The world’s longest ride to Melbourne

On Thursday, April 17, as thousands of commuters cycled out of Melbourne, there was one man whose journey out of the city was a little different from most.

He hails from the humble city of Norwich in the United Kingdom and wasn’t commencing his daily 10-kilometre commute back to Preston in a suit and tie, but was actually nearing the end of a gargantuan journey around the world.

For the past six months, Nick Willeman has ridden from England to Australia on his pushbike. It’s a journey that even he describes as “idiotic”, having had a number of near-death experiences and taken many wrong turns.

In Tajikistan, he got trapped in a snowstorm, with the road becoming covered in so much snow that he had to lug his bike for the last 20 kilometres of the leg.

In Vietnam, Nick watched a buffalo being butchered and was robbed on the streets of Hoi An.

In Russia, he had to grow accustomed to enjoying an aperitif in a sauna where clothing was considered heretical.

And in Australia, he was confronted by some of the darker sides of the antipodean way of life – accosted by One Nation political campaigners in the outback and repeatedly coaxed into drinking “one more rum”, like John Grant in Kenneth Cook’s infamous Wake in Fright.

But as his journey draws to a close, with the Harbour City penned in as his final destination, Nick is looking forward to hanging up the lycra and cleats and enjoying his time in Australia.

Nick is a civil engineer by trade, but after spending years working on a large infrastructure project across Britain, he began to get itchy feet and wanted to embark on an adventure. Naturally, that adventure was to ride across the world.

He is rather nonchalant about his achievement and says he has simply become used to riding up to 200 km a day and sleeping beside highways.

To get to Australia, he rode through Europe, the Stans, and down to the bottom of Malaysia, hopping on a ferry from Malacca to Dumai. Then down through Indonesia and Timor-Leste, which is where he finally decided to hop on a plane to Darwin.

However, despite all of this, Nick still concedes that living in London on a paltry wage is more challenging than his trip.

Nick came to Australia as an exchange student in 2019 and instantly fell in love with the country, its people, and its way of life. “The ride was just an excuse for me to come back, really,” he said.

Once he’s finished the trip, he plans to have some well-earned rest before making his way back to the UK. But with plenty of Big Build projects still yet to be completed, Nick is hopeful that one day he’ll be back for good, donning a hard hat and some high-vis. •