Days 65-68 (January 6-9)

I’m now enjoying winter biking in Alaska. This is what I often thought of during the hot days in Australia.

Well, the Australia bike trip is officially over. Both Mattie and I are safely back home – me in Alaska and Mattie in Idaho.

I took a very roundabout route home from Sydney (Sydney → Hong Kong → Dubai → Seattle → Fairbanks → Anchorage) which took three days. This was primarily because I wanted to see a bit of Dubai, and since I was already on that side of the world, I figured it’d be worth a stop, and also because I was flying on a first-class frequent-flyer award ticket the entire way.

This is the ceiling of the First Class cabin on an Emirates 777-300ER. The little white dots are pinpoint-size LED lights embedded in the ceiling that are meant to simulate stars in the sky.

View of Hong Kong on approach to the airport

Dubai is an amazing city – mega-yachts, over-the-top shopping malls, new construction everywhere, and of course the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, at 2,722 feet tall.

The 394′ mega-yacht named “A”, owned by a Russian billionaire, in the process of anchoring in Dubai

Fish tank in the Dubai Mall. This thing is a couple hundred feet long and thirty-or-so feet tall. You can look straight through it into stores on the other side of the tank. The low railing/fence in front of the tank contains a huge array of LEDs that display animated scenes, such as the crocodile coming in from the left-hand side of the photo.

The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world at 2,722 feet tall

Another view of the Burj Khalifa

The view from the Burj Khalifa’s 124th floor observation deck

So that’s it. The bike trip was a resounding success, and who knows, maybe there will be another bike trip somewhere, sometime in the future!

Posted by Scott

This from Mattie:

I too am enjoying the snowy weather.  I have been going on short skis on the wheat fields behind my house and in the surrounding hills of Moscow, Idaho.  It is wonderful to be back with my family!  As I have a month before my new job in Washington State starts, I am spending my time perusing rentals online, planning the transition into a storage unit, and other pre-move activities. 

The bike ride is over.  I am back to my “regular” (although unemployed) life.  I look forward to my next trip, whatever that may be.  I am eternally grateful to Scott for all the preparations he did for this trip.  And thank you for following along, and if you are reading this in order to prepare for a cross-Australia pedal, my best wishes are with you!

Posted by Mattie