Ted Ryko

Ryko was born in Woorak, near Jeparit in the Mallee, Victoria to Ludwig Carl Reichenbach and Alma Johanna Reichenbach. His parents were of German descent but were both born in Australia.

At 21 years of age, Ryko, together with companion John Fahey left the Adelaide Post Office in May 1914 determined to break the world record for cycling from Adelaide to Darwin. Even stopping to take photographs of the journey, Ryko broke the record reaching the Darwin Post Office shortly after noon on Thursday 11 June 1914. The journey took him 28 days, 15 hours and 30 minutes, beating the previous record by 15 hours and 23 minutes. Fahey sprained his ankle near the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory and was unable to complete the journey.

Ryko spent time at the Sydney Sanitarium in Wahroonga in New South Wales in 1919 due to mental health issues. He married Irene Watson on 20 April 1920. He worked on the Sydney Harbour Bridge construction and continued to write articles for the Sydney Morning Herald. Ryko returned to the Northern Territory in 1940 working on the Commonwealth Railways as a fettler in Katherine and the old Ghan railway at the Finke, where he was responsible for the water pumping station. During this period he collected flora contributing more than 475 plants to the herbarium in Adelaide. Ryko spent the last two years of his life living in Nhill, Victoria. He died on 2 September 1968. He is buried in the Woorak cemetery in Victoria. An exhibition of his photographs was held at Northern Territory Library in Darwin in 2014.