David's Journal Entry 

What a start to our ridiculous adventure. My sense of direction has always been questionable, but driving oneself to the wrong airport terminal in a country that you have lived in for 6 years is a special kind of stupid. Having already said goodbye to E (my wife) and our boys I had only one option, catch the train to the other KLIA terminal. Despite the chagrin of the shuttle staff I managed to persuade the ticket inspector to allow me on board with Doug for the four-minute transfer. Suffice to say I did make my flight. After transiting through Singapore I arrived in Darwin just before 5am, but struggled in the cool morning air to get a cab capable of accommodating me and all my kit. Eventually, a ute-taxi drew up to arrivals and once loaded up we moved easily through a slowly waking Darwin. In less than half an hour I pulled up outside Mike's hotel and decamped with everything I would have for the next seven weeks. 

More than five years after first conceiving this plan we are finally ready to start. Having put Doug together we rolled down the road at a steady clip, albeit with a couple of pauses to fine-tune things. We both know that starting in this way is far from ideal.  Spending time to dial things in correctly is a much more sensible plan, but the inner kid in each of us won out and we couldn't wait any longer. After many false dawns, mostly due to Covid, neither of us wanted to delay. By rights, we should be in Perth rather than Darwin and aiming East to Sydney, instead due to the tardy reopening of the Western Australian border to international arrivals we are pointing south and Melbourne bound. Remarkably the distance we plan to cover on our route from Darwin to Melbourne via Adelaide (3,815km) is almost identical to the distance from Perth to Sydney/Shellharbour that we had originally planned (3787km).

With challenging headwinds all day, and a pretty up-and-down track it was slow going. We cruised and chatted, catching up on lots of news and generally just enjoying the honeymoon period that comes with any long tour. As the day drew on it became obvious we would lose our race with the sunset. The change in light at dusk brought out the wildlife, with roos, galahs, and sulphur-crested cockatoos all evident in abundance, not to mention a very handsome 2m+ brown snake in the road. As our lights punched through increasingly dark surroundings, we wound our way the final dozen or so kilometres to the 'Diggers Bistro' in the heart of Adelaide River. Our plans to have a feed and pitch up for the night were only half realised. The lack of available accommodation at Digger's forced us to ride to the Adelaide River campground instead. Although thankfully not until after we had eaten. The big 5m stuffed crocodile outside the bar reminded us of the kind of country we are in now as did the music: INXS, AC/DC, Cold Chisel and Paul Kelly...Welcome to Australia! 

Today I learned

1. Headwinds suck (although this is hardly new information)

2. Mike is stronger than me, for now...but I am pulling more weight

3. It is a good idea to start early

My knees are on fire.