Australia

Seeing a bit of Adelaide during the Fringe Festival was good fun. Adelaide surprised with it's pleasant vibe, funky artwork in the streets and laid-back small town attitude for it's considerable size. The festival shows varied from comedy acts and freak shows to music performances. And although for many there is a fee to pay, many are free as well. You can just wander at leisure through the streets and sooner or later something worthwhile will entertain you for a few minutes.

As I have developed a dislike for Australian backpacker hostels I decided to push on just after one night. Riding the Great Ocean Road towards Melbourne was as the name suggests- Great! But I really did not fancy another night in a smelly hostel so decided to bypass Melbourne altogether and traditionally spent another night in the tent.

Even better than the Great Ocean Road was the south eastern part of Victoria and southern New South Wales. The bike loved it and I loved riding it. Since a long time I had not enjoyed riding as much as I did then. The views of forests and green hills really did remind me of Wales. Except the dead kangaroos frequently seen by the side of the road and the huge fern trees I have to date only seen in botanical gardens. This landscape resemblance and the state's name dawned on me so I've looked it up later and found that James Cook who named it did so for the same reasons I thought of. Hmmm, if only I had been born two hundred years earlier I would have had an interesting career... With the engine grunting comfortably in the twisties I was saddened a little when after 2 days of ideal biking roads I hit another boring freeway. But the kilometres signposting Sydney were going down quick and it was just a means to an end.

Sydney is probably the nicest city out of the very few Australian ones I've seen. But I have nothing exceptional to say about it. It's just another one of the world's nicer cities that have some pretty streets and beaches, museums and exhibitions. The botanical gardens are good. Traffic is bad.

I have spent a week here now but really only with 2 days being a tourist. Rest of the time I was going from one motorbike shop to another trying to get them to give me a crate from one of their new bikes and arranging shipment to Korea. The bike had to be drained of petrol, pipes cleaned and battery disconnected by an official dealer with declaration of the work done submitted at customs. This removes the hassle and costs of sending the bike as "dangerous goods" but also means I cannot drive the bike to the airport. I still can't believe how lucky I was to bump into Garry at the campsite here a few days earlier. Garry who decided to help me out of his good will collected various pieces of frames and crates available from the bike dealer and then picked me and my bike up from the mechanic in his ute. It was already well into the night when we finally finished cutting and joining the pieces of wood and metal but in the end we had a crate suitable for shipment. Garry was one of the most positive and innovative people I ever met. He seemed to be in his element when problem solving which made it all seem much easier. Next morning he dropped me off at the shipping agent just by the airport. The rest was too easy. I can't thank the guy enough...
For anyone reading this wanting to ship from Australia, the bike is flying for A$724 and the man to speak to is Paul Rogers at CT Freight.

Will I come back to Australia? Maybe. It's certainly welcoming enough and people are super friendly and always wanting to chat. If you stay a while you can have a really good life and pursue the common Aussie hobbies like fishing, quad and dirt biking, beach sports...and there are vast areas of wilderness to explore. And probably with the crazy amount of money that's easily to be made here you could buy yourself a Harley or a 4x4 to go off-roading on the weekends, a boat and a caravan and a crate of beer every now and then, like many do. I find the place much too easy and predictable. It's comfortable but lacks something. The culture is all too familiar to a European craving the unknown. But in a way it does feel like home now and I am beginning to think that I might miss it. I have had a really good time in Australia. But I am ready to go...plus I have to before I spend all my money here.