August 30, 2016
The end: The closing scenes
We awoke at 7:30. We'd camped in the woods, like I'd done hundreds of times since I started out from Paris. But as we packed up our things it struck me that this would be the last time for a while. We were only a day away from Copenhagen and a new life. We had an apartment organised, Dea had a job lined up, I had an idea for a book. Our life on the road was about to come to a (temporary) end. These were the closing scenes of the sequel.
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It was still 120 kilometres to Copenhagen so we made a plan to average ten kilometres per hour for twelve hours. I knew by now that ten kilometres per hour was my speed. That's just how I always rode. If you think that sounds slow, you're right. It is. Embarrassingly slow really. But you know what, you ride slow for long enough, and you can get anywhere. All the way around the world if you're lucky.
Before very long we reached a big bridge. "This is the spider bridge!" Dea said with some excitement. "Let's see if they're still here!" She was referring, of course, to the bridge that I rode across three years earlier, that was written about in some detail on my blog post A bridge full of spiders, possibly because there was nothing more interesting to write about in Denmark. I'd spotted, as I cycled over this bridge in 2013, that there were hundreds of little spiders in the railings. All the same type of spider they were, they had a complete monopoly over the bridge. Would they still be there? I was keen to find out.
At first it looked like they might have moved to another bridge, because the first few railings there weren't any spiders. But it was a windy day, and when we came to a section where a white board blocked out the wind, well, there they all were. Hundreds of the little spiders. It was good to see them again. I wondered if some of the bigger ones were little babies the last time I'd passed by. They had been living their lives on this one bridge, never knowing anything of the world I'd circled since I last saw them.
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Thanks for the journal again!
3 months ago
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It was a long, straight road towards Copenhagen. Most of the time there was a separate cycle path, and Dea and I played the Spotting Things game. I was on fire, and got my revenge for mini golf. But how nice it was to be playing, to be with Dea, and to be together in her home country. Ahead of us lay the opportunity to stop and spend time with her friends and family. It felt good and it felt right.
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We reached the outskirts of Copenhagen long before the centre. Its southern edges curve and extend down around the coast. But still the cycle paths continued and carried us safely. I began to recognise one or two places from the last time I'd rode this way. We stopped at a beach and I went for a quick swim, just as I'd done before. It was impossible for me to try and imagine just exactly what I'd been thinking the last time I'd been here. I'd been so incredibly fortunate to have made it around the world, to have seen the sun rise and set over so many landscapes, to have met so many amazing people. And I'd been so lucky to have found Dea, and to have made it here with her. After her eye infection mid-Pacific we had needed to change all of our plans, but somehow it felt right to be here now, with her. We had new plans now.
After cycling through forty kilometres of Copenhagen we finally made it into the centre by evening. Dea took me down to the waterfront. It looked like a really nice place. Yes, I could definitely see myself living here for a while.
Then we got back on the bikes and rode down a couple of streets to where Dea's sister Barbara was living. We were to stay with her for a couple of nights before moving into our apartment. As we turned into her street the big clock chimed. It was 7:30. We'd ridden 120 kilometres in twelve hours. Ten kilometres per hour, just like I said. Barbara and her boyfriend Niels greeted us. "Welcome to Copenhagen," they said, and our new life had begun.
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And with that, the curtain comes down upon the sequel. I had made it all the way around the world, using nothing but my bicycle, boats, and a pick-up truck driven by a relatively attractive Mongolian woman for one kilometre. A happy ending to be sure. But was it enough?
A couple of nights later Dea and I moved into our new apartment. It was a little small, but had a desk for me to write at, a nice couch for sitting on, and space on the wall to put a map of the world. We put the map up, enjoyed looking at it, and then one day we decided to start putting pieces of string onto it. The pieces of string were stuck on with blue tack, and they were marking out a route.
"So," Dea said, excitement in her eyes as she looked up at the stringy map thing, "when are we going to start? When are we going to cycle back to China?"
That's right, folks, it's a trilogy.
I'll tell you all about it soon.
THE END
(for now)
Today's ride: 121 km (75 miles)
Total: 57,704 km (35,834 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 5 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 3 |
And get over that one kilometer thing. 😃
3 months ago