“I want to do it because it’s there. It’s a challenge and I don’t think it’s been successfully done before."

No, this was not the line uttered by Sir Edmund Hillary as he set out to become the first man to scale Mount Everest. Nor was it Douglas Mawson prior to his 1909 expedition to the South Magnetic Pole.

It was, in fact, 25-year-old Melbourne man, Heath Tully, who recently braved eighteen hours of sweaty armpits, garbled PA announcements and mysterious unscheduled stops, in an ambitious attempt to become the first person to complete a journey across the entire suburban rail network in a single day.

While his task may not have been in quite the same league as climbing Mount Everest or trekking across Antarctica, it still presented a formidable challenge. Melbourne’s sprawling rail network consists of 370 kilometres of track, split into fifteen separate lines and passing through a total of 198 stations. Once the amount of doubling-back required to complete the journey was taken into account, he was faced with a headache-inducing 760 kilometres of public transport travel in one day.

The marathon journey came about as part of “Project 183”, a list of 183 tasks that Heath has set himself to complete before his thirtieth birthday. Some of the tasks on his list are relatively straightforward, such as selling an item on e-bay or watching no television for a week. Others, such as meeting Sir Richard Branson and having a child (two completely unrelated goals, in case you were wondering) will require a little more planning and effort.

Goal number 141 was definitely in the latter category.

Keen to keep those interested in his project in the loop (bad Melbourne rail travel pun not intended), Heath looked for a way to document his journey and present it to them as it happened. The answer was the Telstra Next G™ network.

Armed with a Telstra Next G™ mobile phone, Heath was able to shoot and upload videos to the internet as he travelled, allowing followers of Project 183 to track his progress from anywhere in the world. He also carried a laptop featuring Telstra Next G™ wireless broadband, which provided him with a convenient means of updating his blog along the way.

Plus, thanks to the extensive coverage of the Telstra Next G™ network, Heath was in regular contact with his supporters, even during his stops in the underground city loop stations.

“I thought the technology provided by Telstra on the day worked wonderfully.” said Heath. “I was able to record videos at the end of every line, so the coverage is obviously pretty good. I even got coverage at Parliament station, which was a big shock. The laptop with the wireless broadband never cut out, and loaded really quickly.”

As those who followed his videos and blogs would know, Heath successfully completed his marathon journey when he stepped off the 10:50pm train, on to the 198th station platform at Belgrave.

Those who missed his journey, or simply want to see it again, can watch some of Heath’s videos below.

In the media:

• Heath Tully rides all of Melbourne's train lines (www.news.com.au)

Learn more about Heath Tully's adventure:

• Project 183 (www.project183.com)