One of Donald Friedman's postcards. As a soldier he was a great cyclist.
Donald Friedman, overland cyclist and bad soldier
He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force twice during The Great War, under different names, and was drummed out both times, actually earning a seven-year sentence for desertion. Postwar he turned to "overland cycling", chasing money to exploit a gold deposit he claimed he'd found near Darwin. He was found dead on a lonely outback road in 1938. The postcard proclaims the cyclist pictured to be Donald Friedman, an "original Anzac" and a member of the 9th Battalion. This transcontinental traveller funded his journeying through the sale of such cards, and by appealing, in newspaper interviews,…