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
Got up today and was put to work pretty fast. They wanted me to whip up some breakfast for the five of us. Some customers came and ordered food in just as I was finishing the breakfasts. The kitchen was a bit of mayhem since nobody really knew where anything was.
Spent the rest of the afternoon doing my required task of setting up the computer and moving furniture. Around 6pm Kevin found me outside and asked if I could make some about 10 teas for everyone. I thought it was an odd request but I still got everything set up. Kevin walked into the kitchen a bit later and said "no...steaks! T-Bone steaks...'T's'... what do you call them in the States?" "Steaks" I replied. Ended up being hamburgers that I had to cook...because then I could bust out my long lost burger skills from 10 years ago when I worked at the Red Robin. It was funny how I never really forgot it. I had to cook for about ten people so there was a lot to do. It was actually just like the restaurant in that I had a zillion things going on at once and started delegating orders out to the owners (e.g. "figure out how to get the damn stove working... need to keep stuff warm!"). After probably the busiest hour I've had in the last six months, I had everything done. Everyone liked the food and said "not bad for a Yank"...that was pretty cool.
Sounds like tomorrow is going to be quite an event...glad I'm sticking around. Went out by the fire, a couple of guys were talking about common experiences with their past wives..."second one did that...yeah, my third one did that!", it was pretty cool.