Landfall

Take it from me - any morning where you don't put on bike shorts is a pretty good morning, but when it's the first time without them in a long time, it's bloody marvellous. Pulling up that increasingly rancid lycra nappy to swathe your netherbits is better than facing a bike seat without it, but it really is a revolting downside to the joy that is cycle touring. What I'm saying is: the day got off to a promising start.

Jai and I had a cuppa, wrestled our bikes from the loosely monikered 'bike shed', said a teary goodbye, promised one another we'd never die, and parted. Me - to get a boat across the river to get a boat across the sea; Jai - to eat pancakes, buy make-up and hop a train back to the big smoke. With love.

So long, Liverpool - I'll be back.

These long distance ferries are strange things, aren't they? They have passengers, but they're not cruise ships; they're mostly doing haulage, but they've really taken the opportunity to go for a kind of kitsch floating casino experience, I find. I guess they kind of have to entertain you while you're on there or you'd all mutiny and become a band of pirates (obvs), but there's no library, if you see what I'm saying, there's a cinema playing woeful b-grade movies and a lot of fried things under heat lamps. And really, all anyone wants to do is lie down. But the upholstery is always a bit grotty, and they'd really rather you forked out for a cabin, so they don't want to make the sofas too enticing. The tv is always on a bit too loud, the coffee is terrible and everyone, everyone on board, me included, is a bit weird.

Because really, who in their right mind is taking an 8 hour passenger ferry, particularly one from Liverpool to Belfast? On a Wednesday? Deadset weirdos, that's who: the 2 European backpacker kids; the 3 generations of grossly overweight Northern Irish femmes; the woman with the bad black hair dye job and an ostentatious volume of gold costume jewellery; the couple speaking Chinese - him wearing jeans and a suit vest with a fob chain, her in a cropped top with jeggins and platform boots; and me - not wearing bike shorts. Lunatics.

Honestly? I slept most of the way. What? What did you expect? I'd just finished a 400km bike ride and then drank a sculptural volume of prosecco. Did you think I'd be on the foredeck doing the hula? 

I lack the inclination to Google-proove this (feel free to enlighten me), but I'm sure I'm not the first person to observe that, whenever travelling, we covet the view of the place from the water. Think Venice, think Brisbane (a little bit joking), that duck-truck thing in London, think Sydney to Manly ferry teeming with tourists happy snapping all Summer long... I reckon that, for most places, the view from the sea is an unlikely first view these days, but for a long time, that was how anyone arrived almost anywhere truly new, and I like it. Most great migrant stories* involve a landfall, don't they?

Arriving into Belfast by sea, it's all business. It's a ship-building port, after all (quiet time while everyone things Titanic thoughts...)

Belfast from the sea - it's all business

Between having to get the bus 400 meters to the passenger terminal and jostle for my luggage, my arrival was somewhat lacking the Cate-Leo cinematic feel.

Nonetheless, here I was. In Belfast. I retrieved Horseback from his seafaring shackles and we rode through the big gates, round the corner, to a fluro-clad Al and his no-name bike, for the last 8kms, home.

* I want to note here that, while my boat ride wasn't exactly thrilling, it was safe and I was welcomed at the end. There are desperate, aching people making dangerous, costly boat voyages to my own home country right now. They're coming, asking for our help, seeking refuge. Instead, they're treated to illegal abuse and inhuman punishments. I am appalled by these actions taken by Australia's government. These actions are #notinmyname and I wholeheartedly welcome anyone, besieged and seeking asylum, to share my place in the world.