A Bike Journey

It’s now almost 4 years since we arrived back home in Point Lonsdale, near Melbourne, Australia and we thought it was time for a little update. At the end of our 18,000km bicycle tour we were quite ready to arrive at home and be stationary for a while. As we lived overseas for so long, we have been quite busy getting settled back in here. So far we have been very lucky and were able to house sit for relatives and test drive some areas that we might be interested to live in. We feel particularly at home in…

Skenes Creek – Point Lonsdale The Great Ocean Road really is a cycling mecca. The smooth road winds its way over gentle hills alongside the dramatic Southern Ocean. Every few kilometres a viewing area promises photo opportunities looking back over the stunning coastline, and on a weekday in early spring, the traffic is almost non-existent. It’s no wonder that Australia’s cycling elite favours this area and even the current Tour de France champion Cadel Evans lives down here, just 15 minutes down the road from Guy’s parents house. || Guy’s dad had alerted some family…

It felt unreal to be standing at the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, so close to home, after 15 months on the road and with 18,000km under our wheels. This is our final kilometre marker photo, which is a little sad but all good things come to an end. We just feel so fortunate that we have been able to follow our dream and that we made it this far. ||…

Timboon – Skenes Creek Rejoining the Great Ocean Road, we stopped at some of the numerous rock formations that have been formed by the powerful seas crashing into the coast line. The day we arrived storm clouds formed a menacing backdrop as winds whipped up a huge swell that slammed into the coast with all its destructive might. The surf report for the local spots simply read: “Too big”.|| Until 1990, London Bridge (see image below) was actually connected to the land, forming a natural bridge with two arches. One of the arches had caved in, leaving two…

Robe – Timboon Leaving Robe, the tailwinds persisted and the sunshine made for a perfect day of cycling. For lunch, we stopped at Beachport, a sleepy fishing village surrounded by surf beaches.    We camped in Millicent and not feeling like tackling the big lights of Mount Gambier we zigzagged on quite rural roads towards the Victorian border. || The Mount Gambier area is famous for its sinkholes so we were chuffed to stumble across one, materialising out of the surrounding farm land. Formed due to the corrosion of limestone rocks, some sinks…

Adelaide – Robe Pouring over maps, we came to the realization that there was simply no way of getting out of Adelaide without a major hill climb. Eventually we picked a quiet route with a fairly gentle 500m climb leading us east towards the Murray River. The morning of our departure presented us with the worst weather we had had in our entire 17 days in Adelaide: rain and wind. Raincoats and lights on, we said goodbye to our friends and headed down to the river. We followed the bike path along the river for about 12km out of…