I was a long, boring drive down to Melbourne, through quite a bit of Australian’s backcountry. 800-something km, 13 hours…It’s dry everywhere, some cattle on few farms, few small creeks, that’s basically it.

No koalas or wallabies or kangaroos sighted, but some flatish furry piles along the road and warning signs everywhere. The question on the rental “Do you like insurance against hitting a kangaroo?” was probably asked with reason. Glad I was driving in daylight!

A refreshing cold-cherry-selling farm market on the way – I bought and instantly ate a full kilo! This was the best of the food of the day, between two bags of crispy potaty chips, three fruity ice creams, one Milky bar and a stop at Subway with a baguette and three cookies.

Again my navigation system was better than *no* navigation system, but getting out of Sydney and into Melbourne might have worked better old-fashioned with a paper map…

It was the warmest day so far – about 40 degrees…glad my climate control in the car worked. Tiredness was a big fight all day. To stop for a short nap was only possible with the engine still running keeping the climate control working. The night in Melbourne is reasonable again, maybe 16-18 degrees with quite some wind.

Here in Melbourne I’m staying at Annie and Les Bognar’s lovely big house. Les is president of the Victorian Sea Kayak Club VSKC, and hosted Justine Curgenven and Nigel Dennis as well on their visits in the last year’s to Melbourne. Peter Treby was there to greet me as well! Nice guys, all of them! Thanks for great hospitality!

A bit of a chat, and some e-mailing work, now it’s time for bed…

I’ll probably be launching on Sunday – I’ll need two days for preparation here, and the wind will be better one day later as well.

Blog enty written on a Toshiba Portégé R55-11Y