en ourselves the turn-around time of
noon but it was barely 8am when we
paused at Seaman’s Hut to sip warm
sweet tea. We were still walking on
top of the crust up until Rawson’s Pass
where we saw the tops of bike racks
poking farcically out of the snow. This
should have been the high point of
our cycle journey, just 1.5 kilometres
from the summit.
From here we took a traversing
path across a snow field. The time
was approximately 10.20am when we
trickled onto the top of Australia, the
TABs (Temporarily Able Bodied) first,
then Conrad and I followed by Duncan
and Walter. We all got very emotional.
The strain of keeping it together for 42
days, and suddenly being freed, was
as though a levee had broken. We all
TRAVERSE 100
shed tears and then it was time to take
interviews from local and national ra-
dio, and Kirsten Seaver of the Monaro
Post who came snow shoeing over
the summit as we sat drinking whisky
that Duncan’s grandmother had given
us. We toasted ourselves, but more-
so Wally who was the only member
of the team to ride uninterrupted for
2152km from start to finish. We joked