Oh What A Beautiful Morning...

Okay, so it's catch up time for the blog entries.
Here's the latest 3, so scroll down to "Adelaide", (or just choose it from the post list on the right) and read on up from there. Unfortunately, pictures won't seem to upload from this internet cafe, so they'll be added once I've moved in to Tottenham and have direct internet access...


You're not reading this first are you?? Go on, back the the first two on the right...

Awake at 5.30am, with one unfortunate sod in the 6bed dorm having breathing (and snoring) problems, so after an hour of resisting that ever increasing ‘urge’, I thought I may as well get up and go for a run. Having just spent all those hours travelling and basically having done no physical activity since last Monday, it will have to do in the absence of either bike.

One of the best moves i’ve made in quite a while. A stirling idea (with no apologies to the old cigarette ad from years ago!). Here’s a quick rundown of how it went, so you be the judge;

Warm up was descending the 5 flights of stairs to Piccadilly, then off across Piccadilly Circus and down to what turned out to be Pall Mall. So, turn left and head up to the arch at the start of it. Along the edge of St James Park past the Royal Parade grounds and the British War rooms to come out at Buckingham Palace. With the sun just starting to rise and blue sky poking through from the London Eye and onto the Palace, I headed around the Victoria Monunment and up along the edge of Green Park. Impressive start to this little jog.

About here, during Pink Floyd's Sorrow, the Ipod died leaving me with the just the early Sunday morning sounds of London and these very picturesque parklands. Barely a soul about, only ravens, a few geese, some other birds and of course the squirrels. Anyway, it made up for my frustration at having left the ipod on all night. I wondered about John Kilzer's question If sidewalks talked, what would they say? Imagine!!

Through the arch of something-or-other (the one with the three horses atop it) and into Hyde Park. Using the paths along the edges, I basically did a lap of Hyde Park, passing places like the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Palace and a few other things that I don’t know the name of. All the while, the sun was gradually rising with a few rays starting to poke through the trees and cross over the landscape. Beautiful!

With almost no one around the whole scene was pretty serene, despite the mounting traffic on the other side of the fences. A fantastic way to start the day. Even the lack of hot water for a shower at the backpackers didn’t diminish the high I was on, nor the grin I carried for nearly all of the hour of which I ran.

And i thought running along the Esplanade at StKilda and Elwood was pretty good in the early morning! Will be back at it tomorrow morning before having to check out of the backpackers and head up to Tottenham...

Perth, Singapore and then London!

Just what you want to hear about - all the grizzles and carry-on from such a long boring flight - so I'll skip the boring bits...

Well, after all the debarcle of weight limits, it was a massive relief to finally get the gear checked in!
A final ‘breakfast’with mum, Dad n Charity, the awkward goodbyes, and off to Perth it was. Had it sunk in yet? Did it feel real? Nope. And it still doesn’t!

My last pub meal in Australia was at whatever pub Keri took me to in Perth for lunch. Outside in the beer garden, 22C and nothing but sunshine! Aussie as ever! Lovely stuff, but will miss it for sure!

As for the rest of the trip, the inside the aircraft stuff is all pretty much the same as usual in ’cattle class’ or economy as it’s usually called - a couple of crying kiddies scattered about the cabin, with one doing a bit of projectile vomitting over two rows! Neat trick that one! The usual small group of rowdy drunks for the Perth/Singapore flight, nice that they were in my row too.

As for me, well it was either reading or listening to music and attempting to sleep. Even managed to get several hours in a row of it too! Checked out 2 movies while I was at it - The Flying Scotsman and 300. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the Flying Scotsman, it did leave me pining for my bike (not for fjords), so it’ll be a long wait til Wednesday week when it arrives, and I can’t wait!

And cheers to Paul for the complimentary Qantas Club pass, which gave me a few free beverages and some time out in the Qantas lounge in Singapore!

Herbie in Singapore

Heathrow customs was a breeze to get through. At 5.30am we were the only flight being processed, and i was on the tube again by 6.30am.

Arriving at the backpackers at around 7.30am was pretty easy until they told me that check-in was at 1pm and reception (including the luggage room) didn’t open til 8am - hence the last post being written from the common room.

8.30 and it was off for a wander about London to fill in the time til 1pm. Breakfast at a cafe just off Trafalgar square to watch some guy get arrested. I’d been warned about the standard of food in London, but i hadn’t expected what i had that morning! No wonder there’s an obesity issue here!! Then again, considering the number of cyclists I saw there should be less of an issue...

At least London appears to be cyclist friendly!

Anyway, a coffee and I settled in with a magazine to read and watch the passers by. A text message or few later with Maryanne, and she joined me for another coffee and a catch up. This included a wander back to Leicester square and lunch, while chatting away the whole time. By the time we finished, check-in was well and truly open!

A brief wander back through Piccadilly and Regent St served as an evening time-filler and so ended the day...

Adelaide

Okay, okay, been rather lax on keeping the blog updated, and as i now sit here in the common room of the Piccadilly Backpackers I finally have a chance to update you all... (so forgive the length of this!)

After the joy of the Vic coppers defecting my car and scuppering any chance to sell it, the remaining week and a half in Adelaide didn’t really give me the relaxed time I’d hoped for. I still managed to steal some relaxation time here and there - A guy could get very used to this sunny morning running or riding!! (just don't mind the lame attempts at self portraits while riding, as can be seen on the right whilst on Port Rd.)

First appointment was for 9am on the following morning of my arrival, so no sleep in yet! Not helped by the fact that the appointment wasn’t til the next day anyway! Such a waste of a possible sleep-in - especially after getting in to town at 1am! At least by Friday, all the tax, super, private health, optometrists, etc... were done! Included in that was a bit of fun with expired medicare cards. Nice cruisey Friday afternoon, after a brief and unsuccessful trip to CGU for travel insurance, it was lunch with John outside the Austral hotel in the sunshine. Complete with the usual excellent standard of passers by to watch, and the Victorian footballers on end of season trip rating and applauding them as they went by. Mark n Jen joined us later in the afternoon to enjoy the ambiance of Rundle St. Fantastic dinner at the Cork & Cleaver with the family that night.

Saturday continued the runaround for the morning, with Mara’s funeral in the afternoon. Lovely service and wake. Excellent to catch up with many of the people there, even if the circumstances could have been better. Another good catch up night at the Robin Hood with Mike, Carol, Matt n Mandy, Curl, Mark n Jen with Rina and Craig also turning up! All good til your’s truly was just about falling asleep as it neared closing time. The last month of everything starting to take it’s toll. Underestimated the task of moving countries? Possibly not for moving just one, but to move both of us was a much larger task than anticipated!

Sunday was back into it early on - gotta love the effect of berocca to prevent hangovers!! It certainly made Sunday afternoon’s gathering of relatives and family friends easier to get through! A great afternoon, and i managed to catch up with everyone there except 3 people, which was fine as there was opportunities later in the week to see them, although that didn’t eventuate as mentioned for 2 of them...

A rather fortuitous trip up to Monarto on Tuesday for lunch with Ritz n Leigh was the next noteworthy item of the week. After a great lunch and tour of the amazing work they’ve done in creating and building their home, it was off to motor part dealers and cop shops to have the defect sticker removed so that Leigh could buy my car. The last big weight lifted from off my shoulders!! Thanks guys! I must say I do like the way the South Australian coppers really have no time for their Victorian counterparts who issue trivial defect notices - so much so that they didn’t charge me the removal fee!!
The arrival of Charity to Adelaide that night just added to the joys of being back home in Adelaide. after a good portion of Wednesday being spent together in town running about sorting many of the last minute items out, it was off to Matt n Mandy’s for dinner with Carl n Jayne. A great night full of laughs, food n drink.

Thursday and the final day of Adelaide (for now), and it kicked off with a quick drive up to Monarto to deliver my car and say ciao to Ritz n Leigh. A quick trip to motor reg to drop off the papers and update my licence to an SA one, close bank accounts before the fun started!
After lunch, Charity had been given opposite information to what I had with regard to weight limits for our baggage. Further investigation by ourselves and Elise verified our worst nightmare - the limit for international baggage was 20kgs not 32!! This prompted some phonecalls and research for what we could do with all the extra. Especially considering that excess baggage charge was $48 per kilogram!!
In the end, after some extremely rapid reshuffling of packing, it was off to Qantas air freight for them to ship over about 32kgs of our gear. They then sent us to another baggage handler claiming that they would save us around $150 from what they could do for us. Excellent! So, round we go, getting there with ten minutes so spare til they closed. We were then told that my 17kg bike n bag were of an “unusual”dimension and therefore must be rated as a 60kg item! Great! No where else to go as it’s now after 5pm, and this lot want an extra $250 on top of what Qantas charged.. Not happy Jan!

Back home and a surprise visit from Ian n Bev followed by dinner with mum, dad, charity and PB rounded out the evening. A lamb roast - an Aussie way to finish?! Course it was. The only way it could have been even more Aussie would have been a pie floater!! (alright, that’d be South Aussie)
Late night packing and mucking around with scales to get the weight right and bedtime was around 2am. Did i sleep? Hardly. But up before 6am to get to the airport...

Interesting to have seen some of the changes happening to Adelaide, even if doesn’t appear to change much at all. It’s still my home town and despite that it’s still a great place.

Melbourne: The Last Days

So that was Melbourne.

And what a last few days it was!! This last week has been madness, and certainly not helped by the bozo's from ebay with their shenanigans for pickup times! Trying to get everything squared away, packed, cleaned up, sold off, and still see a few people, didn't exactly go to plan. But I got there in the end even if I was 5hours late departing.

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Anyway, friday night's farewell do clashed with some other events and was a little quieter than anticipated. This turned out to be fine as I'd been up since 5.30am, and almost everyone I wanted to see was there (with even a few surprises too...) Cheers and Thanks to those who came!!

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The rest of the weekend was just the now "same old, same old " with packing, cleaning, sorting and being mucked around by ebay nuff nuffs and their pickups (or lack of). I still managed to get down to the Dickens for a final night of Tottenham action with the gang from OzSpurs - fun night til we lost.

Rounded out the weekend with a cruisey night at Cuz's place just chilling out before a quick detour up the SE freeway while trying to drop off the MTB for safe keeping. Thanks CC!

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Then came my final two days in Melbourne;

Monday - up early to get home. final train ride into Melbourne during peak hour - odd not wearing a suit for this! Session of myotherapy. Discover St Vinnies can't do pickup, so must deliver everything to them. Get Haircut. Visit first of two laptop stores to discuss final choices. Confuse the issue by finding a new choice for a laptop. Visit second store and go through guff with them. Go have a coffee to decide. Head back to first store buy the new choice laptop. Eftpos limit stops sale - go see bank. Have nice lunch with Bec and receive 'Herbie' (more on him later!). Back to laptop store and pay. Card shop for Charity's birthday. Last train ride home. Deliver two car loads of stuff to St Vincent de Paul. Phone all 3 utilities for turning off/last reading. Finish packing. Clean the entire flat. (With thanks to Charity for helping out with this!)

I left the place at somewhere round 9pm, delivered the vacuum cleaner to the Brown's before Charity and I went for dinner at about the only place we could find that was still open in Ackland St.

Tuesday - late start to the day (should have remembered to set the alarm!). Back to mine. Collect final stuff for St Vinnies, plus the last two final ebay pickup items and head to the couriers for the first. Get told they have no information about the quote I was given! Finally convince them to honour the quote. Head back to Sunshine for the last drop off. Give St Vinnies their last lot. Get to Kresta to drop off last ebay item. Get told that no one of that name works for them. Off to internet cafe to log into ebay and get their information. Manage to get the person on the phone. Back to Kresta and eventually get them to take the stuff. Drop off keys at Estate Agent's. Servo to fill up with petrol. Brief final cleanup, and pack the car. Holy Sh*t! it all fits!!

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Fun on the drive - get pulled over at a random vehicle check and have the car defected for a crack in one of the headlights. Slow day for the law enforcement crew in Stawell today...

Nice dinner at the Nhill Roadhouse, a photo opportunity for Herbie at the border, a snooze in Tailem Bend and then cruise past the toll gate.

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So bring on the forthcoming time in Adelaide, and the night of the 23rd at the Robin Hood!

Introducing "Herbie". Herbie was a going away present from Bec, and will now be travelling with me around Europe and the UK (and anywhere else I should go).

Herbie closing the door on the Albion apartment.

Here he is crossing the border to SA

Melbourne's Final Ride

After a rather uneventful day with just the usual ebay pickup timing issues, it was time for what will no doubt be my final ride through Melbourne for a while.

Superb way to end it too, despite the 30+knot winds! Still, making my way from Spoke(n) (Cheers Mal!!) along carlisle st to beach road, with 'Low Rider' in the ears was pleasant enough. That is until I made it onto beach rd to be confronted by not only the wind, but a pretty amazing sunset to boot! Wish I had the camera!! Fantastic sight all the way up the esplanade - why would you drive?!!
Same goes for cruising through the Docklands park at the end of Collins St. Pretty cool with the sunset lighting up all the buildings of Melbourne's CBD. Even cooler when I noticed the lyrics in my ears as I looked at the cityscape of all the highrise buildings - "These are my mountains, these are my roots. This is my homeland, my shelter from the woods..." So, cheers to Airlock for singing it, and to the ipod for it's timing! I guess I may not have finished with Melbourne...
Did I mention that I'm rather enamoured with fusing the use of an ipod with the use of a bicycle?
"Summer sunshine, you sure are a strange one..." starts the lyrics to the Reckoning's 'Levitate in Adelaide' - quite a fitting song to finish the ride on too! And not so much because it'll be a while til I see the summer sunshine either!

Nice to steal moments like this during all the mayhem of packing, sorting, clearing, cleaning, etc... that goes with such a move!

Just Another Day

As friday night's farewell do at the Exchange Hotel in Little Collins St draws ever closer, it was a case of "another day another adventure'...

Today started off with an early morning (6.30am) final ride down the You Yangs National Park, only this time with Charity, and in the other section of the Park known as the Western Plantation. This particular trail is a 12km loop that winds it's way through the scrub, and really lets you pick up some speed as you weave your way through the trees.

First lap, though, was a casual ride to introduce Charity to the trails, and also try my hand at a little self portraiture, before we spent a bit of time at the "skills park". This section contains several things that you can 'play' on to help improve your riding skills and confidence. I was most impressed that Charity took on and had a go at everything there. More so because her bike isn't really a mountain bike which you'll notice in the photo of her on one of the "ewok bridges" below.

Back onto the trails, and we encountered a few wallabies, a group of kangaroos, and the usual assortment of birds. (well, we heard the birds even if we didn't see to much of them!).

Lap two was another skill tester and confidence booster for Charity, while I just went full gas for my final lap out there. Great lap too! All coming together nicely, with the ipod giving me a excellent backing track! First track up was Dial-7's ''Crazy", which summed things up fairly well. Followed on with artists like Coheed & Cambria, Apollo440 and others... Needless to say, that I'm now sold on riding with an ipod - probably not for road riding just yet though!

What a great way to start the day!

This was followed later by my final session of Network Spinal treatment, and very good of Frank to have found me a Networking practitioner in London so that I can continue with my treatment and progress even further with it!

Tonight saw the delivery of the final pieces of my furniture that sold the other night.

After delivering my desk on the roofrack of my small car, I and the fellow who bought it all, reloaded the roofracks with the remaining table and pieces of my bed. (we also loaded the rest of the chairs and bed parts inside the car too).

On our way back to his place, one of Melbourne's brightest drivers decided that he'd do a right turn around a roundabout without using his indicators. Fine, just brake a little harder than usual and avoid plowing into him - or so you would think! I stopped in time, only one of the pieces of my bed didn't. It went flying down the bonet and onto the road only to skid past this turning vehicle.

"It's a bit scratched, but it's fine. No problem," he declares after having jumped out of my car to retrieve the wayward item, and after some re-tying, we get it all back to his place. Just in time for his wife to come out and "assist" us unload the car.

Resplendant in pink terry towling dressing gown, she basically just ordered us around and told us where to put everything. Poor bloke - even poorer after he handed over the cash for it all.

Ah, just a bit of fun before another night sleeping on the floor...

One of my attempts a sefl portraiture whilst riding the trails


Charity on one of the "ewok bridges"


Yours truly on one of the see-saws
You Yangs trail - leading onto the main trail's "ewok bridge"

Swings and Roundabouts

Funny how things can fall into place from somewhere that it probably shouldn't.

Here's yesterday evening's senario -

I get home at around 4.30pm, only to be swamped by about 15 Indian looking people. The land agent had sent them around to look at the place as prospective tenants. Fine. Only this was supposed to happen next monday! And the agent could have at least let me know, or even better, actually been there in person!! No wonder Frances (the landlord) and I removed this agent from the original equation!

Anyway, while looking around, one of them noticed the ad for the bed base that I'd placed on the wall during saturday's garage sale, and wanted to know if it was still for sale. After confirming that it was, he ended up buying ALL my remaining furniture - dining table n chairs, computer desk n chair, the bed base and also my doona (quilt)!! Thus solving one of my larger headaches!!

Brilliant!! Only, now I have to figure out how to get it to his place...

Garages n You Yangs

That's garage sale number two done n dusted! We had stacks of stuff laid out as you can see in the pics from the start of the day!

Again, another crazy day! All sorts of punters including a self-confessed alcoholic, who left out the part about being a cleptomaniac!! Had to keep our eyes on him, even if he did buy up a hoard of stuff!! Certainly serving a different demographic on this side of town!

Still managed to get rid of a fair amount of stuff, and discovered just how much when attempting to eat breakfast this morning without any spoons...
Sleeping was fun, as both my matteress, the bunkbeds and my sofa bed all went yesterday, but still managed to get down to the You Yangs for what will probably be my last ride there.

Fantastic day for a ride on the trails at the You Yangs National Park. Seven of us hit the trails on the mountain bikes, Mike, Damien, Mark, Dave, Vanessa & Brooke. And I discovered what I'd suspected would be the case - my lack of fitness over the last few months would surface. Happily the skills are all still there as I managed to stay upright through some rather dodgy two wheel slides that I probably shouldn't have!! But all up had a good time out there on the trails!

Time now to head off to Charity's farewell do, as she leaves for Shanghai later this week (once we've sorted out all our left-over stuff and where it will go!

The last 60days of ebay have now topped over 150 items sold for over $4,300! All Good!

FGP Dirt Crits Come to a Close

There goes the final FGP Dirt Crits for me at Westgate Park. Having not done them for a while due to being rather busy with the move and it's preparation, I was determined to have one final hitout.

Heading to Silvio's with some (now) ex-workmates for a large mexicana pizza probably wasn't the best preparation. Nor was going for a run this morning in the early morning sunlight with Charity. It's not like I was out to win A-grade anyway...

It's funny how when the 'race' starts, the competative side comes out to play. Never more evident than when you're amongst the pack or another rider passes you out on the course. Was great to have a tussle with one rider. Strange, though, as I picked him up in the single track each time, but couldn't hold his wheel on the straights. Used to be the other way round before the car accident... Look's like CC's advice for the singletrack is still coming together nicely.

But I digress... Ash once said "you just need to hurt more than the other guy", so I did and with a final dig across the last rail crossing, I passed him for the last time. Felt good!! In fact that whole last lap did. A top way to finish it off - hammering home, leaving someone in your dust.

Good to see the usual faces - Damien, Huw, Dave, Johnny, Rhys, Eric, Paul, Adam, Rich, Nick, Nyall, et al... Not sure about the usual dust, but that's all part of what makes the events each week.

Next year will see the resumption of the Beastway Crits in London, so in the mean time it'll be plenty of road riding before my MTB joins me in April when the weather starts to improve...

Thanks to Tim for the Pics tonight! Good on You!

ps. CC - up to my old tricks again of getting quicker each lap, but at least I was in the first half dozen off the line too.

As the Days Go By

Well that's a few maniac days done, and without too much sign of slowing up for now.

Last weekend's garage sale went extremely well for Charity, and I managed to get rid of some stuff too. So much so, we've decided that this weekend we'll do it all again on my side of town!! Yep, a glutton for punishment you could say... One piece of interest that came out of it, amongst the tyre-kickers, was that the elderly lady who bought Charity's washer n dryer was Dermott Brereton's mother! She used to skydive at Coldstream too! (okay, so we did natter about jumping for a bit). Anyway, Dermy himself came around later in the week to pick up the washer & dryer - as you can see in the pic of Jean, Charity & Dermott. We then headed off for a couple of hours of fantastic seafood lunch at the Richmond Seafood Tavern - THE best seafood place in Melbourne! MMmmm...

Nice to have both Mark n Jen, and Mike drop in over the weekend too! Great to see you all again - even if dinner with Mark n Jen is a little fuzzy due to sleep deprivation!!

I tell you what, amongst all the running around trying to get everything done before leaving melbourne, I could really get used to this unemployment thing! Morning runs or rides, casual starts to the day, etc... Take lunching in the sun in Fed Square today - Digweed in the ears, the world passing by, soaking up the last of the Aussie Sun... LAAARV IT!! (especially with the fine sunny weather Melbourne's having at the moment! Almost like a London summer)

My Ebay Clearance Sale is still going strong - Last 60 days goes something like this:

Selling - 67 items

Sold - 141 items ($3,944+ once all is paid!)

Off to the post office now to stick 7 more items in the mailbox!