Cycling again!!

April 7th, 2003 at 12:00am

So I am back in Australia again, and today was my first day back on the bike as well. I’ve gotten REALLY behind on the journal since the Parental Visit in New Zealand, but those 3 weeks were so jammed packed with activities and driving and eating and catching up that I had absolutely no time for journal writing. It was a great time though, with 2 weeks of perfect weather on the South Island, virtually unheard of.

Some of the highlights include doing Clingman’s Dome on Fox Glacier with Dad, kayaking and sailing our kayaks on Lake Manapouri, doing the Ball Pass trek with Paul and our amazing guide Graham, and of course getting Tip Top ice-cream at Arthur’s Pass (or not!). I’ve got some excellent photos from those 3 weeks which I’ll have to add to the site soon.

So after all that, I flew out of Auckland on the 31rts of March, and arrived in Brisbane that night. Lucky for me I was able to catch a late bus from the airport down to the Gold Coast to stay with my friend Alan who I met up in Sapa, Vietnam over a year ago. He just returned from another 2 month trip to Sapa helping the H’mong Hill tribe people again, so he was fresh with new stories to tell. I’ve been relaxing at Alan’s for the last week, enjoying the beach, and adjusting to Australia. When my parents left NZ, I sent my backpack and hiking gear home with them and switched over to the bicycle and cycling gear that I had stored at my friend Rebecca’s house in Auckland for 4 months. So at Alan’s I reassembled the bike and took it off for a nice ride up to Surfer’s Paradise for a day to see how she’s handled the last several months in a box. And yeah, since I have the bike and all the gear, why not actually cycle with it? Much easier than carrying it around in a box!

Great idea. Left Alan’s today with a fully loaded bike, heading south to Byron Bay. I’m hoping to see some of the Blues Festival starting in Byron next week, so I’m wanting to get there early to get accommodation before it gets crazy. And it’s a good test for the bike and for me to decide if I want to conquer more of Oz by bicycle.

So far so good. Today I had a great ride, 50 km along the coast, despite a strong headwind. I’m camping in a motor park by the sea in the middle of nowhere and it’s very quite and I love it. I spent the afternoon laying on the ground reading my book and enjoying the sounds of all the exotic birds here – what completely different sounds from New Zealand. NZ was so small and Oz is just massive and there are so many differences between the 2 countries even though they are both Western cultures.

Anyway tomorrow I should ride into Byron and see how busy it is, then get into the chill mode and rest up before the festival.

Life is only what YOU make of it.

Distance: 47.81 km
Time: 3 hr 15 min
from Currumbin to Wooyung

Entry Filed under: Australia,Byron Bay,Cycling