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
Man, I really need to get a map so I can put these placenames down...
Had a nice day of doing not really anything. I didn't have too many of these in Australia since there always was a goal ahead of me. Now it is kinda just do whatever, which is kinda nice.
Finished reading fast food nation, quite a book and well worth a read. In the afternoon I headed out to bike up the mountain. From where we are camped I could see a road switchbacking up a mountain. I got stuff ready and headed out. It was a nice ride up the mountain. The ski information whiteboard at the bottom was still dated September 29th 2002 "thanks for a great season!".
It was a nice ride up the hill, but I wish I would have left an hour earlier, cause the sun went down before I had a chance to get to the top. I ended up hiking straight up the hill and carrying the bike on my back. (only had a few things with me, not all the stuff). That wore me out and I stuck to the road. I kept scaring several sheep that were randomly placed on the mountain. Right before the end of dusk I reached the base of the Ohay ski area. Turns out it is all the way up this road, not down at the bottom like I thought. It was about 1500m up there, so I must have had a good 1000m climb up here. Took a few pictures and headed down the mountain in the dark. I had just one of the LED lights with me but that was enough. Sometimes I'd come up on packs of sheep and they'd run ahead of me until one decided he'd had enough and go down over the edge...with the others soon following. After misjudging a creek crossing an soaking one foot, I was back on the road. Biked back to camp (listening to Guns and Roses even) Got back to camp and MCQ was in his tent...sick. He things he has food poisioning or something. Tomorrow if he feels well, we will bike to the next town and find somewhere to stay till things get better.