Champasak

Left Pakse on Saturday morning, with our tummies still queasy but reminding ourselves we only had 35 km to Champasak. Cycling past the big market, catching a glimpse of a dead pig amongst crowded passengers on a sawngthaew (small bus) didn't help the weak tummy situation... However, after an hour or so, helped by a tail wind (we couldn't believe our luck!) we eventually found a turning which looked like it could be the road to the ferry to Champasak (nothing written in English of course).It was a peaceful road and we arrived in a village where we were directed to the "ferry for motorcycles" i.e. 2 canoes lashed together to form a kind of catamaran. The more elaborate "ferry for lorries and cars" was made of 3 boats with a wooden platform joining them together.At each end of the wooden platform was a hinged tail board raised and lowered with blocks and tackle. After an exciting (and wobbly) ride across the Mekong, we landed on a walkway across several boats and after a hard push up a wooden walkway up a sandy bank, arrived in a quiet village (in fact it was in the middle of a temple!). It was absolutely lovely.

We have been here for 2 days, savouring the peace and watching local people going about their daily business.

This morning, got up early and after a cup of Lao coffee set off on the tandem to the Angkor temple at Vat Phou about 8km away. When we arrived, we were the only people there. It was stunning. It has recently (2001) been given world heritage status and is one of the most peaceful, unspoilt and majestic site we have ever visited. it is build on a natural terrace of the Phou Kao mountain where freshwater spring gushes out of rock is laid out on a linear plan and designed to be approached from the east to impressworshippers with the sanctity of the place. It stretches over 1400 m on an east west axis, stepping up the mountain side and one of the first building we saw is the Nandi Pavillion ( a building for the vehicle of the god Shiva called Nandi or bull), one of the first buildings to be consolidated and the work has only just started in partnership with the Italian Government, organised by UNESCO.Consolidation is necessary. Many of the ruins are unstable and have had temporary wooden props to prevent any further collapse. They are doing a wonderful job. Vat Phou has been developed over a long period with the earliest remains dating from 7th century AD, but major rebuilt in 11th/12th century and maintained by rulers of Angkor to the 14th century. It was converted from Hinduism to Buddhism in the 13th century and still retains local religious function today: every year a festival is celebrated in February and I am sure the village is less than peaceful then!

For us it will be an early night (with more Lao folk music from across the road) and an early start across the ferry again and then southwards.

Christmas Day still in Pakse...

Well, all best plans still need to be flexible.... Champasak will need to wait another couple of days. Nicole has been sick all night and John's tummy is rumbling painfully. Was it the water we were given in that little local restaurant a couple of days ago? It tasted and indeed looked as if it was coming straight from the Mekong... Or is it the salad we indulged in yesterday as it was Christmas Eve? - we usually know better and stay away from salads which we know could have been washed in any old water... So we've been languishing all day, looking at the swaying palms outside our window to soothe ourselves, trying to recover some strength and drinking pepsi to re-hydrate ourselves. The wonderful thing is that Christmas has been so quiet. The karaoke bar next door was silent for the first time!

Must go now and rest some more...

Christmas Eve in Pakse

Bjorn, a Sweedish cyclist met just before the border. He has been cycling for 6 months and will carry on for another 4 months. Very interesting to share experiences

Cold, wind and rain seems to belong to another universe... Laos with its smiling children, rural scenes and slow pace of life has re-conquered our hearts.
We arrived in Pakse 2 days ago after a fairly gruelling ride from Phibun Mangsahan in Thailand. Going across the border was more painless than we had remembered, although the Visa fee had gone up to $35 (strangely, Canadians have to pay $42, Indians and Afghans $40 and Swedes $31...) and we were asked to pay another 40Baht for having our passports rubber stamped!
We didn't at first have a very good impression of Pakse, 66 000 inhabitants. We were tired, hungry, it was getting dark and somehow, for the first time during our travels couldn't make sense of the map. We had crossed the Mekong and somehow our compass and map didn't relate. Eventually, after cycling around feeling lost, we stumbled upon just the guesthouse we were looking for in the old part of town, Sabaidi 2 (Sabaidi = Hello). Only then did we realise that not only the bridge we had crossed had been built after our Lonely Planet was printed but there were two Champasak Hotels near two different bridges...
Pakse, however has grown on us and we are in danger of settling here too long... It was founded by the French in 1905 and hasn't got very many old houses but John has found a few colonial-era buildings of Franco-Chinese design and has amused himself photographing and sketching them. Nicole, in the meantime has been sipping lemon juices and indulging in French bread and coffee...
Our guesthouse is charming, extremely relaxed and the owner, Mr Vong, very friendly and knowledgeable. A couple of years ago he returned to his native country from a life in France and converted his grand parents house into a backpackers haven. It even has some hot showers! Planning to leave tomorrow for Champasak, a smaller town 35km south where we have read there are Angkor-period ruins.
We wish you all a Happy Christmas!

Two days as a novice monk/nun

This is a little place which makes gongs by the side of the road. Unfortunately they are to big for us to bring back for the Newport Buddhist meeting!




We are back in our "River Moon Guesthouse". Although we haven't travelled very far at all during these last 2 days, we both feel we have made a significant personal journey.

On Thursday morning, we got up at 5 am, packed and were delighted to find our little restaurant open at 6 am! We had a delicious breakfast (rice porridge and strong "Lao coffee" - very strong and sweetened with very sweet condensed milk) and cycled to Wat Pha Nanachat and arrived in a different world. Just off the road, about 15 km from Ubon Ratchatani is this small forest monastery established by the famous Theravadan monk Ajahn Cha. I think we talked about Ajahn Cha during one of our meetings at Dave's? Ajahn's Cha's straightforwardness and sense of humour are just extraordinary simple and powerful, and on his death, in 1992, thousands of people came from all over the world to Ubon Ratchatani...

Wat Pha Nanachat was established for the many foreigners who wanted to learn this traditional Thai way of monastic training and (luckily for us!) English is spoken as well as Thai. On our arrival we had to relinquish mobile phone and camera so we couldn't take photographs but if you are interested to learn more here is their website: http://www.watpahnanachat.org/

A day in the monastery by John:
3am: the day starts with the early morning gong calling us to the sala for chanting and an hour's meditation
5 am: chores, sweeping leaves off paths (with lighting on as it is still dark)
dawn: monks go out for their daily collection of alms food
7 am: preparation of the food for the one daily meal
8 am: chanting, blessing of the food and procession to the dining area where we collect our food in a bowl
8.30: sitting on mats on the floor, we eat our meal with the novice monks in silence
9.30: wash up and more chores (more sweeping) then time for personal meditation, reading and free time
2.45 pm: more chores
4.30 pm: drink in the outer sala (in the forest - only for the monks, novice monks and laymen, not women)
6.00 pm: chanting and an hour's meditation
8.00pm: bed

My room was 10 feet by 15 feet, open to the roof, 2 windows on each side with wooden shutters. The only furniture was clothes line and a hook. I was shown a cupboard from which I could take a mat to go on the floor, blankets and a pillow and a mosquito net that opened like an umbrella. I was given a white top and white trousers to wear. the trousers have no elastic and you have to roll the top over to keep them up, a technique I will need to refine as I found them round my ankles during a particularly vigourous sweeping session!
The community is inside a forest, so although you can hear traffic in the distance, there is a sense of being away in peace and quiet. Time stands still. Everybody helps and works together. Everywhere is beautifully clean and ordered. The monks have a serenity about them. There is time to search one's inner self that I don't have the discipline to do in everyday life.
Much to my surprise (and Nicole's) I didn't have any difficulty in only eating once a day!

Wat Pha Nanachat's impressions by Nicole
When we arrived, slightly puffed after our cycle ride, I was glad I was wearing long trousers rather than shorts. We found the Guest Monk, Tanyio, a young English born Australian, who combined serenity with matter of factness and approachability. John was directed to the men's dormitory and I found Aram, a young Korean woman who showed me the women's "residence", a compound separated by a high wall and I hardly saw John after that. Keo, a shy and helpful Thai novice nun invited me to share her Koti (a wooden hut on stilts with 2 rooms and a bathroom, scrupulously clean and free of ants because it was surrounded by a 5 cm wide little moat of water). She took me under her wing and tried to be very helpful but as her English was practically non-existent it was hard work for both of us! Arum lived in a smaller Koti on her own and so did Tid, an Lao born American laywoman, who was always busy and bossy. I was given a white blouse and a black sarong which I found a bit cumbersome during meditation. There were only the 4 of us as women and there were many areas of the Wat we were not allowed to go to. However we were allowed in the sala for the chanting and meditation and also allowed to sweep the leaves (incessantly! - my arms are still aching...) As a diversion, we were also allowed to clean the toilets.
Nonetheless, the silence, punctuated by the chanting (very moving), the birds songs and the shrill drumming of the cicadas at dusk (at first I was mystified as what it was- it sounded like a continuous bicycle bell!) was a wonderful gift and I felt at peace. The only wildlife I saw were hundreds of scampering squirrels (apparently the other forest monks had to cope with tigers in the past - a test to their faith!). John saw a rat running along the altar during the 3.am meditation... I was too sleepy to notice! In fact, the following day I slept most of the midday free time (instead of meditating, resting and having a shower...) in an attempt to recover from all the sweeping of the leaves around the Bot in the morning (do look on the website for a photograph of this beautiful temple), and I had to recommence sweeping in the afternoon... Sweeping is another form of walking meditation...
I liked one of Ajahn Cha's many saying posted here and there on trees: "if you have time to breathe, you have time to meditate"

Ubon Ratchatani

River Moon Guesthouse: recovering after Bangkok's concrete jungle...

Warin's market (South of Ubon Ratchatani)

Catching a local bus...

Bangkok to Ubon Ratchatani

On Monday morning, left the friendly "Bankok House" guesthouse. It was such a haven of peace and the day ahead unknown, as the possibility of bringing the tandem back to Hualumpung central train station back on the train not an option. We left our bags in the station, took a train to Sukhumvit 71 and arrived at Tamsin and Tae's midmorning. Alex, their charming 18 months old little boy was all smiles and games and even cried when we left!

After cycling beside the railway track (the new -unopen still- railway line to the airport follows the route of the old line but on stilts and 50 m above it!) we find our way to a canal running in the right direction towards Hualumpung. There is a footpath besides the canal which we can get along but is full of obstacles and eventually stops about halfway, when another railway line and a huge flyover cross the water. John sets off and tries to find an onward route by crossing the canal on the railway line but gives up eventually as he would have to cross a 6 lanes freeway on foot. So we abandon the canal and cycle along oneway streets (!), past the British Embassy ride the tandem on a dual carriage way with a sky train and various other concrete lanes ahead. Nicole was absolutely terrified, John thought it was ok... We found out later we were cycling in the Siam Square area, more or less the busiest place in Bangkok. The traffic was VERY FAST with buses and tuk-tuk being the worst hazard as they seemed to stop wherever and whenever they felt like it. We somehow eventually found a quiet side street and miraculously arrived at the train station! Nicole had a croissant and last latte, we also had a lovely cool shower for 20 pence each, sorted out a train ticket for the tandem (so easy compared with India!) and leisurely boarded the train and found our bunk. Well it would have been leisurely... the goods carriage still wasn't attached to the train 10 minutes before departure and John was waiting to load tandem on.

Uneventful and comfortable train journey overnight and we were pleasantly surprised in the morning to see dry rice paddies surrounded by small banks with cows and buffaloes here and there and occasionally beautiful pink lotus flowers in little ponds.

Nicole's throat still not good, so after we find RiverMoon's guesthouse (very quiet, very cheap,-150B = 3 pounds, rather rundown but off the road and all to ourselves... no tourists are coming to Thailand) we decide to stay put for a couple of days to acclimatise ourselves to Asian food and way of life. John sets off with his compass in his pocket to investigate Wat Pa Na Na Chat, where we have heard "foreign" monks welcome guests with previous Buddhist experience. He takes 2 sawngthaews (sort of pick up buses) and as no one understands English (but everybody wants to be helpful) he lands up somewhere(?) where a "kind" (he later asked for 200B fee) motorcyclist took him for miles and miles of dusty road after dusty road, and eventually arrives at the monastery. John arranges with a monk (who spoke very good English thank goodness) that we should arrive at 7.30 am and speak with the Abbot, who will decide if we can stay for a couple of nights. Apparently if we stay longer we would have to shave our heads...

Bangkok by train, bus and foot

Arrived back in Bangkok this morning after a pleasant 12 hours journey on the train from Surat Thani. However, after a whole day spent preparing our tandem ride into central Bangkok tomorrow (involving riding local buses to the station -of course no destination is in English... standing all squashed up in a crowded comuter train and walking for miles trying to find Tamsin's house, where we had left the tandem), we are exhausted, dusted up and sufferring from eardrum and lung fatigue.
Have established we will definitely NOT ride on any main road, so small roads by the railway line will have to do, however long it takes!
Wish us good luck!

Bangkok and Phuket

Here we are in Phuket, after many hours spent sleeping, recovering from the 15 hours flight to Bangkok and 12 hours bus ride to Phuket... Lovely to see colourful blooms all around, Thai smiles wherever we go and feel a gentle heat again.

Bangkok airport was as imposing as we had remembered but the ride out

less stressful than we anticipated (after John had a mini break down when he realised he had lost the speedometer... he should have given it to this Indian Man who had asked for it all these years ago...). Cycling on for a couple of hours on relatively "quiet" road - got lost a few times though, we eventually found Tamsin's house where we left the tandem. Tae, her boyfriend thankfully was there and put us on a boat (!) to ...somewhere where a very nice man, Dong, directed us to a bus (number 511) which took us to the Southern Bus Terminal. From there, a bumpy and uncomfortable (to my standards) 12 hours ride to Phuket.
We have now recovered from all this, drank a few cafe lattes :) and had many chats/meals on the beach/ serious discussions with John. Tomorrow, we'll catch bus from Phuket to Surat Thani and take the night train (18.22) to Bangkok where the REAL travel will start. No more lattes then...

A bath at Ealing...

... another lovely hot bath at Katie and Sheila's! The second one if four days (the first one was at Jo and Des's)! My skin won't know what is happening to it! Yesterday, took the bus from Barnes to Ealing, well 2 buses, to use John's Senior bus card allowing him to travel free. Getting older has some advantages...

This delay in England has brought unexpected delights: (the baths of course and...) spending a little more time with Jo and Des, meeting Royin, seeing Katie and Sheila and enjoying a lovely sunny crisp weather In England in December. Life is good!

So now, fed, scrubbed and rested we are ready for tomorrow's flight. No need even to worry about cycling to Heathrow in the cold as the tandem is already there! Bliss!

Resting at Barnes...

Our flight yesterday to Bangkok was, as expected, cancelled and we cycled leisurely to Heathrow just before lunch. Had our flight still been running we would have had to cycle at 5 o'clock in the morning in the bitter cold and probably skidding on the very frosty roads... We spent the whole day in Heathrow, trying to decide if we could possibly manage Singapore or Kuala Lumpur with the tandem. Eventually, after talking to a very helpful man from Jet Airways, we booked another flight to Bangkok, leaving on 7th Dec and went downstairs to pack the tandem which we left at the left luggage office.

Jo and Des,very kindly are putting us up for another night and we have met Royin, their very determined, intelligent and charming grand-son who spent the day here.

Still half packed and not really knowing if and where we are going to fly on Wednesday. And will Jet Airways accept the tandem? It will be another occasion to use ingenuity and to practice how to respond appropriately...

A year has gone past...

... and it is freezing cold. Now that Anna's 18th birthday has come and gone, we are madly getting ourselves ready for our winter cycle trip. But the question is will this trip really happen?

In two days time we should be leaving Wilhelmina, cycle along the path along the river to catch the 10.30 ferry to Southampton, board the train to Waterloo then Barnes where we should be cycling to Jo and Des. But... our flight the next day is bound to Bangkok and the airport is still closed and 100 000 tourists are stranded there!

Watch this space!

Melbourne

We have now reached our destination: Melbourne. After a very pleasant 12 hours train journey we arrived in Southern Cross station from where we took the train to Upwey, the home of Patricia and Leslie.

This visit was really the purpose of our coming to Australia with both of them being such wonderful people. Patricia, compassionate, Leslie, intuitive. This short stay has been the culmination of a journey where we have learnt much about ourselves and will send us home full of gratitude.

Cycling, weather, food, budget and why do we do it?

Cycling

The tandem has been virtually trouble free after very able man from Margaret river's cycle shop straightened the gears damaged on the flight. We were not prepared though for the huge distances needing to be covered to reach food and water, sometimes over 130km.

The other obstacles have been head wind, heat and hills. The roads have been narrow, mainly without a lot of traffic but the road trains can be worrying (to say the least!) as they travel at over 100km/hour and couldn't always swerve around us when overtaking. Flies in areas where there is cattle can be a real nuisance (understatement!). We can cruise at 25-35km/hour and they can't keep up with us, but when we come to a hill and I have to pull hard on the handlebars, they seem to delight in crawling all over my face, drinking out of my eyes and crawling up my nose. Nicole says it is good for my character!

Weather

The wind near the coast changes direction as the land warms up, getting strong by mid-morning on a hot day and reverses in the evening. It somehow always seemed a head wind! The weather is hugely variable and unpredictable. It can be blowing of the desert one day, with a temperature of 40+ C and off the sea the next day, mid 20's C. We had a little rain initially and one thunderstorm near Norseman, otherwise, not a drop until we arrived in Melbourne. The countryside has been absolutely parched. The creeks dried, pastureland brown, campsites rock hard and dusty (we will have to buy new tent pegs). Now in Victoria, it is green again and climate much coolerand very pleasant.

Food

In urban areas, delicious quiches made of combination of organic vegetables and fruits we don't have at home. Enjoyed these enormously. However, often we have had to eat in petrol stations whichg only offer hot pies and chips (with ketchup). John found it extremely hard (in some cases refused) to eat out of paper bags and drink out of bottles! If we are riding hard we do need to replenish the calories we burn so required several main meals and 6-8 litres of water a day.

Budget and accommodation

Our daily budget for accommodation and food is $70 (approx 30 pounds) a day. In Western australia, food prices is a lttle more expensive than at home, camp sites $20- $25 (8-10 pounds). We survived by camping wild in the bush, sometimes wecamped in recreation fields and use their toilets, sometimes even showers. We have also a budget for one-off expenses such as trips out, presents and spoiling ourselves.

Why do we do it?

You may well ask why we do it, many people have asked us and there have been occasions on that trip when we have seriously asked ourselves ! Some rides have been very hot and hard! We have had 2 months in wonderful warmth, seen a huge variety of landscapes, met and talked to interesting people. We have been lucky enough to stay with people we have met on the road and tried to learn about this very varied country and the people who live here. Travelling by tandem is cheap: it enables us to engage with the countryside and people in a way that would not be possible on public transport and it would not be within our means to hire transport or foot the fuel bills for the 2,300km we have travelled.

We are able to talk as we ride, there have been many shared moments, camping on the beach,listening to the sea, watching the sunset after a hard day's ride. All our journeys are journeys of self discovery, and this one has been no exception. It has been the hardest ride to date but there has been much that will stay with us.

John really liked:
The wonderful eucalypt forests. They have made as big an impression as did the South American rain forest.

John did not like:

Eating warmed up pies and chips in petrol stations out of paper bags.

Nicole really liked:

Australian people (most were happy, relaxed, friendly, helpful and generous). The sun, the Ocean, the white sand. The desert, the kangaroos, the emus and the lovely, sometimes strange, often seemingly insignificant flowers.

Nicole did not like:

Mrs Mac's pies, the horrible people who woke us up in the middle of the night at Parry's beach with their headlights and growling dog, John's grumpy moments, the absence of Aborigines on our travels.

Our stay in Adelaide

Governor Hindmarsh in 1836 read the proclamation of South Australia at Discovery Bay in what is now Glenelg which is now a suburb of Adelaide (we subsequently abandonned the tandem and took the early bus-tram to there to go swimming with the dolphins!)

(We took this picture of Robert Burns' statue especially for our friends at the Cale)

The early Europeans colonists built with stone, pride and plenty of style. the dignified city centre buildings are encircled by green parklands. Leafy Adelaide is a cosmopolitan and cultural city bordered by the enchanted hills of the Mount Lofty Ranges and the long sandy beaches of the Gulf St. Vincent.

We were able to cycle from our campsite right to the city centre, where we found our way to the wonderful Botanical Gardens. there we learnt that there was more than the eucalyptus and accacias: the primeval conifers, straight from the age of the dinosaurs, the bottle tree that copes with drought by shedding its leaves and then living on the water stored in its bottle shaped trunk. So many of the indigenous species here have evolved diferent means of surviving the drought. The rain fall interestingly is roughly the same as London's but most of it fall in the 4 winter months May- August, some times within only a few days! We went on one of the free conducted tours of the 40 acres Botanical Gardens. I was intoxicated by the variety, scale and sheer profusion of Australia's indigenous flora. Only in the rainforest had I seen anything to match it. Nicole loved the imposing avenue of the Moreton Bay fig trees, the lotus flowers and the magnificent Bunyan Pines.

Our next day focused on the migration museum with told the story of the migrants who came from all over the world to make South Australia their home. It also told the story of the Aborigenes, the loss of their land and way of life, They often didn't survive the introduction of European diseases for which they had no natural resistance. This is a problem that has only recently started to be addressed.

Swimming with the dolphins

I managed to convince John that swimming with the dolphins would not only be wonderful but also part of my 50th birthday. After all, I only have a year of being 50! So we set off really early on Tuesday morning and reached Glenelg where we found the boat Temptation and boarded with another dozen various people.

These pictures speak louder than words; it was a wonderful experience. In fact, jumping in the water and holding on to the rope (while the boat was still moving was an experience in itself!) I saw about 6 dolphins, always in pairs, and 2 came very very close by. Their elegance and friendly smile i will never forget. John enjoyed it too but he kept needing to go to the toilet! this involved taking his wet suit off, which was quite a business!

Burra to Adelaide

We left Burra and its copper mining historic sites early(ish) - i.e. too late for John and too early for me, with a bit of a tail wind and downhill towards Clare Valley. Too easy! We somehow encountered an unexpected steep hill just before the town of Clare which sent John into more despair and puzzlement over why we ALWAYS seem to be cycling uphill in the heat of the middle of the day. But Clare offered us a friendly cafe where we ate (and John slept) and a pot of Peppermint Box honey for $2.

Onto the Riesling Trail, which was absolutely wonderful.

At last a cycle trail designed for an overloaded tandem! 20km of disused railway line, built with much efort in the 20's and only removed in 1983 after a bush fire. So much work to build it and now nothing! but it offered us a bird's eye view of the countryside.

All around us vinyards amongst eucalyptus (strange sight!) and we arrived at a grassed camping site in Leasingham just in time to take a shower and go to bed before a few spots of welcome rain.

More Riesling Trail the next day took us to another lovely village, Auburn, where we met:

1) another tandem! (ridden by two Canadians who had come here especially for the Tour Down Under. You might not know this but the Tour down Under is the equivalent of the Tour de France and it was going on around Adelaide Hills.

2) Cogwebs, a cycle-internet cafe shop, run by Judy and her husband, both from Bournemouth. Judy was very efficient, friendly and was going to participate in the Tour Down Under the following day. It was very refreshing to meet an English person.

3) Cygnets of Auburn, a wonderful French style restaurant where we savoured a delicious cream tea (at 10 in the morning...) listening to French music. Merveilleux!!

But all good things come to an end and we pressed on to Saddleworth. This is when the chain started to give us trouble, jumping in and out of gear, causing us some consternation. However, after John's tender care (he cleaned it with an old flannel found on the side of the road back in western Australia - I had thought what a waste of space! how wrong was I!, then oiled it carefully)... Bingo! Chain working perfectly again! I must say I was very impressed with his expertise!

So we managed to cycle on through Marabel, consisting of one pub and the statue of Marabel, the undomitable mare whose special side bucking technique managed to throw off every rider for 8 years! Marabel holds an annual Rodeo and we love looking at the photographs of bucking horses and their riders. Eventually arrived in Kapunda, exhausted and ravenously hungry (as always!), with great expectations of a civilised meal. It wasn't to be. The campsite was lovely, set in a quiet grassy park (albeit with a dead parrot near the tent... was not too pleased about it but as I wasn't going to move the tent or touch the parrot, I had to put up with the thought of it). Food was disappointing: the one good restaurant was closed (usual story) so we ate a pizza in the take-away, surounded by loud music and Friday nighters. Kapunda is another copper-mining town (rich deposit of highest-grade copper was found here before Burra - in 1842) and with quite pretty lacy iron decorated houses. It was also the home of the "Cattle King", Sir Sidney Kidman, whose horse saleswere reputed to be the largest in the world. His properties covered 340,000 sq km of land (!) and he apparently thought that England would make a good horse paddock!

The next morning was a late start. Although we got up relatively early, I was pining for a coffee and tried unsuccesfully to get information at the tourist centre about the best way into Adelaide. Cycling into cities is always tricky. We left the town at 11 a.m. John grumpy because of the late start. Reached Nuriootpa, the start of the Barossa Valley then had an Apfel Strudel at Tanunda. The Barossa Valley (in fact a mispelling of Barrossa in Spain) with its 60 wineries (I prefer vinyards) produces about a quarter of Australian wines and is very scenic. Many of the towns here have a Germanic feel, are dotted with Lutheran churches and cottages (the settlers came here to escape religious persecution in Prussia and Silesia) and of course surrounded by vines everywhere. It seemed to us a much better way to use Australian soil than farming or cattle and sheep keeping.

It was very hot again and John was still grumpy but we manged to reach Williamstown, where we found a small and very GREEN campsite. John happier.

We also saw a friendly funny small flock of lamas

The following day I conceded and we got up and left very early. It was still dark! However that day was one of the loveliest rides of the trip. We cycled through gentle wooded hills with kangaroos grazing by the road side. Long shadows and a special light made everything so beautiful. It was also downhill! Much of the Adelaide hills are conservation and wildlife parks. Reached Cudlee Creek by 9 a.m. where we nearly had a divorce. I wanted to stay. John wanted to push on to Adelaide, only 30km away. As we couldn't split the tandem in two we had to find a compromise. I, the wise one of course, (not sure if John agrees with this) conceded and we pushed on.

As it happened, it was a good move, as usual good things follow bad ones. Everyone in and around Adelaide was watching the Tour Down Under cycle race, which, thank goodness, was that day in a different part of Adelaide Hills. Result: no-one on the Gorge Road from Cudlee Creek to Adelaide. The road was spectacular, narrow, windy and fortunately more downhill than up, following the gorge of the river Torrens.

It took us by chance to the Linear Park: a strip of woodland up to half a km wide, 40 km long, with a sealed cycle path following the river Torrens all the way right to the centre of Adelaide; and nobody had told us about this gem! We found the campsite easily right beside the cycle path. It was set in the grounds of the 5th earliest house to be built in South Australia, Vale House. Beside it a huge spreading magnificent Moreton Bay fig tree formed the centre piece of the caravan site and provided us with welcome shade. We'd made it to Adelaide!

Then.... Now...