Rain, rain, go away...

After 6 weeks here, the rain finally hunted me down and got me good and proper. I'm glad I did decided to buy those waterproofs for riding in the end... It's a pity the waterproof luggage bag failed to live up to it's claims but it wasn't so bad. A good blast in front of the motel room A/C overnight dried everything up nicely.

I spent the last couple of days over on Kangaroo Island (note for future reference, spend at least 4+ days there) seeing Remarkable Rocks, smelly seals, Admirals Arches and not seeing the elusive platypus (the fact it's the wrong time of year, there's a drought on so there's little water for them to hunt in and it was the middle of the day when they're normally inactive didn't help, but hey!).

A brief sojourn in Adelaide was more than enough for me, so the next major port of call will be Melbourne. Just about everyone I've spoken to has raved about the place so hopefully it lives up to the hype.

Too easy!

I'm now on the other side of Nullarbor after a looonnnggggg 2 day ride. Not much to report and no dramas along the way :-)

Only about 600-700km to Adelaide now.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

I'm not sure if this will work but I've added a Google Maps link to the 'Links & Stuff' section that hopefully shows the rough route I've taken so far.

If that doesn't work, try this for size which should show the places visited so far.

Leaving Albany today but not sure of the end destination, either Ravensthorpe or Esperance (probably Ravensthorpe...)

Edit: In the end I got to Ravensthorpe and thought 'I've got a couple more hours of daylight left, it's only 180km to Esperance from here and things ain't so sore so what the hell I may as well carry on'. And so here I am in Esperance enjoying the seaside once more. A nice little 500km ride to get me in the groove for next week...

End of the road

I picked up the bike from the start of Albany Highway in Perth and now here I am at the other end of Albany Highway, 400km down the road, in Albany (surprisingly). With all my detours I managed to convert 400km into almost 2000km, but still... Don't know why that interests me but there we have it.

Edit: Knackered! 300km sightseeing tour today involving the Porongurup and Stirling ranges. It's also been the longest ride with the smallest amount of roadkill I've seen, which was nice. Even got to see a wild echidna roaming around the small bit of Porongurup I could get into (the rest was closed due to some recent bush fires). If you're ever considering popping to the town of Borden near there, don't. It seems to consist of a store and a pub and that's it as far as I could tell - there seemed to be a lot of houses around there though...

More trees and Danes everywhere

After a very nice relaxing ride I'm in Denmark where lucky none of the residents speak Danish. I made a brief stop off at the Valley of the Giants and braved the treetop walk 40m up in the air. If you don't like being on a boat, you might want to give it a miss as even in calm weather (like today) the platforms like to sway from side to side... :)

Tomorrow the hobo is making his way to Albany where I'll spend a couple of nights. It's by far the largest town (pop. ~30,000) around this neck of the woods so should keep me entertained a bit.

P.S. Thanks for nothing Colchester Utd!

Eastwards, ho!

I'm on the move once more after a few days in Margaret River. Today I headed down to Pemberton, 'the wondertown' according to the Lonely Planet - not sure what they were smoking when they wrote that section but it's a pleasant enough little town in the middle of Karri and Jarrah forests. Did a bit of dirt trail biking (seeing as that what the bike was designed to do in the first place) too. Let's just say I'm not gravels number one fan.

Tomorrow I'm off to Denmark to play in the Valley of the Giants before starting to think about the Nullarbor a bit more...

Pictures!

OK, I finally got off my lazy arse and posted some pictures over at my page on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsb/sets/72157600047197718/

At the moment it's just ones from Hong Kong but it's a start. And yes I know there's none of me, that's the idea... :)

On the road at last

Yesterday was the first day on the road, and also the first with all the bags packed onto the bike to add to the entertainment.

The rental company agreed to fit a small windshield to the bike to help lower the amount of wind buffeting, rain, bug splattering and kangaroos that might otherwise slap me in the face. The mechanics had a slight hiccup (in that the windshield hadn't arrived when I turned) so I started heading off south quite late in the day. I was hoping to make it down to Margaret River in one fell swoop but in the end I decided to stop for the night in Busselton. Quite a nice little town with a 2km jetty stretching out into the ocean.

This morning I finished off the journey to Margaret River and will spend a few nights here checking out the local sites (caves, beaches, wineries, lighthouses etc., not necessarily in that order...)