Travel Diary: Days 10, 11, 12

We've made Melbourne and are currently enjoying the hospitality offered by Paul and Laura and the warmth of their central heating ;)

Paul & Lauras place

We had some big decisions to make in Sydney. We were quite a bit behind schedule and weren't sure how we were going to catch up, so we had to sit down and rethink our gameplan. From Sydney the plan was to head to Canberra, through the Snowies and onto Melbourne for a quick hello before heading to Tassie.

Safe and sound in Melbourne (Pauls scoot behind)

Paul coming home from work

We decided to skip Canberra for starters as the main reason we were heading there was to visit and old friend who was too busy anyway. The Snowies would have been nice, but we couldn't get any hard info from the Parks people about the road conditions, so we gave that the big flick and added it to the 'will do later' list. That only saved us a day and still left us behind schedule.

Based on when we had to be back in Melbourne, we would have to race through Tassie in about 3-4 days, cutting a lot of what we wanted to see there. This seemed like a real shame as from the beginning, Tassie was one of the places I really wanted to explore properly. So, race through Tassie in the shortest possile time, and tick it off our list, or come back later and do it properly?

What if we caught the Ferry direct from Sydney? A quick call to Cheryl at the 'Spirit of Tasmania' booking office confirmed the worst. As the service from Sydney is being wound up they are only sailing out once a week, and the next date we could go would be the following Sunday.

Ulick and I made or pro/con list and we ultimately decided that Tassie was too special to race through. We would have to come back and do it properly another time.

So... With a buffer of close to a week up our sleeves we made a beeline for Melbourne via Goulburn and Albury. By Goulburn I realised what we would really be missing in Tassie... COLD. It was dark by the time we pulled in. Due to a late start out of Sydney as I had to buy some warm riding pants we were racing the sunset and were beaten hands down. I pried my frozen fingers from my non-heated grips and realised I could not feel my thumb. My winter gloves are too big and I can't feel the levers through them so I opted for summery mitts with liners... a most stupid decision if i've ever made one.

Albury wasn't as cold. Probably due to the thick blanket of cloud that hung around all day. Not a lot to tell about Albury except that Germany beat Equador :) Who were the two idiots that decided that a trip around Oz during the world cup would be a good idea? We're catching a game here and there but it makes for some very slow starts in the mornings.

Bridge Road, Melbourne

So here we are in Melbourne where it's warm, where unlike Sydney the traffic does not want to kill you (intentionally anyway) the houses have central heating, rivers of Chocolate flow and the people all laugh with gumdrop smiles. (I'm happy we've made it this far so some observations may be skewed). And with a few days to work out why my bike continues to leaks oil.