incidentally, I recognize that you know the Nullarbor isn’t really a deathtrap for bikes, even snail-speed quincycles like us, but that’s because you read Australian Cyclist Magazine, and not Australian Destination-Oriented Motor Travel For 4WD Owners Who Have Never Actually Driven Offroad Magazine.) Yes, someday after we’ve completed this journey of journeys around Australia, and gone on to other adventures, like riding a camel across Africa, walking the entire Great Wall of China, digging a tunnel from the North Pole to the South Pole, building a bridge between the two peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro and maybe grabbing a ticket for the upcoming Mars Mission, we’ll die happy. When you’ve got a love for your partner that outstrips even your love of cycling, your love of adventure and your love of life, it doesn’t matter where you are, what you’re doing or how little water you have on board. You’ll survive. And you’ll still be smiling at the finish line. Together. The Nullarbor… Pah! This happy husband and wife will still be blazing trails together long after the lush, green Nullarbor Plain has become a vast wasteland, devoid of trees. |
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| © 2003 Kevin & Aimee Beimers. | |