WE ARE HOME!!
Day: 55.0km, Total: 15,907.2km
Got underway just after 6.30am today on what would be our last on the road and the final leg in our complete circling of Australia on our bikes. It is hard to sum up the emotions but it is far to say that early on we we both reasonably quite, finding ourselves in our own thought and what it meant to each of us to complete such an adventure. Mostly we both felt that it seemed like yesterday that we pulled out of the flats at Tugun and commenced our journey from the Anaconda Ashmore Store, which was now just 50km away (the long way around). It was a bit wet early on and we copped downpour in Salt as I did a radio interview for the Coast FM morning program. It was pleasing to be receiving a few media calls and soon we had a shoot and interview lined up with NBN, the Gold Coast’s nightly news bulletin which given our early timing it appeared we would be able to undertake prior to our arrival in Ashmore.
So we made our way into Tweed Heads and across the border to QLD taking a few photos at Kirra (of the Gold Coast laid out before us) and eventually we pulled into the Tugun SLSC flats, about half way for today’s leg but our actual starting point from 6 months ago. WOW! Although we stopped for a breather, we didn’t stop long and kept making our way through Currumbin and up the coast. Matt rode ahead for a bit while I juggled media phone calls, but before long we were at the Gold Coast Botanical Gardens (just south of Surfers Paradise) where we met the NBN news crew. We took a decent amount of footage and did great interviews which subsequently resulted in a fantastic piece on TV that night.
Although I rode the last 5km with a flat back trailer tyre we cycled into Anaconda Ashmore just after 11am where we were met by a small group of interested people and a couple of media people. Well that was it!!! One day shy of 6 months and over 16,000 on our bicycles later and we were back in the place we started. Although everything was taking a while to sink in it was certainly surreal and Matt and I certainly enjoyed the moment. We both agreed that it would probably be in the next couple of days that the enormity of what we had achieved would finally arrive at us but for me at least I was looking forward to the next chapter in my life and more exiting times ahead wherever and doing whatever that may be. Of course there was business to attend to and we both had quickly get in to gear making return transport arrangements and the like and that night was the furthest Matt and I had been apart, me down in Tugun and him up at the Holiday Inn in Surfers.
I guess it is customary at this point to say a few thank yous and closing remarks so here I go…
THANK YOU to both our family’s, especially our parents for who without their love and support this adventure would not have been achieved.
THANK YOU to the kind support of our sponsors who certainly without, this trip would not have even been started.
This adventure was aimed at raising awareness of mental health issues amongst young people and reaching out to those touched by the heartbreak of youth suicide. Whilst we look back with memories to last a lifetime we hope that those memories were gained through doing our little bit to help those in the community who feel they have no one to turn to. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
If anything we hope to have inspired others to do just what we have “live your dreams”.
“Live every act fully – life is for living”
Matt Sladden and Nic Cuthbert
