A Quick Intermision to Travel...

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Absorbing an invisible bolt of lightning, gaining the strength of 100 other great men.

Minutes before the accident
Minutes after the accident

Look, and you can see the road carved into the side of the cliffs.

So, I'm going back to the homeland. Bidding a farewell to this sandy continent, and my international family, and heading back to the States. No real drama, just ran out of money. My Brother, Sister-In-Law and handsome newphew Jack (check out his life: Welcome to The World of the Walsh Family) are being incredibly supportive and hooking me up with a place to stay while I am saving money. My dad is going to let me use the Vespa for transportation, and I should have my bicycle back in action pretty soon after he sees the doctor. I'll put pictures of what happened below, or maybe above... anyway.

Right now I am living in Melbourne with a refugee Arts Factory family in the trendy and tidy suburb of Carlton. The townhouse belongs to my [relatively speaking] long term friends Claire and Kayla. Also living there is an American girl from NY and a girl from New Zeland. The city life is not for me. I prefer the outdoors any day man. I have been in Australia for 36 weeks, and these last 2 have been the only ones lived indoors. I miss the tiny ants attacking my bare chest as I sleep. I miss the paranoia of "did I zip my tent up? Oh god, brown snakes are going to get in and attack me when I am not expecting it!" I miss falling asleep to the ocean waves crashing and a distant djembe drum playing into the night. That's all a bit of a strange dream world now, something that I may not have back ever- or for a while anyway.

I tried to get some of that back over the past few days by my new favorite obsession. Cycle Touring. While Tara [Tasmania cycle partner] was in Perth, I asked to borrow her gear and touring set up on behalf of my new matey Tim from England, and she said go ahead. So, with two bikes and about 350 miles of incredibly hilly and windy roads ahead of us, we took on one of the world's greatest rides: THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD.

Ascending and descending a 1000' (in elevation) hills became our life for 5 days. Whipping around S-curves like F-1 drivers, and pumping it up dirt tracks to look out points was our daily grind. The road is known for its cliffs, narrow roads and thrilling "driving experience." Lets just say that plenty of people were enjoying themselves VERY close to us on our bikes. At one point my jacket got ripped off my rear rack and sucked into my wheel, bringing with it a thick bungee cord and my galvanized steel bike lock. Uh oh. Well, as predicted, the chain snaked its way through my spokes-- snapping 2 completely in half-- and coiled up around my rear gear cassette. My wheel locked up, jack-knifing me across the highway at about 30mph. I somehow lucked out and managed to land on my feet - but I can't say the same for the bike. I picked up the mangled mess and lifted it over the guardrail to inspect the damage.

After about an hour of repairs and problem solving that even McGuiver would be impressed with, my bike was rideable 'enough' to get us to our campground that night. Using 2 cloth band-aids, a piece of twine from IKEA, my leatherman and a half a bottle of lube I managed to get the chain to unknot, straighten out and actually glide through the rear derailleur. The gears clink and jam and stick in every setting except for 2 of the 24 available, but at least I could still ride the thing. I wrapped the broken spokes around themselves and tied off the jiggling bits. The band-aid proved itself and stuck to the hub quite nicely securing a 2’’ portion of a jammed spoke from freeing itself and jamming my gears up. Ooo, what a mess. I also had to loosen my rear brakes out to about an inch of the rim on either side of the wheel because of the massive amount of uncontrollable wobble I was dealing with. So on the steepest windiest road of my life, I am riding a jalopy of a bike with 30% of my normal braking capacity and the sensation of constantly riding over tiny speed bumps. Great.
Despite that minor glitch, that day turned out to be fantastic. We hugged the coast for nearly 50km with the salty spray from the Southern Ocean’s turquoise waters cooling us all the way. We rode through a natural eucalyptus forest inhabited by hundreds of kola bears and camped next to a kangaroo family in the bush. Exhausted by the 65km ride of terror, Tim and I ate about 4lbs of pasta, about 500 grams of dark chocolate and a giant order of French fries from town. We made a fire as the temperature was dropping to the nightly average of about 35degrees Fahrenheit, and sipped on the Queens’s favorite: Earl Grey tea (Tim’s English, remember?).

Now, I am indoors, again—trying not to spend my last $10.25 that has to last me for 3 more days until I depart to Los Angeles. I leave Melbourne, Australia at 10:30am on Saturday the 18th, and arrive in LA at 10:30 on Saturday the 18th. Strange. Going to go home for a while, save up- live with my family- and head back out to Asia and New Zeland hopefully in under a year. Signing off on the blog for now. Peace.

Post Tasmania

My last night in Tamania under the full moon. That's my bike box all wrapped up in trash bags next to my tent. It was supposed to rain, but never did...thankfully.
Tamar Wine Region, North of Launceston.
Late afternoon on the rocky shore of the Tamar River wine region just North of Launceston Tasmania.
All my gear come the last day.
Nothing special except the saaaweet name of the bridge I camped under. This one goes out to Mr. Brandon S. Shore
Penny Farthington bike. This statue is in the town of Evandale, which holds the annual Penny Farthington race through town. Somthing like 50 international contestants entered this year, including a few dudes from the US. woo woo.
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So, I am back in Byron Bay now- and leaving again on Tuesday. I'll be moving to Melbourne to find some work and save money before Thailand in June. Wooo!

Maria came to visit over the last week, and we had a blast! We went to a hikes that led us to some amazing waterfalls, got attacked by leeches and walked through a few sections of rain forest.

The trip around Tasmania ended up clocking in around 1300kms over 32 days with 4 flat tires. Successful first touring trip. I am already itching to go back out and do another trip somewhere else now. I'm thinking about riding around the South Island of New Zeland some time in July or August. I could go for someplace a little flatter though. Bah. No such luck in the South Pacific I guess.

See Ya Tas.

I'll make this more poetic later, but I am flying out of Launceston (laaame city) and back to Byron on the 11th at 6:15am. Pics and more tales to come... including the story that ends in: "And that's how I ended up straddling an electric fence with no one around to help me"

Camping in a bird sanctuary in Scottsdale.

Umm, I think this was in scottsdale one day. I was moving at the time of the picture, so sorry for the lame composition

Sam's house Sam's house again, just after the walls were painted

Looks like I will be statying in Launceston for a couple more days, as a big storm in rolling in tonight, and supposted to stay to play all for the next 48 hours. Greeeaaat. I'm trying to find some fruit picking work, so I don't just waste all my time in the city. If not, not a big deal. I fly back to byron on the 11th, and maria comes on the 14th! Then after that, I have offically decided to move to Melbourne to make some real money before Thailand. So far this journey has clocked in just a touch under 1000kms from Hobart to Launceston with quite a few detours and rest days :)

More pictures - St. Marys to Launceston

Def. click and enlarge to see this bike. It is a tandem recumbent TRIKE with 2 front wheels, one back wheel, and then a 2 wheeled trailer. Pulled by a 60 year old couple. Those are solar panels on the top... you know... to charge the li/ion battery to power the 'asistance' motor. They said it was just for big hills. Mmmm hum...

Lilly Dale Waterfalls. We were camped out just a 5 minute walk from these falls in the forest. Really peaceful.

Blueberry pickin! It was $4.50/kg if you picked your own. So we did. We picked and ate berries for way too long. mmm. Man was that good. I finished my sack of berries today. For the metric + aussie conversion... just think for $3 US Dollars, we got a shoe box full of organic berries.

Tara climbing to the top of a HUGE hill. Photo doesn't do it justice. I wish you could see our faces after that one. Phew.

(above) Riding into the start of the Tasman Rainforest 2 days after we left Sam's house in St. Mary's. As promised by the name, it was raining quite a bit. My feet kept slipping out of the pedel straps and then I'd have to get off the bike and re-strap in and ... ugh. Rainy hilly beautiful all at once.

(below)looking preeetty gay in this shot. Tara tells me that maybe it is the flaming helicopter jersey and the way I am standing. I would have to agree.

Sam's house on a very very misty day. The properity overlooks the Tasman Sea and is at the absolute peak of a mount. THats buddy the dog there.

At the top of some massive "hill" that came out of no where. Phew. That background water is about 20km away-- the beach that we crashed at the night before.

Annnd, again- another hill rocked. I think that we are about 30km south of St. Helens here, if you want to google that one.

The beach ... somewhere?

So the last week has been one of lavish solar living at Sam's house, but sadly we must leave and cycle on. From St. Mary's we are going north to an area called "Bay of Fires" - named for when the settlers came and saw dozens of fires lit by the aboriginals. We'll spend a couple of days there, then cycle south west to the only other "city" in Tas, called Launceston. From there we will haul it to Cradle Mt. National park for a few days, and ... thats as far as we have planned for now. I'll put up some beautiful pictures of Sams house later on. So much work is being done that I havn't had an opportunity to get a shot without painters and plumbers everywhere. Miss everyone dearly

-g

ps. In other news, I think I am going to move to Melbourne in late March to try and work a couple jobs at a time in the city and make some actual money. Sadly, Byron just doesn't have the hours I will need to save up for Thailand. woohoo thailand!

coles bay, about 10 feet from our camp site

Swansea - camping on the beach. We were here for 2 days.

View from in the tent in swansea- about 6am

pictures

OH MAN. Tasmania is a wonderland of beauty and untouched beaches, forests and fields. Tara and I have camped out at countless beaches and national parks that hug the east coast. Watching the sun rise from your tent on the Tasman Sea sure beats the hell out of ... whatever else I would be doing right now. (Working and not being painfully strapped for cash for instance?)

My camera battery just died. GREAT. I am in St. Mary's now at a friend's house, so I will have the opportunity to get back online later this week to post up pictures and a couple videos I hope. This will have to serve as a "Im alive" post for now.

Day 6 of Tasmania

I wish I had more time to write, but it is $2.50/15 minutes in this small town of Swansea (on the east coast, half way up). This journey has already been the most physc. exhausting event of my life. I've been doing about 60km a day, which is not quite the 80-90 I had planned on, but I would say that about 75% of the tour each day is mountains. It's unbeliveable and pristine here. Wow. The second day of riding had 4 'hills' each one avg'ing an elevation of about 350meters. UGH. The down hill makes it all worth it though. Tomorrow we cycle to Cole's Bay. One of the most visited places on the East Coast I hear. It is 100km out of our way, (flat though I hear) so it better be nice. I LOVE THIS! I LOVE BIKES!