Between February 2002 and March 2003 I circumnavigated 12,504 miles around the Australian continent on my bicycle, or push bike as they say there. After that I went to New Zealand for three months and met up with a friend and ended up pushing the total mileage to 14,115.7 miles (22717.02 km). I spent 269 days on my bike, 272 days not on my bike, and getting 67 flat tires over those 17 months.
I started and ended my 13 month lap around Australia at Luna Park in St. Kilda/Melbourne.. The distance around Australia (including Tasmania) ended up being about 20,281km (12,600 miles).
One fun thing I did during my trip was to visit six "confluences", which is where a whole-numbered latitude/longitude mark intersects for The Degree Confluence Project.
Craig
Finally got up before daylight this morning. Had to throw all my stuff out into the rugby field to pack it, too hard to pack in the brush. Made my coffee in the inzone and was off awhile later. Had a nice ride through the morning, except for hitting a rock square on with my front tire and getting a flat. Stopped at the bakery in Lismore. A guy saw that I was touring and asked me a few questions. After finding out that I was an American, he asked me about the whole September 11th thing. He said everyone down here seemed pretty concerned about it.
After Lismore the nice country road stayed just that, except the traffic increased 100-fold. I stopped to talk to a guy for awhile and we could barely hear each other. Eventually I made my way to Byron Bay. I went to the hostel and found out that the package of bike parts Kevin mailed to me was returned a day earlier...since they didn't think I was coming! More stuff to do down the line. Byron Bay is kind of nice, but it is full on marketed to the 18-30 crowd...so that gets to be a little much, at least net access is cheap. Going to stay at the Arts Factory hostel tomorrow, it looks a little more interesting than the one I'm at now.