October 26...

Hello friends and family! We are 10 days into our holiday to Australia, have 1,634 km. on the odometer, and want to give you a travel report.

We were fortunate to have arranged a Bikeshare this year with Dave Mason in Medowie, New South Wales. Special thanks to Tom Burklow and Trans-Atlantic Bikeshare (TABS) for the organizational skills. Dave and his partner Lyn have hosted us like old friends - special thanks to them and to Rob, who lended his 1984 BMW K100 RT to our tour. We were even treated to the sight of our first kangaroo in Dave's back yard at dusk!

After a few days enjoying being shown the area around Medowie (including Newcastle, Nelson Bay, Hunter Valley, etc., for those of you with Australia maps), we set our sights south toward Melbourne, Victoria, where Joni's Snohomish High School Class of '74 friend Wilma and her partner Doug Z. were waiting for us. We traveled along the Tasman Sea and took advantage of some wonderful camp sites - Kiama (gorgeous, complete with lighthouse and blowhole), Narooma, Marlo (where a friendly kookaburra went on a ride on a twirling clothesline which Don was spinning rather than give up his grasp on Joni's drying umbrella), and Waratah Bay (definitely we're off-season
campers, being one of only two at this campsite right on the bay). Other sights we've seen include Central Tilda, a tiny National Trust town with a chatty general store owner, and where sheep were being sheared right on the sidewalk; Wilsons Promontory National Park, the southernmost point of Australia, where we saw kangaroo, emu, echidna (a porcupine-like creature), wombat, lorikeet, not to mention breathtaking scenery of forest, bush and sea; and the State Coal Mine at Wonthaggi, where we literally went underground to appreciate this difficult way of making a living.

Today Wilma and Doug took us to Healesville Sanctuary, so we could see some of the animals we probably won't in the wild, such as platypus, Tasmanian devil, dingo, and the ever popular but elusive koala. And for the first time it REALLY rained off and on - as a matter of fact, Doug and Wilma are at this point making dinner and we can hear the rain pour outside. Oh well, they've been in a drought and need the replenishment. The sun has otherwise smiled on us for the most part, except for a little rain as previously alluded to as we camped at Marlo (but a German couple in a motor home next door felt sympathy for us and invited us in to share breakfast and
conversation).

This weekend - Philip Island and the penguin parade, Melbourne shops, and a house auction. We also will meet up with fellow BikeShare members Peter & Gudrun before we continue west on the Great Ocean Road. More to follow!

Don & Joni

October 31...

Hello everyone! It is now the first of November, and we are at a point where we will leave the wonderful ocean sights we've been blessed with and head north to the Grampians. Yesterday was an especially important day - on the long road out to the Cape Otway Lighthouse, we saw ten koalas up in the trees! What should have been a ½ hour round trip of driving easily stretched to 1 ½ hours. They're extremely cute but not very active, so it can be a challenge spotting them up in the trees.

We had a great visit with Wilma and Doug in Black Rock, near Melbourne. They showed us the City, the Healsville Sanctuary which we told you about
last time, and on Sunday we made the trip to Philip Island and saw a couple of amazing wildlife scenes. Seagulls were nesting all over at Seal Rock, and baby gulls of all ages plus protective parents were everywhere, much like a Hitchcock movie. And at dusk we were in the audience for the Penguin Parade, when tiny Fairy Penguins gather for safety in numbers and make a rush for the shore from the sea. It's a tough life for them. They're adorable!

Monday we had the pleasure of finally meeting Peter & Gudrun, fellow TABS BikeShare members. Many thanks to them for their wonderful hospitality, feeding us twice, and helping plan the remainder of our trip from the view of fellow motorcycle enthusiasts.

The past two days have been traveled on the Great Ocean Road, built as a remembrance for the Australians who served in WWI. Breathtaking scenery is everywhere. Toward the end of yesterday we stopped at all the limestone formations along the coast in this area, formed over thousands of years of the sea cutting at the land and forming all kinds of pillars and islands and arches, which will all disappear in time.

Today we're in the little fishing village of Port Fairy, will do some exploring and then head for the Crater Wildlife Refuge. We're having a great time, and hope all is well with you.

Don & Joni

November 11...

We're back to Medowie now, ready to fly out of Sydney tomorrow evening, Monday 12 November. We've had a great time, although rain has paid a few visits. People should pay us to be rainmakers when we visit their countries, especially when they've been in drought conditions as Australia has!

We'll write a more comprehensive report of our final days in this wonderful country once we've returned home.

Don & Joni

November 14...

Hello, friends and family! As promised, here is Chapter 3, the conclusion of our marvelous trip to The Land Down Under.

In our last e-mail we were communicating from the Port Fairy post office, in the State of Victoria. At that point, we headed north and away from the ocean for the Grampians National Park, where we made sure we gathered our groceries before heading in and camping in the primitive (as in no showers, mirrors, hot running water, garbage cans) Jimmy Creek Campground. You haven't lived until you're woken at night because kangaroo are busily thumping right past your tent! Victoria Parks has a rule that what you pack in you pack out, but Joni found herself in conflict over a piece of fat from her campstove steak. Garbage must be packed out, yet surely something would eat it if it were left. Politically ticklish problem met - a kookaburra swooped right alongside her head, landed in her plate, looked at her, and
made off with the fat! We thought we were special, until the next day at MacKenzie Falls a brazen kookaburra swiped a bicyclist's sandwich out of his hand just as he was about to take a bite.

We've had urban experiences, too. Ballarat is a town full of imposing, sturdy Victorian architecture, built on the back of the Australian Gold Rush. The nearby tourism attraction Sovereign Hill is just like an Old West Colonial Williamsburg (in Virginia USA), with costumed employees conversing with and educating visitors in the ways of gold mining and life in general in the mid-1800's. The schoolmarm was quite harsh with Joni, telling her that being left-handed was the mark of the devil and making her change her ink nib to her right hand immediately - Don was in total agreement!

It was Saturday, and the Melbourne Cup horse race was the following Tuesday. Many of you won't understand (we certainly didn't) that Melbourne Cup Day is considered a dress-up holiday by many, and many others use the holiday as an excuse to get away for a four day weekend. So when we searched for a place to pitch our tent in Echuca, on the Murray River, we were turned away from the first place we checked because they were full. However, the caravan park which did accept us figured we wouldn't take up too much room with a tent and motorcycle, and made room for us by having us share a site with someone else. Although the Murray River twists over a thousand miles before it reaches Echuca, the city was at one time Australia's largest inland port. Today it is home to the world's largest collection of
steamboats, and we went rollin' on the river on the "Emmylou". And remember the story from our first e-mail of the German couple who felt sorry for us at the soggy campground in Marlo, and invited us to share breakfast in their campervan? Almost two weeks later we encountered each other again as we were headed to the "Emmylou"! They had been to South Australia and back, and had another week to return the campervan to Sydney so they could fly to New Zealand. It can really be a small world, after all!

We next camped in the delightful town of Bright, which is a ski area in wintertime, for access to nearby Mount Buffalo National Park and marvelously spectacular views. We had hopes for much the same in the Snowy Mountains, but they were the rainy and overcast mountains when we went through. We figured if we were going to get wet it might as well be by the ocean, so we put in the heaviest mileage day to get to Malua Bay and a terrific little kitchen-equipped motel which would have slept seven in our unit. What fun it would have been to have friends and family together to watch the fierce thunder and lightning storm to which we were treated as we happily munched our pizza from the café next door!

Saving the potentially most challenging visit for last, we rode the motorcycle right into downtown Sydney via the Princes Highway and Royal National Park to the Tourist Information (TI) at The Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney. We can't praise the helpful staff enough. They found us a wonderfully central hotel for not that much money (our splurge at $104 AU per night, that's about $52 US), with secured underground parking for the motorcycle. We used the hotel as our base to walk, walk, walk. Over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, completed in 1932 (over, but not on - there's a thrill-seeking bridge climb where you can pay $125 - $175 AU per person to literally walk over the top girders of the bridge). Around and around the Opera House, an icon now but a way-over-budget scandal in its time. Along the busy streets of the Central Business District, where the official uniform seems to be in the color black. And we rode the efficient ferry system for some wonderful waterside sightseeing, both day and night.

All good things must come to an end, of course, and our hosts Dave and Lyn welcomed the American travelers back to Medowie with activities including a visit to a few of the seemingly endless wineries in the Hunter Valley. We can't thank Dave and Lyn enough for hosting us, and Rob and Sue for lending us our trusty BMW ride.

Lyn took us to the railroad station Monday 12 November so we could make our journey back to Sydney Airport and home. Lyn, you'll be surprised to learn that Australia didn't see the backs of us that day!
A note to everyone, post-September 11 don't take anything for granted; just because you've got an airline ticket it doesn't mean you've got a ride. We arrived in plenty of time to catch our 7:00 PM Qantas flight, only to be told that for now Qantas has canceled that flight. They managed to notify everyone but us - because we had purchased the tickets over Expedia.com Qantas didn't have any contact information! But they were more than kind to us, and instead of righteously scolding us for not calling to confirm they booked us on the
3:45 flight the next day and put us up at their expense at the Sydney Airport Hilton, including dinner and breakfast and a three minute
international call. That worked great for us! We were able to take the train and make it into Sydney one more time, to climb the AMP Tower to get views of this beautiful city from its highest point (the weather hadn't been clear enough the previous days to make the trip worthwhile).

Now we're home, with a month's worth of mail to sort. Many thanks to Jeremy, who babysat the house and cats while we were away. Jeremy filled this valuable role last year, but in September we added a spirited Siamese kitten named Peter, a roadside find, to our more mature feline combo of Teddie and Benjamin. Judging from the note Jeremy left, Peter proved to be a mischievous handful. Hope this doesn't put Jeremy off for next time!

Until next time... Don & Joni