Back Home! How strange...
"Australia is a beautiful country. It is the largest island and the smallest continent in the world, surrounded by the Indian and the Pacific Oceans..." and so it goes on - my students recited this to me frequently.
The following sounds more apt:
Australia is a strange country. It has large people people everywhere with strange accents, different coloured hair, big noses, and they all speak English! - a conversation does not go by where people's 'worries' intrude into my thoughts. A country where I recognise everybody, seem to know no-one, but everybody's my mate. A place where I have to get back in tune with the 'lingo' - putting money in a fanny pack will now raise eyebrows, watching Neighbours is a religion, not voyeurism, 'Reality' is a television show, and people wear thongs on their feet.
After a few years in Asia, it's going to take some time...
Anyway. January we get to Sydney, do the sight-seeing thing, buy a tent and some gear and rode up to Brisbane. And what a trip! Planes, trains, and bikes, with accomodation at camping grounds, caravan parks, reserves and one railway platform. The scenery between these cities is quite amazing, just when you think it is as good as it gets, you pass the next crest and see better, it is truly like that. We did find that Australia is not like China, as in, there is a lot of nothing between stops. Great on many occassions, but a bother at other times - a couple of 38C, 90 kilometre days with a head wind took a little of the gloss of the trip at times, but the other 95% made up for it (and having a stop-anywhere option of a tent makes it easier).
Cue: Talking Heads - ...on a Road To Nowhere...
