Bunnings Camden the next day, without the trailer of course!

The end of Our Tour around Australia and the start of our Next Chapter

On the 5th January 2011 we completed our tour around Australia in the same Bunnings car park we started from. We road 22 653 km and it took us 5 months to complete our journey. It has been an awesome experience and we arrived home more in love than when we left.  

We will come back to our blog readers from Tamworth Country festival.

Thank you to all the readers for sharing our journey with us!

Echuca to Camden our last day

Echuca is an exciting Murray River town where the river boats depart from and it is full of restaurants, cafes and quaint B&Bs. We stayed at the River Gallery Inn enjoying a lovely Greek meal at Nicks.
 A fitting place for our final dinner and I enjoyed it. My diet sure has changed from the pub steaks I used to eat most nights 12 months ago!!

We only stayed for one night and didn't have time to explore the town fully, but we did have time to buy a couple of things for our future home. We will come back and explore this whole area more at another time. Back on the road the following morning. 

There were big problems with the tow bar and being a public holiday I was concerned we would be stuck here but Bunnings was open so I replaced the strap that was broken.

We had purchased a Horse Float on eBay and again God was watching over us because Mick the guy we bought it off said pop in and I will weld it for you as he lives in Albury. He spent a good hour welding the broken parts .

 It was around 4pm before we could commence our final part of the journey. 

We checked the tow-bar as we traveled and it looked good initially. Around 10PM we drove into Bundanoon Motel and it was foggy and wet as the GPS had taken us a short cut along a dirt road!!!! The trailer was hanging on by a thread and almost touching the ground.  When we got off the bike it was completely broken on one side and on the other one small piece was all that was left. We could not have gone another km and we were certainly carried home in the hands of God as there is no other explanation. I totally dismantled the tow-bar the following morning, never to be used again and I will do my best to prevent others from towing a trailer on a bike in the future.
I have since found out this happens all the time and there were 80 Accidents involving  bikes with trailers on the way to and from the Ulysses Agm.
In the morning we will do the short ride to Bunnings without the trailer .

Horsham to Echuca

We took off from Horsham following the GPS that lead us along small country roads towards Echuca. 

We were traveling along the huge wheat fields again and the farmers were harvesting.
 We stopped by the roadside to photograph a combined harvester.
 The farmer stopped and invited us in for a ride.
 This was an amazing experience as the whole process is very automated. A GPS did the steering and other technology monitored everything from the moisture in the wheat to how many tones per acre etc etc  .
The Farmer was a third generation farmer and was very happy. This was the best crop in his life time returning 2 tonnes to the acre at a price of $360 per tonne. He has 6000 acres meaning a pay day of $4,000,000 and he also has 2500 sheep.
It was good to see a farmer not whinging! He said they were debt free and had just bought the neighbours farm so now he had something to pay off.
The Combined harvester was worth $500,000 to replace and is worth every penny. The machine does the harvesting, spitting out the wheat into a big bin on a tractor with the chaff being left on the ground for the sheep to eat at a later stage . The tractor offloads onto moveable silos. Trucks were then coming and transporting the wheat to the main depots.

We stopped for lunch in a rest area and discovered that the tow-bar was in a very bad condition. Graeme needed some wire to make up for the broken welds and turning around he found exactly what he was looking for a few meters away. Needless to say we thanked God and prayed before we continued our journey. 

One broken part, amongst many!!

Handorf to Horsham and the Salmela family

We Caught up with Nicole and Marko and our 2 boys in Horsham. Graeme gave them a quick ride on his bike and we relaxed enjoying their company and Nicole's great cooking .
We saw in the New Year getting to bed at 2.30 am and stayed 3 nights before heading to Echuca for our last night before Sydney and the end of this amazing trip.

Nicole, Marko and our God sons Sebastian and Elijah

We had a great couple of days here, talking, eating, walking and even visiting a farm with a couple of horses. It was a good rest before we embarked on the last leg of our trip back to Camden outside Sydney where we commenced our trip.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wishing all our blog readers a Very Happy New Year and may 2011 be a GREAT year for you all!

Graeme and Marie-Louise

Yorke Peninsula and Christmas 2010

We were traveling along enormous grain fields as we rode up and down the Eyre Peninsula and then down the Yorke Peninsula. It is the middle of harvesting and millions of tonnes of grain are filling up trucks, trains, and big silos. It is so interesting to see and ponder that this is the start of the bread loaves we buy in the supermarket. I wouldn't like to be a farmer here, the fields are so big. Driving a big harvester day in and day out, you still wouldn't feel you are getting anywhere! 

 

 We arrived at Marion Bay on 22nd Dec, where Heather and Bill where waiting and welcomed us into their beautiful home, which became our "home away from home" over Christmas. 

We had some great fellowship together before they took off to Adeleide to celebrate Christmas with family for a few days and they returned on the 26th Dec.


Kylie arrived from Melbourne on Christmas Eve in her hire car from Adelaide airport and kept us entertained for the next few days. We had a Swedish style Christmas dinner with Christmas carols from the Sydney Music Bowl in Melbourne, compliments of Channel 9.

 

We explored the Peninsula and the Innes National Park 
and enjoyed more breathtaking views. We have become so spoilt and have seen so much. We are never taking it for granted, we are very thankful every day for the privilege of traveling around like this.

 All good things come to an end and soon the time came for us to move on so we could make it to Horsham and the Salmela family for New Years celebrations. We traveled to the German township of Hanhdorf in the Adelaide Hills, which was an easy distance of about 300 km. We had booked into a really nice motel right on the main street. The place was filled with holiday makers and cafés and shops of all kinds

However the main memory of Handorf would be our visits to Gale and Jim who's residence was no 85 on the main street. At the back of the house was the biggest surprise, a farm in the middle of this busy town. 

On the 30th Dec we continue our journey towards Horsham and we are getting closer and closer to home. We will have a very busy month in January with Tamworth Country festival and our soon upcoming wedding!!

Crossing the Nullabor

This is what crossing the Nullabor is like. Endless plains, no wildlife, desert and Road Trains on a straight road. We knew we had a couple of tough days ahead of us and we weren't wrong. Up early and ride all day, check in at a room in a Road House, have dinner, sleep and up early again and continue the process.

Our headphones have also gradually broken down, from two to one ear and then to nothing so we couldn't speak to each other. It was brain numbing to travel like this, hour after hour with the same scenery and it was also freezing cold, where did the summer go? We rugged up with all the clothes we could. We used our ipods as well as we could to have some entertainment and finally we are on the other side.

 

Graeme is doing a fantastic job driving all the time.  

Some pictures from the Nullabor Road House, the yard is massive. We saw sheep being reloaded from one Road Train to another, four levels on each train. They were going to new pastures and not to the slaughter house.

We arrived at Streaky Bay last night and today we traveled down the beautiful Eyre Peninsula to Port Lincoln where we are staying the night in a big comfortable self contained unit . Could easily stay here for a few days but we have to get to Marion Bay where Heather and Bill are waiting for us so we keep traveling for two more days before we are stopping for Christmas.

We so enjoyed our stay at the lovely Yardarm B&B, Ken and Judy made us so welcome.

Add  to this the beautiful self contained room with magnificent views and all for $99.
Stay with them if you are ever in this part of the world 08 8683 0984 (International Code +61886830984)
www.yardarmpress.com/yardarm/bedandbreakfast.htm

Eire Peninsula

Australia is a massive continent, and we will have soon ridden all around it, 19600 km so far. Now we are traveling east and towards home!

Together 24/7 and it is magic!

Margaret River and Albany

Albany is a beautiful town, very spread out over the hills and along the seashore. 
We didn't have much opportunity to explore it as we from time to time have to attend to the normal businesses of life, but thankfully we can attend to most things from a distance due to the internet and with Frances' assistance.


We did  run our business affairs from a most beautiful B&B, Finders Park Lodge. The surrounding park lands with silver birches reminded me of Sweden in summer. The temperatures did too, we have gone from hot to cold and very cold. 

We enjoyed the nice rooms, good service and rested a bit as we will not have this luxury for the next week, crossing the Nullabor, with many km to cover every day.

Our bedroom

 We visited the whale museum, which is the real site from which whaling took place between 1952-1978 before it stopped in all of Australia. It was very interesting and if you come here in the right season and are lucky, you can spot whales from the shore.

Skeleton of a blue pygmy whale, 22m long

Blue whale much bigger than the pygmy up to 29 m

Sperm whale

 

We visited Margaret River for a couple of days prior to Albany and met up with John and Anne from our Hog Chapter which was really enjoyable. We took a tour to Xanadu Winery where there is going to be an international HOG rally between 17th-19th Nov 2011.

We will be back in Nov 2011