Sunday, March 4, 2018

Down Under Again

The long trip to Melbourne went pretty smoothly, in spite of heavy rain in Dallas. Apparently my duffel bag was out in it. I missed the connection from Sydney, but caught the next flight.

I stayed in a hotel not too far from the airport in a Melbourne suburb, chosen for its proximity to the train station. As usual, the first thing I did was to unpack the bike and everything else so I could ship the excess to Brisbane. This time I also folded up the bike box and shipped it, as well, to save having to find another one. As as my friend Peter in Brisbane pointed out, the difference in cost wouldn't even have covered the tunnel tolls for an extra trip to the airport.

The next day, a short train ride took me to a gigantic suburban shopping complex. Not my kind of place, but it had what I needed.  For the first time, I have a working mobile phone.  I just bought a SIM card at the Telstra shop, and everything seems to work. It's also cheaper than what I use at home.

That evening, I once again had dinner with Ernie, VK3FM, and his family. I met Ernie in 2015, after we had a few ham radio contacts.

On Sunday, with the bike assembled and loaded, I took the short train ride to Kyneton, and rode to the home of another ham radio friend, Ian, VK3MO, and his wife Ruth. I was able to just roll the loaded bike onto the trains, a painless way to escape Melbourne. There was a terrific wind blowing, but the ride was less than 2 km.

Ready to Roll

I had shipped my stove to Ian, but it took some work to get it going. Apparently, flushing it out with water wasn't a good idea.

Monday night, Ian and I tried to contact our mutual friend in Finland, Peter, OH5NQ via Skype, but Peter couldn't get on until after Ian had gone to bed. We did make contact Tuesday morning, just before Ian had to leave, so they had a nice chat. I then packed up the bike again for a short trip in the goldfields, planning to return Saturday to meet yet another ham radio friend at Ian's. Steve, VK3JA plans to drive over from Colac to pick me up. I'll pick up the bike trip from there after a couple days.

A short train ride from Kyneton took me to Castlemaine, to the start of my goldfields loop.  The only hitch was that the only way off the train platform was down two flights of stairs, a bit tricky with a loaded bike. At least there was a ramp back up to the street. From there it was a short ride, 22 km, to Maldon, where there's a very nice caravan park. It's a nice route, about half of which is on a bike trail along the tourist railway. 


Maldon Campsite


The next day, I had intended to ride all the way to Avoca, but there was a brutal headwind, so I only made it as far as Dunolly. Another nice ride, despite the wind. 




Goldfields Scenery

I know it's normal for this time of year, but the dryness still surprises me. Late summer in Wisconsin is when the corn and soybeans make a sea of green, but here the harvest was in December and it rarely rains in summer. 


Looking Dry

The next day I did make it to Avoca, though the wind still made it a lot of work. Avoca is one of the towns in which I stayed in 2001 with Roger and Wendy, bringing back lots of memories.

The ride back to Maldon was a long one, 80 km, making up for the extra day it took to get  to Avoca. The wind had finally died down, so it really wasn't a bad ride. I stopped for lunch at the pub in Talbot. I filled my bottles with bottled water from the cooler there, but the publican wouldn't let me pay for it.

Every day so far has been mostly sunny and warm, sometimes up to 32 C. The nights, however, are very cool, usually down to about 10 C. Great sleeping, but it's cool in the morning.

After another night in Maldon, I rode back to Castlemaine and took the train back to Kyneton. There I met Steve, VK3JA, an American living near Colac, about 200 km to the west. We drove back to Ian's place, where Ian gave Steve a tour of his radio station. Ian then treated us to pizza for lunch with a long time friend of his, Colin, another radio amateur. We then drove over to Ian's other radio station, where he's put up a special antenna system to study very low angle propagation. 

Long Path to Europe from VK3MO


With Ian and Steve

Steve and I then drove to Colac, where we met Martin, VK7GN and his wife LInda, also a radio amateur. I've made many contacts with Martin, going back many years. They live in Tasmania, but were traveling around Victoria with their caravan, doing some radio operating along the way. We had a nice visit over dinner that evening.

I'm now spending a couple days at Steve's place, relaxing and helping with a little antenna work. Tomorrow I'm back on the road, heading west and north.

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