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Biking Around Australia

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.

This is the route I took around Australia. Every few days I would update this YHA map with a marker and the route I more or less made up as I went along.
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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).

February 12th, 2002 - 3:50pm
March 12th, 2003 - 3:12pm
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I carried a 15 pound IBM Thinkpad 600E with five batteries over the course of the entire trip in order to keep this website updated on a weekly basis so people back home could follow me on my travels. I had a system setup where I'd back the photos up to CDs and mail them home every few weeks. To update the site, I primarily did it with 3.5 inch floppy disks. There are 542 daily journal entries on here. I redid the website in 2020 so it would show up on phones and such ok. I took 36,304 photos over the 17 months and 12321 of them ended up here on this website. As for the words, there are 119527 of them for you to read. I didn't start active journaling until a couple months into the journey. I've noted where I've added journal entries way after the fact based on recollections or notes I had from the time. Some people have actually read the the entire site and have seen every picture. Some entries were written the same day, others were not. Some entires are a thought-provoking and a wholly entertaining read, others are downright boring.
Lunky.com website 2001-2020


The MS Paint image I updated every few days
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Also during the journey I carried a cardboard "clock" for this website I had started a year earlier called The Human Clock. Here it is on the Queensland/Northern Territory border
The Human Clock website was pretty popular then and it plus my bike trip got a quick blurb in the Sunday Times of London in September of 2002
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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.

This was also back when the GPS looked nice
Standing at 18°S 142°E
Thanks for reading!
Craig
November 25th, 2002
day-297_wooramel-roadhouse-to-1km-s-of-overlander-roadhouse
Western AustraliaWooramel Roadhouse to 1km s of Overlander Roadhouse
79.57 km today
14269.88 km total
49.3 mi today
8847 mi total

Woke up to the sound of a bunch of red golala birds (sp?) all chirping away. They were picking around the ground, sometimes burying their little red heads into the dirt. They of course all shrieked and flew off when they saw me pop out of the tent. Did the coffee ritural and then loaded up the bike. Carrying the bike out to the road followed by three trips of crap hauling sucks...but tyres with 15 thorns in them sucks even more.

Found Simon in the caravan park. He met a guy there last night who fed him goat meat...apparently it is pretty good from what Simon says. Spent awhile at the roadhouse eating a veggie burger for breakfast followed by 1/2 ton of other food. Simon was taking today off. We were both writing email when these two cute Austrian girls sat by us. "Can I ask you a question...why the HECK do you bike all the way out here?!", they asked. After they left Simon pointed out that his riding overalls look basically like dirty pajamas...not the best clothes for flirting with girls.

I rode on out of the roadhouse, probably see Simon in Geraldton. A car passed me with a big "oversize vehicle ahead" sign on top. I got off the road and a semi-truck drove by with a large crane on the back. About ten minutes later the pilot car and crane were pulled off the road. They waved as I rode past so I turned on in. Talked with the two guys for awhile, they gave me cold water and a couple chicken sandwiches. One of the guys asked where I was from and said that he had been to Washington State in the US.

"Seattle, Spokane. the Tri-Cities, Richland, Kennwick.....", he said.

"and Pasco", I said. He laughed and said that was where the crane was from, from the Tri-Cities. It was really weird to be all the way out here and have him mention in detail about places a couple hours away from my home.

I passed a couple 20-something tour bus vans (20-something as in their passenger age) were parked. I talked to the one of the guys, thought about hitting them up for a clock photo but didn't...was kicking myself later because it would have made for a good photo.

Spent most of the day just riding along looking for license plates, found about four today, including one from Tasmania!

Later down the line a couple guys passed me and turned around. They gave me a cold beer and we talked for awhile...I got a clock pic this time.

Pushed it on into the Overlander Roadhouse. It was sure a lot faster ride today, nearly about twice as fast. My plan to just get water and go failed miserably. I ended up with a veggie burger/fries and an ice cream bar. Oh well, at least I don't have to eat noodles with tunafish tonight!

November 25th, 2002
79.57km
49.3mi