From China, to Korea, to Australia - without bicycles. What a big change in so little time! It feels very double: really happy to be here with our children, our friends, and good food and drinks, yet strange to fly away from that big trip we were (are!) making and to be separated from our bicycles for 12 days!
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Melbourne skyline from Jan & Annemie's apartment in Fitzroy
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| Beautiful Australian nature |
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| Bark peeling off |
It was so nice to be in Melbourne and spend some good time with Sander. He's now in his final weeks of study and has a lot of work, a few more weeks to push through. While this meant he had limited time available to spend with us, these precious moments were really nice, and we'll have some more time next week before we fly out from Melbourne again as well. We've been staying with Jan and Annemie in Melbourne, good friends we know from KL. They're taking very good care of us, spoiling us with great food and drinks, and their fantastic company of course. Not to forget, their rooftop bar tour of Melbourne, a nice experience! Last Friday we also made a day trip to the Yarra Valley; good Friday is a public holiday in Australia, so Jan was free as well, and we drove out of the city for a nice walk, followed by a glass of wine in one of the Yarra wineries. A truly Australian day out...
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| A steep hike |
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| Still a steep hike |
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| And a "very adventurous" river crossing |
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| Picnic in the park (vrij naar "boterhammen in het park"), the fabulous four |
And now we're on our way to Tasmania, to visit Vere. We'll be there for 4 days, and will certainly do some short trips with her as well. It's funny to have this "break" from our bike trip, probably not a bad thing (to make sure we're physically fully ready to continue for another 2,5 months on the bicycle!)... By the time we get back to Korea, we'll have cycled only 1 day over a period of 19 days, from the moment we arrived in Chengdu until getting back to Seoul!
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| Our walk was characterised by "closed trails"... |
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| I really liked the shape and texture of this burnt tree, I think it was purposely made for a fantastic photo... There is in fact a lot of controlled forest burning in Australia, in order to avoid uncontrollable wildfires during the hot, dry summer. |
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| After the hike, a nice reward at the winery, with the vineyard slowly changing into autumn colours |
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| A glass of fine Barbera wine |
No photos of the rooftop tour unfortunately - we'll keep that for next time!