Scott Foote, one of the two guys who rode our bikes back across the Nullarbor to complete, vicariously, our circumnavigation of Australia sent the story of their return from Perth to Southport and these photos just now, so you can see that the bikes completed our trip too . . . It makes a huge lump in our stomachs seeing the bikes again looking so good . . . like we should just be able to hop back on them and ride away into the sunset. My shoulder is much better now too, so I don't even have medical logic to [View Full Entry]

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Well, I guess this is it. We've actually made it home in one piece! The doc says I'll live, too. My shoulder should come right within a year if I can stay off a bike. So we bought a couple cheap cars (inlcuding an old MG convertible to help us get over the loss we still feel intensely). We've now got a phone and are back on the internet too (as of today, hence the long delay after our last blog entry), For those who are wondering, our email address is still: wellsnz@xtra.co.nz and our phone is back the same as [View Full Entry]

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Sydney is better than expected. It seems to have matured a lot (or maybe it's us!) in the ten years since we last visited. It seems even more grand in scale this time and impressive in its detail. We've spent the last three days enjoying the museums, the galleries and the gardens, going non-stop. Now we're exhausted but pleased we came here to say goodbye to this amazing country and our trip of a lifetime. [View Full Entry]

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Crossing the Nullarbor was amazing. The plains are as impressive as we’d imagined; spectacular for their sheer size and emptiness (apart from an occasional camel, emu, kangaroo or dingo). Hard to believe across one part we travelled at speed for nearly 5 hours without making a single turn. And the whistle-stop tours of Adelaide and Broken Hill were fun. We thought after all the nights we have spent in our tent we could easily handle 3 nights in “day-nighter” seats instead of getting a sleeper, but our bodies never really fit the aging Philadelphia designed Budd cars. Next tim [View Full Entry]

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Despite heavy rain last night we actually made it to Antony Gormely’s “Inside Australia” artwork, out on a “dry” lake bed in the middle of nowhere 180 kms north of Kalgoorlie this afternoon. Started east on the Indian Pacific train on Sunday, but after 11 hours got off in this large gold mining town for a few days and rented a 4WD land cruiser. We left our foot prints all across the lake bed as we tramped from one cast sculpture to another on the bleak but breathtaking landscape. In Kalgoorlie we looked down into the giant open cast gold mine [View Full Entry]

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Whew, that was harder than I thought it would be, like saying goodbye to two close friends. Thankfully the bikes have gone to two people who sound like they will enjoy them as much as we have; from Brisbane, believe it or not . . . even know Rick Gard (They saw our ad on the internet and then read this blog site). They’re flying over here next week (after we’ve left) to ride them back across the Nullabor (which we’ll now do by train) . . . . Dodging heavy showers and huge gusts of wind getting them down to [View Full Entry]

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South west Australia is beautiful. Rolling hills, lakes and at this time of year a patchwork of bright yellow flowers and endless rows of vines among forests and fields of wheat, as farms seem to be in transition from sheep and cows to canola oil and wine. Rode in solid rain from Perth to Margaret River, so didn’t see much of the coastline, but we were dressed for it so stayed warm and dry. Then spent the next day on a fun wine, chocolate and cheese tasting tour. Thursday we rode to Jewel Cave, an intricate space of fine straw stalactites [View Full Entry]

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What a struggle, but we're here. Joc and Peter have saved us. The afternoon we left Cervantes, we unexpectedly rode into a black wall and drowned. Tried to dry off in a great place where the Australian Government and others are trying to measure the warpage of space (and time) . There is a public part of the operations called the Gravity Centre where they demonstrate a number of the principles involved. The one I liked best was a long hose that you could speak in and put the other end to your ear. You could hear yourself talk (like an [View Full Entry]

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Hard to believe it has been 40 years since we stood on top of Bald Mountain in Colorado at 7:00 Am and said "I do". We've rented a house on the beach in the small town of Cervantes the last two nights to celebrate. The name Cervantes has special meaning for us as we saw The Man of La Mancha, about Don Quiote (written by Cervantes) while still courting and it's still one of our most favourite musicals. Today, dodging rain storms, we rode down to see the Pinnacles, an amazing limestone rock formation out in sand dunes (which look surprisingly [View Full Entry]

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Hit our first rain in two months, the land around us has been mostly wild flowers and scrub the last few days, though today was wildflowers and wheat fields! Really brilliant. Beautiful little bays and an interesting history of early (pre-Cook) European ship wrecks along the coast during the spice trade era which we learned more about in the really excellent museum here in Geraldton. But I'm beginning to wonder about whether my shoulder will ever heal. Multiple daily pain killers for the last two months have allowed us to continue and I'm getting pretty good riding one handed despite occasiona [View Full Entry]

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