How will we adjust to normal life? People ask us about what they think might be a challenging experience. Well, when you have rode a bike around Australia, everything else is easy. Eating homemade spinach pies made from organic back yard spinach will be easy. Lying in a queen-size bed reading books will be easy. Waking up slowly and eating fruit salad for breakfast with my family will be easy. I must say, I am not worried about the perceived dangers of “normal life”.
One thing is worrying, and now more than ever. We are cycling from Palm Beach into Sydney today, and I am petrified that once I reach that ever familiar Harbour Bridge and Opera House, I will feel like I have just woken up from a dream, and that nothing happened all year. Memory would switch from the constant unfamiliarities of travel to the common ground of home territory and I would be there, standing under the Opera House, wondering why and how I got here from the north. Did we really just take Australia’s longest route to the Opera House?
So I was cycling through Circular Quay with the boys when I bumped into Aunty Barb. “Hey Aunty Barb. Long time, no Aunty Barb!” My mum was there also. Nobody planned the encounter, they were just in town watching a movie. It’s a small world……it’s too small.
Then we rode backstreets to Glebe where we were to stay the night. I was boasting about having navigated the inner city bends when someone smirked and asked us how then had we navigated our way around Australia. Well, most of Australia is one road, and you can only go forward or backward, and as long as you can adjust your steering to deal with the Coriolis Effect, you’re good to go.
We arrive in Glebe. “Hi cousin Ross, Louise, Aunty Meryl, and Uncle Mick. Long time, no cousin Ross, Louise, Aunty Meryl, and Uncle Mick.” It has been a long time, but it feels like only yesterday.
The plan for tonight was to go back to where it all began, the Rose Hotel. See the attached photo of the small black signatures that grew to consume our year. We drank the fabled Black Wattle Beer, which is more of a magic potion than just a refreshing beverage. We talked not about how we would cycle around Australia encouraging sustainability, but about how we just did it.
Four mates sitting around a pub having a yarn. We feel like nothing ever happened, but we know we have achieved everything.
Quote of the day
A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.
-Evan Esar
Mereki@mypower.org.au
*MyPOWER would like to credit Fairfax Media for the use of Pic #5.