I’ve been right into cialis online Australian bushcraft since I first set foot on the cattle property out back in Queensland. There’s still a lively remnant of the old homesteaders and cattle ranchers out there, a tradition of making do with what you’ve got. I love the practicality of it, the improvised craftsmanship. It’s impressive, the sheer resourcefulness of old timers like Keith, who keeps his property running “on nothing but the smell of an oily rag.”

One bushie trick in particular was floating around in my head as I lifted my gear over a barbed wire fence that evening. It’s a fencing join called the figure eight, really just a reef knot, assembled from two ends of wire and secured tighter the more the fence is “strained.”

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I tried to tell myself it would be okay. Half-heartedly I gripped the spokes, testing their tension. Maybe it will be fine how it is; after all, it made it over the mountains under rigorous torque. The rim had cracked in four more places since then, but five missing spokes can’t slow me down that much, can it?

The wheel wobbled alarmingly as I coasted down from camp into the town of Cooma. It was weak beneath the punishing weight of rider and rig. At the slightest lean it flexed dangerously, promising to fold in half at any moment. Then I noticed the tire was hitting the frame, once every revolution.

It was like a manacle clapping closed around my mind. The inevitable encircled me.

I would not be able to ignore this all the way to Canberra.

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