Australia - North of Adelaide. Day 128 ( 11,610 miles)

Before Vic and Stew headed back home from Adelaide we visited Bjoern and Sigrid who bought Stew’s last bike (a Suzuki DR650) in preparation for their own ‘Big Trip’ planned for 2012. John and I ended up staying with them for 3 days! They are lovely people who made us feel incredibly welcome.

 

Sigrid, Bjoern and us at their local Thai restaurant (very nice!)

 

From Adelaide we headed north through the Clare Valley which is another wine region. No time for tastings unfortunately! Auburn was a quaint little place we stopped for a bum break.



There must be many small churches in Australia with tiny congregations (unless they let the sheep in) we have seen many in areas with absolutely no houses.

Off road in the Flinders Ranges National Park.

Our first emu sighting! They ran along in front of us for sometime before heading off.




We camped in the Flinders for a couple of days, our first evening we walked to a spot that had been a farmers homestead 150 years ago, the building was derelict but has been rebuilt as a monument to the farmers. Their story was a constant battle against drought, flood and plagues of locusts!



The carving is at a spot that has spiritual significance for the Aboriginal people.





We watched the sunset with a glass of wine, then back to camp for………..

Fine dining!

The next day we hiked to a high point to view part of the Wilpena Pound, this is a continuous ring of hills that form a circle. To get the best views you need to take a scenic flight but our budget wouldn’t stretch to this.

We did however see lots of lizards and this bendy Yucca that John liked. We met two girls who were surveying the lizard population hence the number 42. Although it would be no surprise if lizard racing was another thing that Aussies bet on!





We walked down in rain, thunder and lightening.

Flinders Ranges NP, Camp McComb.

Australia - The Great Ocean Road and oceans of wine. Day 122 (11,089 miles)

Vic, Stew and John as we set off from Sydney on our trip that would finish 10 days later in Adelaide. They are standing in the shade as the midmorning temperature was already about 85F/29C.

30 km into the journey in the middle lane of the motorway Stew’s bike got a back tyre puncture. He did brilliantly to get to an upright standstill from 80 km with Vic and a load of luggage on the bike. Luckily we were behind him and were able to slow down the traffic following us but there was lots of horn hooting and gesticulating from drivers who had to get round us. Definitely didn’t do Stew’s blood pressure any good! Vic was very calm, we think she had wine in her Camelbak.

We eventually got on our way 6 hours later after a temporary fix to get us to a garage then a wait for a new tyre to be taxi’d across Sydney. By the end of the day both guys had gained plenty of experience changing tyres on the Tenere.





Jervis Bay, a pretty spot in south New South Wales. We would have gone out on a Dolphin Watching boat but our delays the previous day meant we had to push on.



Obliging wildlife providing a good photo opportunity.

Why did we do it? We sent Vic out to get groceries and this is what she came back with!

Quite a change in the weather, we spent the next few days in fleeces and waterproofs.

Sorrento beach.

The Sorrento to Queenscliff ferry, this is a short journey across Prince Phillip Bay in Victoria which cut out a few hours journey round Melbourne and allowed us to stick to the coast road and enjoy the scenery.

We stopped at a place called Kennet River where you can see Koalas in the wild, so here’s a photo of a little cutey and although we had heard plenty this is also our first sighting of a Kookaburra.



We spent the night in a cabin at the Great Ocean Road Wilderness Park, lovely views and really quiet. Pasta, wine and a cosy night in front of the wood burning stove. The weather pattern at this time was cool but bright and sunny in the morning getting cloudy and wetter in the afternoon so we planned to be up early the next day to hopefully view the sites along the Great Ocean Road in the sunshine.

Luckily the plan worked, it was a beautiful morning. This is the Twelve Apostles



The Arches (use your imagination!)

Arty flora shot by John.

London Bridge

The Grotto



Well, there hasn’t been a bike picture for a while.

Arriving in the Barossa Valley SA wine region.



Vic and Stew kindly took us to a very nice restaurant called 1918 in Tanunda as an early Christmas present. It was way better than the camping meals that have been our staple diet for the last few months. There didn’t appear to be Peanut Butter in any of the dishes!
Absolutely delicious food along with the great Aussie attitude of as long as you can pay for dinner you can wear what you like which is very useful considering our meagre wardrobe.

We also love the idea of BYO bring your own alcohol, there are lots of restaurants all over the place where you can pay a small corkage and take what you want. Very sensible!



Vic had done a sterling job planning which wineries we would visit for tastings and also transport so we could all take part. On this day we visited 5 wineries and tasted about 30 wines. Needless to say I (Jane) needed a bit of a lie down afterwards!

Our accommodation in Tanunda, many shades of brown!

Vic and Stew have now headed back to Sydney (we miss you already).

Hi to John who we met in the Canarvon Gorge up in Queensland earlier in our trip and caught up with again this week in Dromana. It was lovely to see you, wish we’d taken a photo for the blog!

Australia - John’s half century. Day 115 (10,281 miles)

Sorry for the delay in posting this update but as we experienced in the north of Oz most of the campsites don’t have wifi so it means we are unable to upload the pictures and do the blog.

Also, just in case some of our readers are unaware if you double click on the individual picture it will enlarge and then if you use the back arrow (top left of screen) you will return to the blog.

Anyway……

We arrived in Sydney to spend a couple of weeks with Vic and Stew, to celebrate John’s 50th and prepare the bike for the next few thousand miles.

Our first day in Sydney we took the ferry from Manly to Circular Quay, these are some views around Sydney Harbour.











The Prime Minister’s Sydney residence, a nice waterside spot worth a few million dollars.

Jane, Skippy and Vic.

The obligatory picture of the harbour bridge.

Harbour bridge at night (you could probably work that out for yourselves!).

Jessica Watson a 16 year old Aussie recently completed a solo round the world trip on this boat.

The daily fish market is amazing, certainly puts Sainsbury’s fish counter to shame. We bought a good selection and had a spectacular fish BBQ for dinner that night.

These creatures are called "Bugs", about 7" long, they are a marine animal and taste just like Crayfish, very nice.



John and I took a guided tour of the Opera House, good tour, really informative. When the project to build first started the budget cost was $ AUS 7 million actual spend was $ AUS 102 million, expected time frame was 3 years but actual was 16 years! Even with this mega overspend the building was paid for 18 months after opening as the government ran an Opera House lottery and Aussies love to gamble.

















Thank you to the NRRA, apologies to anyone frightened by Jane’s feet.

For John’s birthday Stew had arranged an amazing surprise, we had our own 38 foot boat for the day to cruise around the harbour. What a treat.

Vic and Jane trying to look like they own the boat!

The weather was much better than forecast, a perfect day to be out on the water.





At the current exchange rate this boat bought new would cost about the same as our house!

For lunch we went to the fish market again, this time arriving the classy way by boat. Lunch was seafood and champagne, what a chore!





For dinner we went out for a lovely Thai meal. Beth and Duncan, good friends of Vic and Stew came too. We had a great day and night, every Monday should be like this!



The Aussie way to get the message across!

Various views along the coast line from Tamarama to Bondi, they have a sculpture exhibition each year.














Next instalment will be Sydney to Adelaide, Stew and Vic also have a Tenere 660 so the four of us are setting off for a road trip.