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Through the Porthole

John Michael-Flynn / 29.04.2005

Through the porthole windows of a 767 at 15,000 feet, there is something truly magnificent about this continent, once referred to as ‘New Holland’ by Dutch sailors who first set admiring eyes on Australia’s West Coast.

Australia’s unique vastness, its contrasting landscapes, are things visiting European, American and Asian teams would have had plenty of time to contemplate this week. Just reaching the start-line for round one of the X-Adventure Raid World Cup involved for most a journey across the planet, followed by a five hour jet flight East Coast to West coast, across the length of what Australians call the ‘Wide, Brown Land’.

It’s fitting perhaps, that the journey to reach the start-line in Denmark, Western Australia, largely follows the path once taken by Nineteenth Century European adventurer, Edward John Eyre, whose trek across the Australian continent is now the stuff of legend.

Still, there’ll be ample opportunities for new legends to be forged, and existing legends to be etched in stone this weekend, as twenty six teams converge on the tall-timbered forests and breath-taking coastline of Western Australia’s South-West region, to contest race one of the 2005 X-Adventure Raid World Cup.

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