Hello all,

Another blog but this time from within Australia. I planned to visit my daughter/son in law and grandchildren this month and thought why not combine this with a relaxed trip via roads I have read about in a variety of motorcycle magazines. My daughter lives close to Canberra (between Sydney and Melbourne) and with close proximity to the Australian Alps. As usual I will be riding my motorcycle in favour of using a car because, although the destination is important, the journey should be as pleasurable as can be. So where am I going this time?

Australia is larger than most people realise. I have included some statistics to give you an idea of the size of this country and the distances you have to cover to get anywhere. (Although I have readers in many European countries including Russia and also in Vietnam I have taken The Netherlands (Holland) as a comparison.)

The map shows Europe inside Australia to provide an overview. The CIA world fact book ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publication s/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html ) ,is a very interesting site which provides everything you want to know about every country in the world, you can look up following information for yourself and about your own country (if applicable)

Australia measures 7.618 million km2 (land only) and Holland 33.800 km2 (land only. Australia has a population of 22.5 million and Holland 16.8 million. (About 2.8 persons per km2 against 400 per km2.) In Aus most people live in the cities along the coast.

Sydney 4.5 mill; Melbourne 4 mill; Brisbane 2 mill, Adelaide 1.2mill; Perth 1.6 mill. Canberra 400.000, (that's nearly 14million already.) From that you can gather that the country is pretty empty of people once you are away from the coastal area. For the benefit of my friends from the Netherlands I have included the CIA basic Australian map. Just south of mainland Australia is the state island of Tasmania. This island measures about 68,400 km2; from this you can see that The Netherlands will fit twice inside the size of Tasmania (the population of Tasmania is only 400.000)

The distances are vast compared to other countries, for example: Brisbane-Cairns 1770 km, Brisbane –Sydney approx 1000km and Sydney-Melbourne also approx 1000 km. To compare: London-to the top of Scotland is 1100 km; Paris-Madrid 1250 km; St Petersburg-Moscow 700 km and Saigon-Hanoi approx 1700 km; and for my Austrian friends- Innsbruck-Belgrade 900 km

The route I will take will be the scenic "Waterfall Way" near Coffs Harbour and the famous Oxley Highway between Port Macquarie and Walcha. The interesting “Putty Road” which runs through gorges and along the top end ridge of a mountain range and end up in Windsor near Sydney. Then various passes in the Australian Alps and another famous road called The Great Ocean Road which runs along the south coast from Melbourne towards the South Australian border. All this on the way down or on the return journey. For those interested in motorcycles: I now ride a BMW R1200RT. Towards the end of the trip I will do an appraisal of this machine.

I hope you enjoy the ride...