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| © John Beeden via ABC News |
December 27 marked day 209 at sea for Mr Beeden, who has rowed more than 7,400 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean.
His Canadian wife Cheryl and two teenage daughters joined a crowd gathered on the dock in Cairns, in far north Queensland, to greet him back to dry land about 10:00am (AEST) on Sunday.
An athlete all his life, Mr Beeden previously rowed the Atlantic Ocean solo, but keen for a bigger challenge, he decided to tackle the Pacific Ocean.
"To be the first person to achieve something like this on this scale is incredible really, and I haven't processed it yet," he said.
"[I had thought] it was going to hard work just like the Atlantic - it wasn't going to try and kill me - but [the Pacific] tried a few times."
The 53-year-old Brit left San Francisco in his six-metre boat Socks II on June 1 this year and has been rowing for up to 15 hours a day.
Mr Beeden had hoped to reach Australia by mid-November, but weather conditions blew out his estimated arrival by a month.
He said the journey had been much more difficult than he had anticipated.
"But in fairness that's what I was looking for," he said.
Trying 2 recover lost milage, going for it, looking 4 the magical #50nm 2day. #OceanRowing #SanFranto #Australia
"I did the Atlantic three years ago and although it was hard work I found the actual process of doing the 53 days relatively easy in a sense - it was just hard work.
"So I went looking for something more difficult to push me the edge.
"When I set off from San Francisco, I didn't realise how difficult this was going to be - I've peered right over the edge a number of times and didn't think I could go on and had to dig deep."
He said it felt "really strange" to be on a land again.
"Progressively so, as I've come in with all the noise from the planes and the boats," he said.
"I saw a a freighter and cruise ship a couple of days ago, and that was the beginning of normality - or the beginning of everybody else's normality - not the beginning of my normality.
"It's strange, but it's good to be back, but it was kind of good to be out there as well."
He said it had been "an incredible privilege to be kind of on your own for thousands of miles".
"Somebody from work sent me a note to say the closest person to me at that time was somebody in the space station - 250 kilometres away - so that's kind of cool," he said.
Ms Beeden said she felt "great relief" her husband had arrived safely.
"Incredible - I'm kind of speechless I think - I've been living with it for seven months ... always knew he could do it," she said.
"He's an amazing guy, he's different than a lot of other people, he'll always fight to get the mile when he's having a bad day.
"Always knew he could do it, but it just took a lot longer than we expected and just glad he's home and safe."
She said he had "a tough journey getting here".
"He's had to fight Mother Nature quite often, especially crossing the equator with currents going different ways, so he's fought for every mile that he rowed," she said.
"It's exciting and I've been watching it build up as it goes along.
"It's been a long time - seven months - we really thought he was going to do it in 140 to 180 days.
"He is now the first person to row solo across the Pacific from San Francisco to Cairns and continent to continent, land to land."
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