and they're off!.. .(again) ...sort of....

Well this is it, we are finally heading for Brisbane tomorrow (Tues 28th 2006).
to start our cycling tour of australia we're jumping on a train for the trip out of the city, destination Philip Island. (we've even had to justify it to ourselves in that the train is to Frankston, the town were we spent out fist night on the tour of Philip Bay)
We're planning to stay on Philip Island for 2 nights so we can watch the Penguin Parade and check out 'Seal Rocks' - apparently a rather large colony of smelly sea pigs live there.

dis is beachin'

Friday 24th
Not much of an exciting update on our trip, this is more of a gloat…. Today we spent almost the whole day on St Kilda beach. We cycled down before lunch and headed straight into the sea to cool down, and then sunbathed till we were dry, then back into the sea again.
Some strange local behaviour was noted. There are two beaches which are right at the end of the high street; one seems to attract the bronze bodybuilding chaps and sun kissed volleyball babes – which in turn attracts everyone else and they all sit bunched up together towel to towel and size each other up. The second beach was almost completely empty – apart from a couple of blindingly pale poms - perfect!.
…………….35’C today…. A bit chilly but good for cycling…….

Healesville? (Hillies-ville!)

Decided to do another excursion out of Melbourne; this time northeast out of the city to the small town of Healesville. There’s little there with the exception of the World Famous Healesville Sanctuary. It’s a small Zoo type place full of Australian only wildlife – Dingos, Tasmanian Devils, Kookaburras and the like.

We cycled there on Saturday (18th Feb). It was a picturesque bit of inland cycling through the World Famous Yarra Valley Wine Region. The views were fantastic but there was a price to pay,, the ride consisted of struggling up impossibly steep rises then whizzing down canyon walls at break-neck speeds. (Top Speed: fully laden: 40 miles per hour!) and repeat.

We also got to see a few wine connoisseurs on one of the many coach tours of the area. They shouted and stumbled after us, “Wehay!” one greeted us, wearing what looked suspiciously like an England top.

Waking up early Sunday morning we pedalled off to the sanctuary – luckily only a short distance from the campsite. We spent the whole day there and took lots and lots of blurry and pointless photos. We also took in a Birds of Prey demonstration and got a see them devouring mice heads.
Next up was a talk by an Aboriginal chap, well actually, he was half Aborigine and half Scottish and sticking true to form he told us how to say Hello, and showed us is grandfathers Gum tree root Boomerang and then tried to sell us plywood copies.
We had a tranquil Sunday night drinking local Yarra Ranges wine while barbequing a couple of steaks, we sat on a hilltop over looking a crystal clear lake, surrounded by swamphens and ibis.
Monday wasn’t too eventful; the cycle home was easier, whether it was because there were more down hills than up or due to eating so well the night before, the only incident was John treating himself to a nice new comfy sympathetically designed saddle; having sorted that ‘area’ out, he spent the rest of the journey complaining that it was too far forward, too high and every nut, bolt and screw on his bike needed adjusting.

Snip Snip!!

We’re really getting serious about ‘cutting back’ on the amount of weight we’re taking on our big adventure now!

Tourists

Three weeks in and we’re just getting round to being tourists.
Shorts on, white legs out, camera round neck, baseball cap, carrier bag, novelty t-shirt, guide book, sun cream, lip balm, insect repellent and flip flops.

We started off with a trip north to Bendigo. Staying with Ann’s uncle’s brother, Damian and his wife Helen; and were inspired by their adventures four wheel driving all over Australia (Whilst dragging behind them an amazing ‘T-Van’ off-road caravan; a bit like a Sherman tank with sink and double bed.)

The following day we went on a camping trip to Ballarat. It’s one of the major mining towns of Australia and is the ripe old age of 150yrs!! We thought we were going for 3 days but stayed 5, but it must be said, it was very relaxing and we hardly thought about cycling at all. The wonderful weather made BBQs a obligation, although after 5 days everyone was pretty sick of them – in fact it didn’t rain until we were packing up the tent.




We spent yesterday in the city centre of Melbourne. It’s a bit like any major city you’d find anywhere in the world except it’s clean and you feel safe. As we stepped off the tram we were faced by what appeared to the be the Misinformation centre MISINFO PIC, deciding to ignore anything they said, we wandered round for hours (as is our habit – What do people ‘do’ in a city?) playing the usual games = find the best Mullet, who can stop the fattest person and care in the community types. We ended up at the Crown Casino, a sleazy granny filled sticky carpet airport lounge where people come to deposit their dreams for 10minutes of expectation. The sort of place where you don’t know if it’s night or day and you can spot the one who’ll burn to death if the place caught fire rather than loose their 50cents. Nice.

We then headed off to a Sushi place called the Monkey Bar and were treated to some incredible food and gobbled away with much pleasure. Next stop was the Aquarium but after looking at the prices chose to spent our pennies elsewhere –and headed off to the Melbourne Motor Show – we’ve created a separate Blog for this and included LOADs of pictures, for any interested in that sort of thing. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT

Then off to the Cinema to watch JARHEAD (link)– 1st Gulf war film for anyone who doesn’t know. "Plot Outline: Based on former Marine Anthony Swofford's best-selling 2003 book about his pre-Desert Storm experiences in Saudi Arabia and about his experiences fighting in Kuwait. "


Then home again, money spent and legs tired.

There and back again.

We made it!

well, sort of... We set off on Friday afternoon and cycled as far as Chelsea. In this part of the world there's nothing except a 7/11 and caravan site, which was handy. We were welcomed to our pitch by the calls of Cockatoos and Rosellas, settling down for the evening. You can see a picture of John looking very pleased to be at our first camp.

We set off at about 10am on Saturday morning. We followed the beach all the way south and took in some incredible views, rounding the day up at Rosebud. It has a Californian feel to it. The campsite was right on the beach and we finally braved an evening swim. The water was around 25C and you can walk out 50 yards and it would still only be knee deep. A slight noisy campsite tonight but not from pesky neighbours but from the squawking Galahs – or as they call them here… “ Gilaaaars? ”.





We’re also eating well as you can see, bought a pack of frozen peas, it would have been a shame the waste any.









The third morning we cycled down to Sorrento to get the ferry to Queenscliff on the opposite side of the bay. We were feeling a bit tired and decided to only cycle a short distance to recover a little from our previous excesses; unfortunately after we cycled a short distance we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere and had to cycle a lot more the get to civilisation.
We freewheeled the last 2km into the town of Portarlington, a one street town with a slightly colder seafront and a campsite with awesome powershowers!!

We decided to take it easy on Monday. We were short of food and whilst restocking at the ‘Friendly Grocers’ of Portarlington we got chatting to a local chap who said it was long flat route to Geelong so we should be there in an hour(?). Overjoyed at this news we headed off; round the corner and were faced by 7 of the biggest, longest hills we’d ever seen!
…sometime later we pulled into the town of Drysdale and ate an enormous lunch – Lasagne for John and meatloaf, chips and gravy for Ann. Our stop for lunch saw the arrival of a strong wind and torrential rain. After battling a strong headwind for another two hours, we finally arrived in Geelong still happy and full…(but absolutely exhausted). Wondering when we would get our “day off” (it’s a hard life) we decided to get the train for the next 45km into Melbourne city centre as the west side of the bay is notoriously dull, with a distinct lack of campsites. The west side of the bay comprises of 2 petrol refineries, a sewage plant and a busy highway; so we didn’t feel like were missing anything. Once back in Melbourne we cycled the last 10km home in glorious afternoon sun to a home cooked meal and a comfy bed. Tour 1 complete. 199.61km cycled so far.

it's all about the hills

hello,

Been cycling around Melbourne for a few days, seen lots and had some lovely weather (even the rain is warm!) One of the strangest things about this city is that you always seem to be travelling up hill (as yet totally unexplained by science.).

Tomorrow we are heading off to do a lap of Port Phillip Bay, we've been told there is a race around the bay which is just one day, but we'll take it easy and spend two or three! There's camping right on the beach, and the water is 22'C today; so we might even dampen our ankles. Let's hope there are spaces in the campsites for us, and no sharks in the bay!