Melbourne

Melbourne is a lovely city and I should have taken many more photos. I visited the Melbourne Central shopping mall, that has an impressive tower in the centre and a rather cute Swiss-style clock that plays Waltzing Matilda on the hour.

Arrival at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport

I chose the flight for the convenient departure time and quick stopovers. However the arrival at Melbourne was at 02:40am local time!

Then I had a shock, my bike didn't turn up. The airport emptied till I seemed to be the only one left. The customs guy wanted to go home so he ran a check on me as I waited by oversize baggage. 

After an hour I found the only other guy in the airport, he made some calls and said my bike had gone to a warehouse in Melbourne by mistake.

I insisted it be brought back right away, much to the disgust of the van driver on the other end of the phone. By 4.30am I finally had my bike and found my way to the hotel.

Hotels are funny things sometimes. This one couldn't even decide on its name. Was it Formule 1, or Ibis Budget? Anyway a bed was welcome to kick off my stay.

Ah a bed at last

 

Might be a Budget Hotel?

The Flight

The flight broke down as follows:

• London Gatwick to Dubai: 7 hours
• Dubai to Kuala Lumpur: 7 hours
• Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne: 7 hours

Stopovers were quick. I had used Emirates before a few times and generally they are very good, even the food I found to be better than other airlines. That is until they served up this horror:

What is it?

 I cut into this rubbery excuse for a meal and couldn't eat it. It actually looks better than it was. So I'll go hungry for a few more hours.

At Dubai, I rather stupidly left a bag on the plane containing a brand new electric razor I had just bought at Gatwick, and a few other things. I realised not long after getting off the plane, so I tried to make my way back.

Unfortunately they wouldn't let me back on, so I had to go to lost property, across this (rather massive) airport. After many phone calls I had to fill in a form and hope I could be reunited with the bag in Melbourne. (Frankly I didn't hold out much hope, and was never to see it again).

Because of going to lost property, I had to go through airport security again. Bizarrely they wanted to confiscate my Allen Keys, but allowed my heavy D-Lock (capable of killing anyone with a swing) through. That dashed my hopes of assembling the bike at the airport upon arriving at Melbourne.

Packing for the Flight

Boy, this was fun. My flight allowance was 7Kg hand luggage plus 32 Kg checked. (Actually Emirates are the only flight operator from the UK -> Australia who allows 32 Kg. The rest allow only 23 Kg.)

The Bike went in a standard Bike box from a Bike shop

Problem was I had about 50 Kg of things that really had to go with me.
 
So I did the airport trick of stuffing loads of things in my pockets. First I wore 3 layers of jackets and coats. Each one had several deep, large pockets, into which I put all the heaviest, most dense items such as bike tools and lock, anything that would go through airport security without me getting arrested or stuff confiscated.

I wish I had a photo of this, it really was silly, but within the rules, and it (mostly) worked. I got through check in no problem. I got past security at Gatwick no problem.

Waiting at Blackwater train station

The Gatwick shuttle between North and South Terminals

Equipment List

My plan was to cycle around parts of Australia, camping along the way at either camp sites, or wild camping where camp sites were not located.

I planned to cook my own food using a gas stove. More than that I wanted to cook Chinese food where possible!

Having done a little searching on the Internet, I got an idea of equipment. Due to weight restrictions on the flight, I got some of the gear in the UK and the rest I picked up in Australia.

For convenience I have listed the full equipment list so you can see everything I actually took on the road. Later on I'll do a review of some of this equipment.

Note: Things did change a little along the way. For example I decided not to cook Chinese food half way through, that cut quite some weight. But I had to change tents to a heavier one. 

Bottom line was, bike plus gear was around 55Kg for most of the trip.

The fully loaded bike, and boy was it heavy

Packing List Weight  (Kg) Bike Bike + Front rack + Rear rack + pump + cycle computer + front & rear lights 14.497 Rear Panniers 2.600 Front Panniers 1.400 D-Lock 1.400 Tool Bag (tubes, spanners, screwdriver, lube, tyre levers, allen keys) 0.934 Spare Batteries (6 AA & 8 AAA) 0.278 Luggage straps x 3 0.240 Bungee strap 0.140 Cycle clips 0.032 Zip ties 0.020 21.541 Sub-total Tent Bag Sleeping Mat (Exped down mat 9cm DLX (LW)) 1.300 Outdoor Rug 1.270 Tent 1.260 Sleeping bag (Rab Explorer 300)  0.979 Tent poles and pegs 0.868 Pillow (Exped Comfortfoam Pillow M)  0.170 Sleeping bag liner (Rab Traveller)  0.154 6.001 Sub-total Eating MSR Fuel bottle, full of Shellite (0.240 empty) 0.850 Food thermos 0.705 Rice  0.536 MSR Stove 0.520 Oil container, mostly full 0.473 Porridge 0.454 Cutlery and Utensils (Knife ,fork, spoon, teaspoon ,spatula, wooden spoon, 2 cutting knives, peeler) 0.437 Frying pan 0.435 Snack bars x 8 0.431 Oyster sauce 0.353 Soy sauce 0.343 Pan and Lid 0.291 Cutting board 0.220 Large plate 0.217 Salt 0.211 Dried Fruit 0.180 Pepper 0.165 Cup 0.153 Small plate 0.128 Bowl 0.114 Tea bags 0.093 Cornflour 0.078 Tea cloth 0.061 Sponge cloth & liquid 0.058 Tea strainer 0.011 Tea bags English Breakfast 0.111 Tea bags Green 0.060 Sugar 0.090 7.778 Sub-total Water Thermos flasks x 3, FULL 4.647 Water filter 0.536 Plastic water Bottles x 1 0.096 5.183 Sub-total Clothes (Assuming worn 1 set) Gore-Tex rain coat 0.997 White trainers 0.750 Fleece 0.675 T-shirts x 3 0.560 Hiking Trousers  & Belt 0.356 Ordinary Shorts x 1 0.338 Sandals 0.309 Travel Towel 0.300 Swimming Shorts x 1 0.256 Underwear x 3 0.240 Cycling socks x 5 pairs 0.200 Padded Cycling short Liner x 1 0.141 White socks x 1 0.065 5.187 Sub-total Bathroom Toiletry bag 1.770 Wet tissues 0.180 Extra Sunblock 0.129 Hand wash 0.068 Dry tissues 0.042 2.189 Sub-total Medicines and First Aid First aid kit 0.274 1.726 Sub-total Phone Phone 0.150 Wall Charger 0.063 Australian adaptor x2 0.084 Glasses Reading (Ti) 0.104 Contact lens replacement Glasses 0.151 Ray Bans 0.092 Blue ski-glasses 0.067 Books 2 books 0.370 Chinese 0.124 Other Bose Headphones (without case) 0.204 Bose headphones Case 0.229 Pen Notepad Passport carrier Wallet Lamp 0.257 Solar Charger 1.895 Sub-total TOTAL WEIGHT 51.596

Introduction

Hello! My name is Murray, and welcome to my blog which is all about my trip to Australia, cycle touring.

 Heading for Tasmania,  7 Jan 2013

I'll be covering the places I went, the journeys along the way, and the people I met. I'll also mention the personal goals that were part of this trip.

From December 2012 to April 2013 I covered Tasmania and some interesting sections of Victoria, with a brief visit to New South Wales.