Crossing the Great Outback, Solo

This is how it happens.
 
You start in Adelaide, the quiet achiever of Australian cities, a dignified Victorian desert town that teeters on the edge of the Outback.  You rumble north out of the city into a a winter desert in full bloom, the Flinders ranges rolling down from the East into the chilly, shimmering Southern sea. 
 
You're travling deeper and deeper into the heart of a Continent, deeper into nothing.  You pass through Port Priri, Port Augusta, places you've never heard of, that you'll never see again, but bustling, prosperous, growing towns, getting dustily rich from nutrients on land and creatures in the sea.
 
Eight hours out of Adelaide, past the Yorke Peninsula, and you make a left turn.  Now it gets serious.  The Nullarbor (No tree) plain, the longest, most desolate stretch of bituminized road in the developed world.  Racing under the sinking desert sun, clink, clink, clink, goes a loose part in the engine.
 
You pull over into a one horse town, break down fortuitiously in front of Don's auto shop, and settle in for a starry, solitary evening.
 
The sun shoots up again and the road beckons you out, pulling you deeper into the sould of the land, past Ceduna, to Penong, the road goes on forever. But it doesn't, because you turn again, and bomb out 25 miles on a gravelly road, from nowhere to nowhere, swallowed by towering sand dunes, salty marsh wetlands.  Killer snakes slumber, venomous scorpions await you, but you don't care.
 
You're going to Cactus, the most storied and desolate surfable coast in Australia.  To the East is a thousand miles of shark patrolled nothingness.  This is where Jaws was filmed underwater.  To the West, the Great Australian Bight, an ancient sea floor pushed above the ocean through plate collision only to be eternally battered by the stormiest southern sea.  
You stumble out of your car, tongue parched, skin brown, across the sandy dunes to find. . . the sea!  The tempestuous, violent, gorgeous sea, crashing into itself, over headlands, exploding skyward.  The winds blow straight into the towering waves, which rifle flawllessly into a deep water channel.
 
You dash madly to your car, tear off your clothes, pull on a rubber suit and rubber shoes, and unsheath your favorite fiberglass and foam board.  Your rub soft wax onto the deck for traction, splash sunscreen under your eyes, chug a litre of cool water, and sprint through the dunes to the edge of the sea, where you stop.
 
What's going on? Rushing into a angry, unknown ocean in the middle of nowhere.  You hesitate, search around for other humans, for assurance.  You've come so far, so far, to pull back now would be crushing.  Too much thinking.  You leap into the sea and she gathers you in, pulling you closer to her with her currents, her beautiful waves, the safety of her depths.  Wind whips your hair, salt cakes your eyes, waves crash over you and push you under.  Great, now not only are you alone in the middle of an empty Continent.  Now you're also underwater.  What are doing here?  Have you lost your mind?  When does it. . .
 
You surface, breathe, swim, for the horizon.  Corduroy lines tower above you.  You turn, stroke, freefall, fly across the face, walking on water-Jesus should have tried it this way.  Laughing, moving, breathing.  Now you're in a deepwater channel. Later you will read this is a breeding ground for sharks, in a place where surfers are devoured annually.  You don't know that now, but you can tell creatures of the deep lurk below.  You swim hastily back to the relative safety of the impact zone.
 
The sea heaves, again, falling off the cliff, gliding across the translucent wall.  The ocean swallows you hole, and catapults you out of the tube onto the sand.  Exhuasted, soaking, afraid, exhilirated, you limp back to your car.
 
Soon the sky swallows the sun and the southern stars gleam bright.  You stare into the hot blue of the campfire, eyes twinkling, blood coursing, muscles tight.  What have you learned today?
Life is a gift.  But the sharks are still hungry. . .