As Charlestown's Greg Gibson rides through the NSW countryside, the animals notice him.
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The horses and cattle in the pastures on the roadside are interested in the man on the bike.
"The animals look up. They all stand up to look at you. It's nice. It's different," Greg said, from Moree where he was almost halfway through a 2500-kilometre ride to raise money for the Mark Hughes Foundation.
"They're used to cars going past, but they're not used to this thing on a bike going across slowly."
The animals bring a smile to his face, helping him on his journey each day.
Greg initially planned to ride from Perth to Newcastle, but COVID put paid to that.
"I was all psyched up to do the ride, so I thought I'd do NSW instead," he said.
"I thought no one would be interested in me going around NSW, but the response has been really good."
He thought the ride would be a good personal challenge and a good way to see the country and meet people.
He's met some generous, friendly folks. On his hardest day so far riding through the Gibraltar range, he was pushing his bike up a hill, his legs spent.
"I could hear a car behind slow down. These two women pulled up and asked if I was all right," he said.
"They stopped ahead and directed me to a campsite in the national park. I wasn't sure where I was going."
One of the women offered him a stay at her house in Glen Innes the following night.
"She gave me a room in her house. She wasn't there at all. She left for work before I got there and came back the next day after I left. She left the front door open for me and a towel on the bed."
In Port Macquarie, a bloke pulled up in a car and offered him a caravan in his backyard to stay for a night, which Greg accepted.
Along the way, he camps and sometimes stays in motels.
Since his ride began, warmer weather has arrived. People ask him how his legs are.
"The legs are fine. The only thing that irritates me is my hands from leaning on the handlebars all the time. You tend to get pins and needles occasionally. You've got to keep moving them around. And the backside gets a bit sore," he said.
"Late in the day, it definitely gets you."
No days are easy but, overall, he's enjoying the ride.
"When you wake up in the morning, you think 'What am I going to see and experience today?"
Greg is semi-retired now from his job as a quantity surveyor. It's a job that involves numbers, which explains why he's been counting roadkill. He also has an affinity with animals.
"I make notes each day about what I've done and seen. I keep a tally of the roadkill to see how many animals get killed on the road. There's been a lot of kangaroos, wallabies, a swallow, a few possums, a deer."
As for alive animals, he's seen an emu with about 10 chicks, a little turtle on a road and a six-foot brown snake slither off a road.
Greg, 65, was born in South Africa, but moved to Australia in 1984.
"I grew up riding in the bush in a small town. I like the bush," he said.
Non-Viral Jokes
Why can't a bicycle stand up on its own? It's too tyred.
What do you get if you cross a bike and a flower? Bicycle petals. What do you call a crazy pavement? A cycle path.
