Distance: New Zealand 1500 km (900 miles)
               Australia 10,000 km (6250 miles)
Duration: 5.5 months

Some weeks later, from the bottom of the Japanese archipelago (the isle of Kyushu - ten points if you knew that), comes ‘please-mister-fisherman’ boat-ride number three, way down under to the start of continent five – Sydney, Oz.

Unable to resist the iconic departure point, Steve bestrides his trusty velocipede beneath the concrete sails of the opera house, and rides into the neon glare of Darling Harbour’s skyscrapers – the start of a lonely migration west.

From New South Wales to the state of Victoria, hugging the shore of the Bass Strait and stopping to marvel at the famous limestone vignettes – the 12 Apostles, Elephant Rock, the Blowhole – that punctuate the snaking path of the Great Ocean Road. This whole leg an easy stretch to navigate…water on the left, land on the right.

Into Southern Australia and 800 miles of desiccated purgatory through the Nullabor Plain as it arcs around the Great Australian Bight. Nothing, nothing, nothing, shrub. Nothing, nothing, nothing, shrub. Nothing, nothing, nothing, naked woman offering you a cold beer. Sorry Steve, you’re imagining things. That’s just another shrub.

No messing about with border posts and language barriers here. Instead solitude and the increasingly insane ramblings of someone who has become more calf muscle than man. Until civilisation returns at the heel of Western Australia. Then Perth, the City of Light.

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