Starting just north of Adelaide and travelling to the Outback town of Blinman in the Flinders Ranges, the Mawson Trail is close to nine hundred kilometres long and includes little-used country roads, State forest and national park fire trails, farm access tracks and unmade or unused road reserves. For more information check the Trails SA Mawson trail site.

I had planned to ride the full trail with my compañero ‘Horse’ in July 2018, but it became an epic ‘fail’. We only managed to cover about a fifth of the official trail. This wasn’t of our own volition as things conspired against us from the outset; with delayed flights, lost bikes with the inevitable lost days.

For all it’s frustrations we made the most of what time we had, and took from it many useful lessons and memorable experiences.