Day Nineteen Trip ReportToday would be my final day on the road for this trip. My computer at home feels really fast after three weeks with a small note book that has always been slow, but does what I want it to do... transfer gopro files and the like from sd cards to a usb-hdd.
After seeing what seemed like a billion skippies on the North Grampians road yesterday morning and a couple the previous day I left on sunrise taking my time until I hit the Western Highway and didn't see one. If you thought I'd take the Western Highway straight to Bordertown then you'd be wrong. I turned right on C210 and headed for Hopetoun. Painted silos would be the order of the day, but none of them compared to the one Alans1100 posted from Kimba a month or so ago.
I would go on to see (and photograph) a lot more of these but you get the picture.
This sends a shiver down my spine but for some reason the locality isn't showing in this picture. The sign clearly said Warracknabeal.
I am glad I found this in Rosebery because I was really busting for a piss.
It was about 1300 when I entered South Australia for the first time since departing on the 1st.
Over the course of just under three weeks I did 8671km, more than 8000 of those interstate.
I trialled Spotwalla for the first time and have to say I was impressed with it. To think I almost gave up on it after struggling to get it to run before the trip started but now I'll have to dig up that donation thread and make a contribution.
All in all, I went through 1 set of break pads, had 2 flat tyres, used up 3 usb hard drives, ate 3 boxes of special k, traversed 4 states, did 7 river ferries/punts, 2 proper ferries, had 19 days on the road, bar one and a half of them was blessed with fantastic weather, took
over 1200 1371 photos on digital camera which I haven't even looked at yet, rode 8000+ km and had a fantasmagorical time. I met a lot of new people at the Halls Gap RTE and the three days in Halls Gap itself were also pretty awesome. I met and old friend in Melbourne and got my nengajō photo.
Langers asked me what was the highlight of the trip. It's really hard to say because bar the flat tyres it was all pretty good, but if I would have to choose a day I think it would be the day I road from Gosford to Wagga Wagga. The ride from Spencer to Wisemans Ferry was a windy road along a river very reminiscent of Japan, I did three river punts, saw some of the Blue Mountains along the Bells Line of Road and two laps of Bathurst (one in each direction) all in one day.
North Stradbroke Island was great to do considering I never went there once despite living in Brisbane for years. I got great weather on the Great Ocean Road after having my 2014 trip ruined with rain and a bit of a yarn with a Japanese tour guide at Halls Gap before going in for our meal.