On the street we find Hornsby alive with a forgotten species. Suit wearing, briefcase toting brisk walking commuters are everywhere. Making for the station, queued in stopped traffic, puffing on early morning cigarettes, or cramming in a hurried breakfast on the move, I had quite forgotten the frantic scenes that characterise the suburbs of most Western cities at this hour of the morning. We line ourselves up for the final setting off photo, in the early morning sunshine, and turn to a passer by to ask for a photo to be taken for us. Trance like the workers march past unconcerned by the five travellers.
Out on the road we encounter traffic as thick as hard boiled treacle. We cycle a few hundred metres only to find our path blocked by stationary vehicles, which we walk our way around before trying once again to make progress. Suddenly my heart starts to beat faster, I'm getting stressed. We had hoped that we would be able to savour these last few kilometres into the Harbour, and yet here we find ourselves swerving, ducking and diving to make even a pedestrian forward pace. We pause momentarily for a picture of the team negociating rush hour traffic, and are confronted by a barrage of angry car horns, waving fists, shaking heads and generally sad looking rush hour faces. I count four, five, six and even seven drivers in a line who make angry gestures in our direction.
Understandable as it is that these poor people want to vent their feelings on something, surely they can't really believe that we have something to do with their problematic journey in to the office. Finally in an effort to catch up some time we resort to heading directly down the pavement. We bump our way over more potholes it seems than we have encountered since Tibet, but slowly at least we are reaching the city. We are joined as the traffic begins at long last to thin out, by a couple of Sydney Cycling Club riders who guide us towards our long awaited destination. We catch glimpses amongst the traffic an the increasingly high rise buildings, of the stunning Sydney skyline. And then, in what seems like a twinkling, we have freewheeled down from the middle outskirts of the city into the heart of the Northshore. We make a turn and into a side turning and there she is, the mighty Sydney Harbour Bridge towering over the water and the surrounding buildings. I hadn't really understood quite what all the fuss was about with this bridge. After all we have seen plenty of bridges on our journey. But this was quite simply mesmeric and breathtaking to behold. The strength, size and grace of the sweeping curves takes us all by surprise. Rich and Dean are hurrying us along and we soon are carrying our bikes up on to the Western side cycle and footpath. Slowly slowly we approach the bridge itself.
As we ride beneath the mighty arches, I feel very calm and free from emotion. It's clear that this is the end. Our plan and our dreams have been realised. And despite the worries that at any time something could have derailed our procession, we have made it safely and in one piece. Tiny boats glide beneath us, and as foreseen last night, the sun shines on our special day.
It feels almost as if the whole world is spread out beneath the Harbour Bridge. In these few moments it feels as if we are recrossing the world in the twinkling of an eye, battling across the channel, whizzing through Europe, across the deserts of the Middle East, up and over the Tibetan Plateau, down through the humid jungles of South East Asia and finally across the mighty expanse of Australia's Outback. Trains and cars, bicycles, roller bladers and joggers all stream across the bridge. There are, as they say over here, "no dramas", it proceeds smoothly and at an even tempo. Although it's a wonderous day for us, it's another day in Australias most beautiful, and most busy city.
Spiralling down off the cycle path we emerge into Circular Quay and ride down through the colonades toward the second of Sydney's mighty icons; the Opera House.
For maybe the last time our bright blue and grey Saracen strips attract the attention of locals and tourists alike. The discreetly curious looks on people’s faces says ‘I wonder what they’re up to?’. My guess is that not one of them would suspect that we have ridden and paddled from London, it just isn’t the kind of thing that people can imagine.
Incidentally this is a very interesting point. Whilst in Australia I have noticed that people often ask where we have come from. There’s nothing unusual there of course. Answering this question however gives rise to a very interesting reaction. Sometimes we may answer that we have travelled all the way from the UK by bicycle and sea kayak. Many people seem unable to correctly hear what has been said and immediately understand that we have flown to Aus and then begun our cycling. Others just seem to mentally blank our unusual response, and just reply with a flat “aw yeah.”
What always takes me by surprise, and it has happened on many occasions, is when these passing acquaintances have it explained to them that we have cycled across Australia all the way from Darwin. Of course this only constitutes a mere fifth of our total journey in distance, and around a sixth in time. Yet the typical Australian will begin to laugh, smile, and probably turn to a friend and say “Ere Bruce, can you believe this, these stupid pommies have ridden all the way from Darwin!”. Similar responses were registered back in Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal, and eventually we ceased trying to explain that we had ridden from London and were heading for Sydney. We would just say we’ve come from the last country and were heading for the next. This always seemed to be sufficient for the person to appreciate our journey. In Australia however, I had felt, maybe with a touch of Western intellectual snobbery that people woould be better positioned to grasp the scale of the world, and to understand our journey. This has turned out to be a completely false assumption. The amazingly strange thing about this discussion is that approaching the end of our journey, something has become clear with regard to this whole grasping the size and scale of the world. As we all look in our mental rear view mirror at the countries and places receding behind us, I realise that it’s not just the Asians and the Australians who cannot truly understand the nature of our journey. It is us too. In my mind, I now can only piece together our journey as a series of journies, rather than as a single flowing transition from country to country. Europe, Iran, Tibet and Laos all seem like distant rides in a previous life, rather than truly a part of the ride that is now bringing us around the Opera House. In our minds eye as we planned the journey originally, the smooth change of one landscape to the next was always something that we felt we would be able to appreciate more fully one two wheels.
Back at the Opera House and the sharp angular curves of the famous roof strike a spectacular contrast to the bright blue mid morning sky. The countless shiny white tiles that go to create the fantastic white sails that span the harbour sky, seem to slither like the scales on a snakes back. For us though, as we round the Opera House promontory, everything is happening in fast forward. Trying to soak up every moment of the final turns of the pedals, trying in vain to get some pictures snapped off, and trying too to reach Lady Macquaries Chair by ten. Too bad it’s a quarter past already. The sun shimmers brightly on the rippling waters of the harbour and a few ferries ply between Circular Quay and downstream. Coming around the harbourside tip of the Opera House we catch a momentary glimpse of the wide open sunny expanse of the Harbour, and then we’re looking Eastwards to the Botanical Gardens where families, friends and the Press we hope will be awaiting. It’s just too far to see clearly, but around the wide circular arc of green lawn that sweeps and rolls around the edge of the harbour from the Opera House to the Point, we can make out a crowd of tiny figures. As we head around the footpath, waving to what we hope are the expectant crowd, the point sparkles several times with the flash of cameras. Although we can’t really see properly, it’s becoming clear that Dean and Rich really have surpassed themselves with the arrangements. We line up in our familiar peleton formation in a line of five and slowly make our way around the water’s edge before heading up and on to the main causeway that leads down through the Botanical Gardens and down to the view point. The similarity with our beginning in Greenwich at the Observatory with its historical English Garden setting is striking. Our position seems like the perfdect mirror image of our departure seventeen months ago. A couple of tourist buses drop off their loads right in front of us as we make our way down the final few metres. Narrowly avoiding a crash we swerve to avoid the camera toting tourists, and then before we know what is happening we’re pulling on the brakes amongst a crowd of excited cheering clapping smiling faces. Andrew and I ride to the front and up through the silver ribbon. Confusion reigns as we look around at the myriad of faces. Momentarily it’s difficult to know quite what to say or do. An awkward pause grips the air as the five of us look at each other as if to say “What shall we do now then?” And then everything happens at once. We’re assembling on the finish line with our Union Jacks, with bottles of champagne, with The British Consul General, and with a bewildering constellation of zoom lenses being thrust in our faces. Rather like a film trying to convey how a celebrity feels, our ears are filled with the click and whir of expensive cameras firing off at alarming speed. At least somewhere amongst all this we should be able to get a good picture.
“Hi I’m Michael Peshardt from the BBC”, a tanned smiling face struggles to the front of the throng and asks for a few words. Goodness only knows what we said. By this time I must have consumed half a bottle of Champagne, well, half of what wasn’t sprayed all over Peter Beckingham, the consul general. The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The BBC, Sky News, Reuters and a handful of freelancers, this was quite simply beyond our wildest belief. Simon and Sarah who we had met in Lhasa, Bangkok, Penang and Singapore, and Dave who we had been following the expedition, patiently waiting for us in Sydney where he lives, had taken the day off work, and were here to celebrate our day. And here too were all our families, who had made the sixteeen thousand mile journey to be here at the end as they were at the beginning. An hour of crazy confusion follows. Adrenaline takes over as we are bombarded with vigourous handshaking, questions about ‘how many punctures’, ‘our most dangerous moments’, ‘did we have any arguments en-route’, and posing for photos, on our bicycles, behind them, holding them in the air, lying down with them, standing up with them and mostly anywhich way that you might care to imagine. Finally as lunchtime approaches the crowd of press and media begins to dwindle and the team, family and friends are left alone to reflect on the end of our incredible journey. A few emotional words are said in thanks of each of the team members and also in thanks to how lucky and fortunate we have all been in safely making our journey to the end. In trying to thank and recognise everyone for their efforts a flood of emotion comes over me that I struggle to hold back. I wipe the tears from my face and finish my words, thankyou everyone for the huge effort of the last two and a half years.
