Bike Archives - Page 26 of 27 - Round the World by Bike

Once more we experience a gorgeous hospitality! John and Steph invited us to stay over the weekend or even longer… We had to order a spare part for our GPS from Hong Kong. Unfortunately the Chinese were celebrating their Spring Festival and closed all their businesses for the time being. Finally we did an express order and we still wait for its arrival.

In between we explored the closer surroundings on our own: the Great Ocean Drive, the Cape Arid National Park, the Cape Le Grand National Park, the Wetlands… Beautiful places, endless white beaches, turquoise bays, lovely rock formations. For sure it is not a place where you get bored. We learn a fair bit about kangaroo breeding. Steph adopted two roo babies who need care taking and we can tell you they are really funny and just lovely to watch hanging in their pouches or hopping around in the garden and exploring everything. We attended a Harbor bus tour where we learned a lot about the history of Esperance and the importance of their harbor. As well John showed us the fire station with their entire equipment and we met many of John’s mates having barbecue together. Romy could manage to bring her bus “Gigi” alive again with the support of John and Leithen. As well she passed her English test and so we had enough reasons to celebrate and Steph organized a big fondue evening. Kerstin is cooking and baking bread nearly every day. We always enjoy chatting and eating together in the evening. One afternoon John took us out to the shooting range and we could practice shooting under his supervision – a great experience! John is attending a shooting competition in Roturua, New Zealand. He left already and Steph will follow him in a few days to enjoy their holidays together over there. We have to admit we are a little bit jealous. We would love to have a visit to New Zealand and see all our friends again! Hopefully one day; not for now…

Thanks to Steph, John, Romy, Leiten… and the roos we enjoy our stay in Esperance to the max! But Tasmania is waiting for us and we hope to receive our spare part on Monday and we can go back on the road again…

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We nearly felt like adopted from our farm family and enjoyed X-Mas á la Aussi very much. Christmas Eve we were invited to Crayfish from Jill and Eric – hmmm, so yummy – and even Santa passed by with a new shirt for each of us (so we are proud owner of unpatched shirts again ;-) Jill was always dreaming of the German “Apfelstrudel” and Kerstin did prepare one as a X-Mas present: “showing them how a German Apfelstrudel looks like” HaHa…the result out of the oven looked impressive but not at all like a Strudel ;-) at least the taste was not too bad.

The next day at afternoon we went to town to join their big family meeting having some drinks and nibbles to eat here and there. The last Christmas day we spent with the other part of the family at the beach having some more drinks and afterwards playing pool, dart, dancing with a couple of more drinks and eating prawns… ;-) All this happened within a heat wave and mostly we had around 45° C at day and around 28°C at night… and honestly we were not always feeling really fit when we woke up… But we really liked this type of X-Mas and they did not leave us much room to feel homesick.

In-between Kerstin had time to look after her little garden. It is just amazing how fast everything is growing here. We do have every day fresh herbs for cooking like basil, thyme, rosemary, chili and many many delicious water melons!

New Year’s Eve we spent on the veranda overviewing the valley with part of the family… eating delicious and of course sharing some drinks… Now it will be time for a diet soon or we will not fit into our motorbike clothes anymore ;-)

Cinema… a luxury we do not allow our self that often. But as they were showing “The Hobbit” in 3D we could not resist. We really enjoyed it, especially the memories we have when we saw the landscapes of New Zealand again…

The Cyclone Narrell took our attention for some days… We were facing some weird weather like fog, cloudy days with strong winds or without any movement or any bird whistle which was actually the scariest – just total silence with no movements. We could watch some incredible cloud walls and were prepared for the worst… But in the end of the day we were lucky again: Narrell just passed by more or less harmless for us. So far we were never really facing one of these dangerous nature powers like fire, flood, storms and we certainly hope it will stay like that!

Now after staying 3 ½ month on the farm we honestly get ready to go on the road again. Even though it is hard to imagine on one hand we are also excited of the upcoming part of journey on the other hand. Somehow the farm became like a home for us – we never stayed in a place that long before and we definitely will miss the people. For sure it will be hard and hot in the beginning; back on the road with a full loaded bike and all the gears again…hurting bottoms… ohoh. “Don`t be a princess” or “go to the Hardware Store and get some HardenUP!”the Aussies would say! If nothing goes wrong we will hit the road around the 27^th and we will not have that often phone or internet connection anymore. But we will try to catch up as soon as possible. On the way to Tasmania!

See you mates!