'My break-up inspired my 3,500-mile cycle ride'

Ed Watson's journey began at Cape York, in the far north of Australia

"Like all good stories, it starts with a girl."

When Ed Watson's long-term relationship came to an end, he chose not to stay at home and wallow - but instead spent exactly 100 days cycling 3,500 miles (5,600km) from the northernmost tip of the Australian mainland to the southernmost.

"It's fair to say I did a lot of self-therapy," said Mr Watson, 34, who moved from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, to Australia seven years ago. "There's a lot of thinking time when you're sat on a saddle for eight or nine hours a day.

"So hopefully it helped."

The more remote parts of Mr Watson's journey involved cycling over some fairly bike-unfriendly terrain

Mr Watson's journey began in July, when he set off from Cape York in Queensland, and ended on Saturday, when he finally hopped off his bike in Wilson's Promontory in Victoria.

"It's very, very remote," he said of his starting point. "To put it into context, between the first shop and the second shop, there was about 500 miles [800km]."

He also faced the challenge of finding somewhere to log on two days a week to work at his job as an SEO (search engine optimisation) specialist.

Mr Watson said the first stretch was simultaneously one of the worst and the best parts of his journey.

"What you get up there is the classic sort of orange dirt, a lot of corrugated roads, which are very, very difficult to ride along," he explained. "So it shakes the bike around, it breaks things; it broke me a little bit.

"It was very demoralising."

But he added that seeing very few other people for long periods of time, but plenty of wildlife - including cassowaries, koalas and kangaroos - as "very special".

Mr Watson fell victim to several attacks from aggressive magpies along the way

From there, Mr Watson travelled down the coast of the country, taking in Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney, as well as Australia's most easterly point of Byron Bay.

He suffered five flat tyres in the space of three weeks, and at one point had to hitchhike 30 miles (48km) when he ran out of inner tubes.

On multiple occasions, he found himself beset by amorous birds.

"It's breeding season at the moment in Australia," he explained, "and some magpies in particular can be quite aggressive.

"They'll fly down from behind and they'll try and what they call swoop. Sometimes that involves them just crashing into your helmet, into your back, into your shoulders, sometimes they peck your ears.

"I was pretty sick of them."

Mr Watson said he wanted to see some of the spectacular scenery for which Australia was known

Mr Watson headed inland via the capital Canberra to his final destination, where he sat in the sunshine and watched a pod of whales swim past.

"Wilson's Prom, as I call it, was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen," he said. "So I think without realising it I possibly saved the best till last.

"[I felt] a sense of pride, dealing with some of those issues - that I was possibly running away from - but I think if anything, I've proved to myself that I can get through adversity."

He added that this might not be the end of his cycling adventures.

"Quite a few people have pointed out that even though I said I'm riding from the very north to the very south of Australia, I haven't done Tasmania [an island off the south coast] yet.

"So that could be on the cards for early next year."

Mr Watson's journey ended at "Wilson's Prom" in the far south of Victoria - he wore his Kidderminster Harriers shirt for the special moment