This past Saturday, I joined a few friends walking from Birkdale to Brisbane. A common response upon hearing this is an incredulous ‘why?’. First and foremost, we walked back to Brisbane because we didn’t want to spend the day in Birkdale. Beyond simply transporting us back to Brisbane, the walk offers much more. Over the thirty kilometre parcours, we witnessed a progression from mixed-use residential-light-agriculture land to increasingly suburban and then urban spaces. It reminded us of the geography of Brisbane and that the inner city is such a small part of the city. The walk holds further meaning for my friend Dan, who grew up around Birkdale and invited the rest of us along.
Since I’m a bike-dork, I was reminded of the Bicycle Empowerment Network which operates in southern Africa. They distribute bikes, train mechanics and in general encourage bicycle use in areas where walking is a dominant mode of transport. As someone who regularly rides reasonable distances on a bicycle (I have a blog about it), it was striking how much effort went into a similarly far walk. It took us most of the day and completely drained us. Now I have a keener sense of the transformative power of a bicycle (and, in the technocratic west, public transport) for mobility on the scale of cities. I’m looking forward to next year’s walk, but I won’t be doing it every week.