Author: Paul Rito (Page 1 of 27)

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Update Day 64 (last day) Apr-2-2026 (US)

Added post for Day 36. More will be coming this week.

We are home. Left Brisbane at 5:15 AM on April 2, and 26 hours later, we landed at BWI at 5 PM on April 2. We gained back the day we lost on our way to NZ two months ago! Dave and Kathy picked us up and we packed the bikes and our gear bags and us into Dave’s truck and headed back to their house to decompress. Rest would wait as the first law of overcoming jet lag is to get right into the new time zone. Champagne all around, then a delicious meal of lobster ravioli and bean salad by Dave & Kathy along with generous servings of vino.

We had some very intermittent sleep on the various flights on the way back, so we weren’t completely exhausted, but I only lasted until 10 PM before Dana and Dave hauled my drooping self upstairs to bed. We stayed with Kathy and Dave for another night and left early Saturday morning for State College. We’re now there and reassimilating. Only started out on the left side of the road once!

As I said above, more blog entries to come detailing our tour from Melbourne north to Brisbane.

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We had a great rest at Kirsten’s and really appreciated her letting us stay there. Our plan was to head north and hopefully make Culcairn late in the afternoon. We packed up, cleaned up, and headed across the street to Chris’s & Lauren’s to repeat our thanks and say good-bye. We hadn’t actually met Chris, so that was another reason to stop. We shared quick synopses of our tours — Chris had ridden from St. Louis to NYC and had his bike stolen on his last day in the states. Ouch.

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In the morning after a good rest and a hearty breakfast, we took a walk around Ian’s and Prue’s Wangaratta neighborhood. Saw a permanent kids’ bicycle training course, complete with a working railroad crossing. Quite a setup — would be great to have something like that in SC (along with an adult version! 😉 Ian then escorted us out of town on the bike path he suggested we take instead of heading straight north. I was happy because it was on 45 miles vs. the two 75+ days we just had.

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We had a good rest at the campground and got up early for another long day in the saddle. We made breakfast in the kitchen, packed up, and rode out of Mansfield on our way to our next stop, Wangaratta and our next Warmshowers hosts, Ian and Prue.

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Another good night’s sleep and we were up to see Will off to a job near Mansfield, where we were also headed thanks to his pointing out “The Great Victorian Rail Trail” (GVRT) to us. We also met his neighbors, Bryan and Jessica. Bryan was the orchestrater of the garden, and Jessica is a transplanted American originally hailing from Armonk, NY. Will and Bryan loaded us up with Italian yellow beans which were part of last night’s dinner and made great snacks on the road.

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We got some sleep despite the dance party and Dana bargained with reception for a late checkout, but settled for a comp breakfast (which was extra at this hotel). We filled up on eggs, potatoes, mini waffles, fruit, and bread. Probably one of the few multi-option breakfasts we have had, but also a good start to the day.

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After a good night’s rest, we had breakfast and left Maggie’s for a walk in the rain to the train station to get our tickets for that afternoon. A quite easy process and we were soon walking around town. One thing we’ve noticed in both NZ and Australia is that the downtown areas are still very vibrant. Lots of small shops and restaurants with awnings covering the sidewalks so you can window shop out of the rain. Even when there are big box stores, they are located in or close to downtown in a mall, but very few malls or big box stores as we know them — well outside the downtown surrounded by macadam parking lots. Sunday morning the cafes were full of people as were the streets.

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Well, we got some sleep last night. Dana was kept up by some women playing tunes well after the dudes got quiet. I did not hear that at all as I had earplugs in trying to block the “hoo-rahs” and cackles coming from the guys party. Fortunately, today’s ride wasn’t too difficult: 50 miles and 1600′ of climbing. Relatively easy given the earlier parts of the GOR.

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Happy to report no kanga intrusions last night. Our planned short day today allowed for other activities and we walked to the beach where we watched our uni-student-trio attempting to surf. The surf was pretty rough and they aborted their first try as the current was pushing them toward some rocks. Dana went for a run/walk on the beach and I headed back to camp and the kitchen to charge up and work on the blog. Ian and Janet stopped by and Janet left us a bag of blackberries to go with our breakfast. They were planning on going birding again and that if they were gone, we knew how to get our cooler items. I said thanks and good-bye in advance in case we didn’t see them again.

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We left Apollo Bay after a pretty good night’s sleep, and though my cold was still a presence, I felt better and ready for the first climb that started 2 mi outside of Apollo Bay. The short day yesterday allowed us to change our destination to Princetown, which avoided the almost 10 mile round trip detour into Johanna’s Beach campground. I was happy about that!