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 all packed up, left a few thank you nottes for Robin...talked to him awhile and then headed out.
We rode an entire 2km and stopped at a bakery. The ride was nice today, I soon had to strip off my warm clothes due to all the hill climbing. There was a big car rally going on and we wanted to get to Queenstown before all the kiddies driving back from the rally wanted to drive like the rally car drivers. We passed the famous fence of bras, I counted 674 of them.
Got into Queenstown and went to the holiday park. The place was huge, the "reception" was more like the lobby of a major hotel. We met a couple girls Claire and Lily, they traded a bunch of drinks for use of my cooking pot. We all went downtown to the pubs, I took a handful of clock pictures. MCQ and I went to get Chinese Food at the Ho Hum. (I dunno what the place was actually called).
Later on we ended up at this other pub that specialized in CCR and RHCP music. Though, I did hear Dinosaur Jr..'s "Feel the Pain" which was a bit unexpected. They had a bunch of North American license plates on the wall, including a Mt. Rainier version of Washington. Met American #35 (or something) outside, Amanda from North Carolina. (hi!) We got into a bit of a discussion over who sang "Boys of Summer". I said Don Henley, she said Bryan Adams. I assured her I was correct and I really didn't want to explain why. (see, I can be cool, otherwise I would have backed up my claim that the song was on Don Henley's second solo album from the Eagles, "Building the Perfect Beast", released in 1984 on Geffen Records) (again, when you grow up with only the radio for musical influence, you have to make do with what you have).
MCQ and I headed back to camp. A bunch of people where all hanging out in Tad's van (not doing what most people when they hang out in a van, they were discussing movies). I took a clock picture and after all of us reciting every line from Office Space we called it a night.