Community & Business
1 September, 2026
Royce rides for Parkinson’s
A MAREEBA-born man completed a one-month cycling journey from the Gold Coast in honour of his late father last week, raising over $5,500 for Parkinson’s Disease research.
Royce Harris recently cycled nearly 2,500km from his father’s home on the Gold Coast to Mareeba, where his family once lived and where he was born.
His father, Roy, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2016 and passed in 2024, aged 76. Born with an adventurous spirit, he lived and travelled throughout Australia and Papua New Guinea during his lifetime, and passed that same sense of adventure along to Royce.
“It feels good. It feels like I’ve accomplished my goal, which is good,” the Sydney sparky said when he got to Mareeba last week.
Royce expected the journey to take around two months but he reached his destination after just 31 days. Expectedly, he’d faced some “tough days”.
“I don’t carry any food or anything, so I was always making it to the next town. And when the next town is 130km away, you just have to make it,” he said.
“Even yesterday, coming up to the Tablelands, it was pouring down rain. That was probably my toughest day actually, just riding up the hills. Then when you ride down in the rain, you can’t see anything and it’s just stinging your face.”
Royce always enjoyed the atmosphere of small towns that people seldom visited, so he made an effort to stop in at as many as he could, saying he learned, overall, that people are generally kind.
“People are good. I’ve had people let me stay at their houses, people buy me dinner. It restores your faith in humanity.”
As fate would have it, Royce went to the Ant Hill to book a room for a couple nights’ stay and he just so happened to strike up a conversation with the man who bought his father’s old lawn mower business off of him before he moved south.
As he wheeled his bike down the street, the adventurer casually pondered to continue journeying north.
“I’ve done it too quick. I might keep going, up to Port or maybe the Cape,” he said.
Royce has, to date, raised $5,700. To donate, visit https://shakeitupfundraisers.raiselysite.com/royce-harris
