Sydney: I've come a long way

August 13, 2015

“Don’t look yet, don’t look at it Dea.”

We were shuffling along through the park staring down at our feet. I was holding my hand up, blocking out the left side of my face and resisting the growing temptation to look in that direction.

“Okay, I think we’ve gone far enough” I said, “Now let’s close our eyes.”

Dea giggled as we moved to the side of the path and felt our way to the wall which separated us from the harbour.

“Are you ready? On the count of three let’s open our eyes. One… two… three!”

And there it was in front of us – the iconic sights of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I gasped. I was finally here.

Reaching Sydney was a milestone for the both of us. I knew it meant a lot to Dea to have made it from Melbourne to Sydney – the smile on her face when we’d first spotted the skyscrapers ahead of us on the horizon from the National Park gave that away. It had been a lovely morning cycling through that forest too, on a quiet road populated primarily with road cyclists out of the city for a ride of their own. From the northern edge of the park we had to take a passenger ferry to reach the first suburbs of Sydney itself. It was a bit of a shock to go from the peace of the National Park to the hustle and bustle of the big city, but fortunately we had bicycle paths to enjoy most of the way from then on.

Having planned the route so meticulously I knew that we would briefly cycle along a street named O’Dea Avenue, which I was looking forward to surprising Dea with, but when we got there I was equally surprised. By an amazing coincidence the first cross street on O’Dea Avenue was Jacobson Avenue. It was such an extraordinary happenstance that I could barely believe, and I subjected Dea to a hundred photos of her beneath the two signs that bore her full name. I insisted on photos of her from all angles, with and without her bicycle, and all of this went on so long that eventually I had to explain to the family that happened to be sitting outside of their home on the corner of O’Dea and Jacobson what the hell we were doing. “Her name is Dea Jacobsen!” I shouted “Isn’t it amazing?!”

We made it to our hosts’ apartment soon after. A reader of this journal, Catherine had kindly invited us to stay with her and her partner Malcolm and we had gratefully accepted. The apartment was really cool, being in an old converted factory, and had huge wooden beams everywhere and bicycles hanging from the ceiling. We enjoyed such amazing hospitality from these lovely people that we ended up staying four nights, which was certainly a much needed and appreciated opportunity to recharge our waning batteries.

Enjoying dinner with our wonderful hosts Catherine and Malcolm

As for Sydney itself, I wasn’t so sure. There were a great many different people on the streets, all sorts of people. It felt very different from the small town Australia, the country Australia, that we had grown used to. It just felt a bit like people were trying too hard to force some sort of culture and honestly, if I could sum Sydney up in four words it would be - too many coffee shops.

But what was wonderful about the city was of course the incredible harbour. Dea and I spent a whole day walking around it. Reaching the Opera House was particularly momentous for me as I had so often looked upon it as the ultimate goal of phase one of my journey. Like the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House is a world landmark that everybody knows, an iconic sight. And after two years of dreaming about it I was finally able to look up at its shiny white tiles. I felt a mixture of happiness and relief to have made it here at long, long last. Two years and 55,000 kilometres. I had made it from the Eiffel Tower to Sydney Opera House using nothing except my bicycle, boats, and a pick-up truck driven by a relatively attractive Mongolian woman for one kilometre. Not exactly what I’d set out to do, I must admit, but pretty darn close.

The lego version in the gift shop was a bit, erm... well... crap

Dea and I walked together across Sydney Harbour Bridge, which gave even better views of the harbour, before sitting in a park on the far side, where we watched the sunset over the harbour and ate the most fantastic chips. It was all rather lovely. But even better than that, on our way back to Catherine and Malcolm’s place we stopped to rest our tired feet by sitting on a bench in yet another park. As we sat here we spotted a few rats that were darting in and out of the bushes nearby and I threw some nuts and cookie crumbs out for them to find and enjoy. To my great delight Dea did not squeal or say “Eww, rats” but did in fact also enjoy feeding them and remarked upon how cute they were. I felt very, very lucky, not only to have made it to Sydney, but to have done so with a girl who enjoys feeding rats with me.

A lovely view of the harbour on our way across the bridge

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 46,137 km (28,651 miles)

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