Here I am Once again I’ve given up everything, the comforts, a home to return to every day, where nothing is missing, where the fridge is always full and everything works like in a normal life. I’ve quit my job again, even if it only lasted six months, and left my routine behind. All of this just to set off once more. Not on a motorbike this time, but on a bicycle. But why the bike? I thought about it for a long time, and I truly believe it’s the best way to explore Asia. As much as I love motorbikes, doing another long trip with one would have been far too complicated. I would’ve needed a new Carnet de Passage, organized shipments, dealt with more complex border crossings, and faced much higher costs, but above all, less flexibility. But beyond these practical obstacles, which are manageable if you really want, there was something deeper. After finishing my journey from Italy to Nepal, I still didn’t feel satisfied with myself. My hunger for adventure hadn’t been fulfilled. I wanted something even more raw, more essential, more real. And so, here I am, cycling from Melbourne to Bangkok, where, once I arrive, I’ll fly back to Italy without the bike and take a break for a few months. After that break, the plan is to return to Bangkok and continue what was left unfinished, travelling overland all the way back home. I’ll still use motorbikes now and then, renting one to explore remote areas when needed. But my goal isn’t about sports or extremes, I’m not trying to accomplish anything on a bike. I just want to cross countries slowly, and take my time. Leaving is always a strange moment, a mix of anxiety and excitement. They’re emotions I rarely feel, but when I do, they hit hard. In Melbourne, I said goodbye to old and new friends, then I left again. Alone. Just me, my bike and my tent. The first few days went really well. I’d leave at sunrise and stop at sunset. I pitched my tent wherever I could find water, and set off again the next morning. One night, because of the cold, I slept inside a disabled toilet, ahahah. It’s incredible how, as soon as you become a traveller again, the world around you starts to change. During these first eight days, the people I met felt completely different from before. Drivers waved, people stopped to talk, and those who could tried to help. One man even offered me his reflective vest, Australians are obsessed with high visibility. Riding at night here is wild. You see all kinds of animals. One kangaroo jumped out of nowhere and scared the hell out of me. Then I reached the Alps, and before entering the 100 km of emptiness in Kosciuszko National Park, I asked some workers if the road was passable.

They told me they had driven it in a car, that there was snow, and a storm was coming. All I heard was “you can drive through it”, so I thought it must be doable by bike too, right? The landscape looked like something out of an African savanna, at least from what I’ve seen in documentaries, but with kangaroos everywhere. It was absolutely amazing. But then the road turned out to be much tougher than I expected. There was so much snow. I couldn’t ride anymore, only push. And the climbs were incredibly steep. It took me 14 hours to cross that mountain. It was very adventurous, maybe even a bit too much. I thought the climb would be followed by a long descent, but instead it was all ups and downs. I rode the second half entirely at night. I came across massive fallen trees, roadblocks, deep puddles with muddy bottoms like quicksand. The downhills were steep and destroyed, and with all the weight on the bike, I kept falling. After a thousand struggles, I was almost out. But at 9 p.m., just a few kilometres from the edge of the forest, I found the road blocked by a swollen river. The GPS track said to cross it, but it was pitch dark. I tried anyway, but the current was too strong. I risked losing everything. So I turned back and camped right there. All around me I could hear animals, sometimes I only saw their glowing eyes in the dark. But once I was in the tent, everything was calm. The next morning, with daylight, I looked for a bridge. No chance. The only options were to cross or go all the way back. At that moment, I felt like the guy in Into the Wild, stuck on the wrong side of the river. So I took all the bags off the bike and remembered the river safety course I took before rafting during the Feste Vigiliane in Trento. I came up with a plan. First I crossed with my most important items, passport, phone, cameras. I walked upstream to the slack water, then crossed diagonally with the current until I reached the other side. I did that five times until everything was across. My legs turned purple from the cold, but I made it. I crossed the Australian Alps in the middle of winter. Once I got signal again, I checked the map. There’s no bridge. That road is only open in summer. And in summer, that river becomes just a stream. From there on, it was all downhill. Except for the cold, which turned my tent into an igloo every night. But I was well equipped, and I never truly suffered. After eight days, 1300 kilometres and 15,000 metres of climbing, I made it to Sydney. The bike is wrecked, but that’s part of the game. Now I can fix it, disassemble it, and get it ready for the next flight. Next stop: Singapore.