The flight from Melbourne was short and sweet. We arrived, for once, with no drama. Our bikes had both arrived in one piece, none of our luggage was missing, and we had absolutely no hassle with customs or immigration. We had expected some hassles. When we got none we didn't really know what to do with ourselves.

It was late when we arrived, maybe 7 pm. Eric had the idea that we could ride the 30k to Melbourne. I had no desire to navigate, after dark, in a strange city of 3 million. So instead we hired a cab, which brought us to the Travel-Inn. (travelers note: we reserved a room at the Travel-Inn for A$70, or half the normal rate, by booking it through the concierge desk at the airport. They can get you all sorts of special deals on rooms if you ask).

The taxi brought us to our hotel for something like $20--no extra charge for the bikes. After checking in we headed over to Lygon St., which reminds me a little of Clement St. in SF--hugely busy, with lots of restaurant. They say in one two-block stretch of Lygon, there are 200 restaurants. Seems plausible to me. Lygon is the only place I've been where waiters stand out front of the restaurants, with menus, and try to convince you to eat at their restaurant, as opposed to the scores of restaurants within a few yards.

We ended up spending four nights in Melbourne. We had two main missions: find a canoe, which we planned to use to canoe the Murray River, and get a cell phone so we could use our Newton to retrieve email from points along the river, instead of having to check into a hotel to use a landline.

We solved the first problem very quickly. We looked up a canoe place in the phone book, called them, and then took the subway there. They had a whole bunch of used canoes. We bought one for A$450 (US$300) and had them ship it to Albury, our starting point on the Murray, for another A$70. The purchase included paddles. We were set.

The next three days were devoted to the cell phone problem. I won't drag you through all the details. Suffice it to say that we talked to several cell phone salesmen, shopped for used phones in a pawn shop, and eventually found a guy who works for the Aussie phone company (Telstra). He called all over the country, figured out the cheapest equipment we needed to hook us up, and helped us find it. We bought some from him, some from a friend, and ordered a modem card from a store in Sydney. The three-day ordeal putting everything together drove both of us nuts. But in the end it worked.

Our last night in Melbourne we decided to check out some neighborhoods other than downtown. We first took a tram to South Bank, home to an infamous money-losing casino (a new one). We walked by the Yarra River, which was lovely, and saw a great fountain! It didn't look like much--just flat concrete with a few holes. A few tourists walked close. Then--ZING! Water spurted up from one hole, then another, all timed by some computer. Sometimes it would just barely bubble above the surface, and other times it would shoot up like a geyser. First the water would go up from four holes set in a square, then as that water came crashing down, more would shoot up elsewhere. It was all timed by a computer and it is the most fun fountain we've ever seen. Tourists took pictures of each other standing in the wet zone with umbrellas hoisted.

That was all we found to thrill us in South Bank. The rest was malls, malls, malls. So we decided to catch another tram to Fitzroy. Fitzroy is a gourmet ghetto--tons of ethnic restaurants and book and clothes shops etc. We spent the night there and walked back to the motel.

On Dec. 19th, after all the cell phone parts arrived, we finally left town, on our bikes. Our mission: ride 350k to Albury, catch up with our canoe, and put it in the waters of the Murray, also known as the Mighty Murray, or the Antipodal Mississippi.

Before we left, Eric got to play his horn in public.

next: Eric's busking

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