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 1st of October 2010: exactly 31.000km of riding around the red continent is now behind us. Nine months after our start we head into Melbourne - a great feeling with sunny weather! It is done! The “big lap” was great, long, exhausting and wonderful at the same time. It was a completely new world, dotted with magnificent people on our whole way! People we’ll never forget, who have been welcoming, helpful and taught us things for life! Thanks Australia! After our departure from Adelaide we meet an Aboriginal guide in a NP. He gives us a 200 year old shell and twigs of the Blue Bush. His people burn the bush in their camp fires to get rid of mosquitoes and flies. And they believe it brings luck to the one who get’s the bush as a present. We should carry it with us for the rest of our journey and should return safely to our families.  In Mt Gambier - a place on the edge of an old volcano crater - Adam gives us a bed. He takes us to the Primary School across the road where he teaches a class of 20 pupils between the age of 10-14 years. Today is Pet Day and some farm boys tow calves across the school yard. Later that day we do a little slide show in the class about our previous journeys to Chile, Iceland and Thailand. The kids are watching with high interest and a wonderful day ends...  In dizzle we drive along the twisty roads into the state where we started from: Victoria. Our next destination is the Grampians NP- wild sandstone ridges with wonderful scenery. I loose my nerves on the motorbike a last time on a sandy track. Next day we hike to The Pinnacle - a rock needle with wonderful views from it’s top. Everywhere is Yellow Wattle in bloom. No wonder - 2010 was one of the wettest years in Australia since decades. The Great Ocean Road is the phenomenal end of our journey around the continent. The rough ocean creates natural stone bridges and needles along the coastline, which is dotted with ship wrecks all over. At the world-famous 12 Apostles we see heaps of Japanese in breathing protection masks in clean sea air and we feel a bit out of place.  On 26th of Sept we reach Geelong - where the World Championship in cycling is taking place in the following days. Sure - we have to see that! We stay with a wonderful and extraordinary interesting couple: Judy and Howard are in their 70ies and are the most flexible people we ever met! Judy is the Director of a theatre in Geelong and takes us to a play reading. We sit in a semi-circle with 10 actors and read an interesting play of Alan Hopegood. We have to read parts too. It’s long ago for us that we read some English aloud... We are now back in Melbourne and stay with Derek and Helen where we started! What happens next on our journey? We go to Tasmania on 6th of October and hike, hitchhike and volunteer around the island for 6 weeks. During our travels we had enough time to think about the „how does it go further“. We did some tremendous changes and extend our journey a lot. Our trip won’t go further on motorbikes. Read more in our separate report. Monique |
journey / reports 
