Somewhere back in NZ, Eric and I decided to spend most of our time in Australia canoeing down the Murray River. It is a very windy river, and runs from around Lake Hume (southeastern Victoria) along the border of Victoria and New South Wales, to Lake Alexander near the South OCean. Total distance: 1,591 miles.

We didn't know how much of the Murray we'd do, but we did know that would be the bulk of our trip. Since we had had such a horrible bike ride towards the end of NZ, Eric was determined that we should ride at least a little in Australia. So we decided to ride from Melbourne about 350k to Albury, the town where we decided to put in on the Murray.

We didn't start til 4 pm on the 19th, and didn't expect to get very far. In fact, I was secretly hoping that we'd leave so late that we'd decide not to leave until the next day after all.

No such luck. At 4 pm, we started riding through suburb after suburb. We rode on a lot of sidewalks, and for awhile, on a bike path that was interrupted by serious curbs and traffic lights every block. It took more than two hours to get out of the maze of Melbourne onto the highway (the Hume Highway). At first the shoulder was wide. Just as we were counting our blessings it turned to dirt. We decided to keep riding near the white line anyway. We noticed thtat in Australia drivers actually look out for bicyclists, unlike what we found in NZ. So we had a lovely, mostly flat ride to our first stop, about 50k away, Wandong. A tail wind helped.

Wandong was very odd. We stopped in a caravan park, and met a crazy lady who was in charge of the place. She was very nice. She invitedus to set up our tent, and then come back to her office to settle up. We did. When we came in, she insisted on writing down our exact street address--no matter that we were from a different country. I was tired and the whole process annoyed me, but Eric was game. He helped her spell the name of the street correctly and everything.

IN the middle of this very tedious process, a large wasp (?) buzzed my finger. I yelped. I said I had been hit by a bee. Eric thought it was a moth. I insisted it was a bee, which grabbed the attention of our campground keeper.

She whipped out two kinds of insecticide and tried to kill it. A short woman, she held first one, then another kind of insect killer bottle out in front of her, and sprayed blindly--even with glasses she couldn't see far or follow insect movements closely--around the room. As more of the stuff penetrated the air, I got nauseous and walked to the door. Eric helped point out the bee, and wherever he pointed, several seconds later, she sprayed, nearly knocking herself over with the effort. The stuff was dripping down walls and even one hung picture by the time she was done. Eventually she did get it. She urged Eric to smoosh it with his foot. He didn't. He later explained that it was done for at that point and he didn't want to leave a mushy mark on the floor.

With the bee dead, I was ready to leave. But the woman was still spelling our names. By the time she was done, she had entered us as "Hugo Lyness," Hugo being our street name in San Francisco, and Lyness being the last name. We did not object.

Just when I thought we could leave, Eric struck up a conversation with her about her ancestors. Her ancestors had come over on the Endeavor, which is sort of like the Mayflower. She took great pains to explain that she was a member of the Carnegie family. Had certificates to prove it and everything. Eric indulged her and I walked out.

The rest of our bike ride wasn't nearly as interesting. The next night we camped at a riverside campground in Euroa, where we went to a community Christmas Carol sing to help get Eric in the spirit for Christmas. It didn't quite work. The third night we camped in Glenrowan, in the same campground where Eric had camped in 1992 on his last world tour.

In Glenrowan we met a couple, Alex, a Belgian, and Ming-something, orginally from Beijing, but transplanted in Australia. They had met a year ago in South Africa, while on separate world tours. Alex had biked 20,000 k from Belgium through the Middle East and Africa--his girlfriend had flown. Alex moved to Australia to be with his girlfriend and was trying to talk her into riding around the world with him. She was dubious but we encouraged her.

On the evening of Dec. 22, we arrived in Albury, and checked into the motel where we had had the canoe shipped. To our surprise, the canoe had arrived several days earlier. We spent the next two days buying groceries and provisions for our canoe trip, and lining up a bike store that would ship our bikes to friends in Sydney, where we could pick it up later.

The provisioning exhausted us. We had to walk across town a million times, carrying large items each time. At one point Eric and I tried to carry two cases of sodas on our bikes, and they spilled all over the sidewalk as we walked. That was awful.

Noteworthy trivia: Canoe provisions cost a lot in Albury! Our cooler, which would cost $30 in the US, cost A$100 (US$66). The life jackets, which would cost $5 in the US, cost A$35 each. We were bummed but what choice did we have?

next: Christmas Eve put-in on the Murray.

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