Well what a ride so far! Just rode over here to melb from perth in 7 days, result, sore back! Great ride though especially along the great ocean road, absolutely awesome!

It was an emotional goodbye to mum and dadlast monday as i pulled my bike out of the shed at about 9am into puring rain. After much deliberating it was decided that i would head off anyway rather than waiting for the weather to clear. By the time i had travelled 9 km up the road to the fuel station i was saoked and had left a large puddle of water on the floor while paying for the fuel. It rained all morning till luchtime when i got to merredin. Thats when the cyclonic wind started. It was a head wind that brought my mileage down from 21km/L to 16km/L and meant i had to wrestle with the bike to keep it going straight, and control it when stray sheep were jumpin gout at me! The whole world seemed to be filled with dust from the paddocks! At least though the dry wind dried me out - and filled me with dust! About 650km after leaving home i arrived at Brett and Jo's in Kalgoorlie. They were fantastic, we had a few beers, shot the s*** and i highly reccomend Jo's couscous! A good sleep in a comfy bed then south to Norseman then just a left turn East for the long haul. Pulled up after about 500km and camped. s***ty weather off and on during the day and it began raining again just as i was cooking dinner. All good practice i guess for russia! Wednesday was much of the same, s***ty weather off and on, strong cross winds but a few stops to check out the views of the Great Australian Bight and to rest my bum. Camped again, the difficuilt part being to find shelter behind the sparse trees to get some shelter from the bloody wind! The highlight of these 2 days being riding off into the scrub to look for a place to set up camp, beats driving in a straight line for 7 hours a day anyway!

Thursday i set off towards Ceduna. Made pretty good time and managed to arrive in town about 3.30pm thinking i would find a hostel and be able to rest a while during the afternoon. Called into the tourist info centre to find that there is in fact no longer a hostel in town and that there is another time change forward of 1.45 hrs that was not signposted! Got into the caravan park, went for a walk, and managed to push my way through the local townsfolk to the bottleshop to get a coupla beers to get on with my rest and recouperation!

Friday turned out to be a big days riding. Decided to push through to Adelaide rather than stay at Port Augusta as originally planned to be able to catch up with a mate of mine Jeremy. Began riding at 8am and didnt stop apart to re modify the wind visor to try and change the amount of wind that was smashing me in the face. This meant using the front cover of my australian map book in place of the plastic visor that was meant to be there. The afternoon never seemed to come to a close and i arrived a bit after dark at Jeremy's place in the hills just behind adelaide. Quite tricky finding your way through some of those roads, because as i found out you cannot really hold a map in one hand and ride a bike at the same time, like you can in a car! Anyways he was on his way home from work and drove past, i made it to just around the corner anyway! We went out to the local for a couple of drinks which on this evening turned out to be full of 'rough' looking patrons.

Saturday saw me rise a little after Jez had left for work with a bit of a sore head. Walked into the house and met his sister who showed me where to make a coffee. I followed her to work at a little carage in the hills because i needed to top the bike up with oil and she works at the front desk of the local garage. Thanks Penelope! Those directions got me outta town without a drama too! I headed through many more towns than i had become accustomed to but by about 4.30 i had had enough of being on the bike, sat down on a grassy area just outside of a town and lay down on the side of the road. That was me done for the day. There was a caravan park across the road and i moved myself into there and got setup, i think Penola was the name of the town. Met some of the local caravan park residents and cooked myself the meal of the year on a camping stove ( and a barbecue i found in the park!)

Sunday i woke up to another time change as day light saving disappeared here and i decided to push for Melbourne to get to Toms place. The weather came good and the riding became blissful. Made it to the south coast and began tearing along the great ocean road. What a day and how good to be going around bends in the road again! Enjoyed every minute of it, although didnt stop too long to take pics, enjoying the riding too much. Much quicker to travel roads like this on a bike than it is by car, as those of you with a bike will know. Made it to Albert Park in Melbourne about 7pm and pulled into the garage of Toms place to complete leg one of this journey. First things first though, we went out and got some beers, and a couple of large take away lasagnes , just like the boat building days! And oh how fantastic it is to be back out of the wind and have a comfortable place to sleep!