Partial update

Hi Folks,

While we have a couple of bytes I thought I would add a little update about some stuff organised so far. I'll get to all the Tassie stuff in the next post, but there is too much to go into tonight (aka I am too lazy). I'll throw in a few extra updates as I go along which will give you an idea of what it's like. For those who haven't been to Tassie before, I'll give you the quick spoiler. It's Awesome.

But before that, I'll go into the Melbourne adventure.

We got into Melbourne pretty late after once again having trouble with the GPS. Spoon accidentally deleted his Aussie maps after trying to sort out what the problem was. We haven't fixed it so far, but he should be able to sort it out when we get back to Canberra.

We stayed with my Aunt Frances & Uncle Lee in Taylors Lakes. Once again, we are most appreciative of their hospitality. It's great that we know people in most Major cities we are going through, because it's been fantastic to get a break from the travel and hotel rooms.

The next day we headed into town for what turned into one of the most troublesome parts of the whole journey. I had been having some minor technical difficulties with the bike which I tried to get sorted in Adelaide, but had to get sorted in Melbourne. When I rocked up to the bike shop in the early afternoon, they hadn't recorded the booking. There was an email from the Adelaide shop which they eventually managed to find, so I left it with them for the afternoon to figure out if they could sort it out. Guy and I then went to the main bike shop which we had been assured had several cables we were looking for to use the moulded earplugs we picked up in Adelaide (Fantastic investment btw). It turns out they hadn't dealt in Autocom parts for years. We then rocked along to a electronics store to see if we could cannabalise our current systems to use a 3.5mm headphone jack. Buying something similar was a guy who just happened to be a member of the Ulysses Motorcycle Club. His name was Chris and he offered to take us back to his office a few blocks down and try and source the actual cables. He and his team from ACP Solutions jumped on the net, grabbed all the Autocom dealers in Melbourne with their numbers. They then let us use their phone to call around try see if we can get the part. As it turns out NO-ONE in the entirety of Melbourne had the part in stock, they all had to order it in. As we were leaving on the Ferry to Tassie on Sunday, this was pretty much useless to us.
Thanking them for their fantastic assistance, we headed off to grab some food and I headed down to the Melbourne office for a bit of a stickybeak while Spoon headed home to try and install the headset mod. I managed to get to the office at 5ish to say Hi, then caught up with my mate John for a few beers in a few pubs in Fitzroy.

Saturday was a lazy day of doing very little other than sorting out anything we had held off due to being on the road (including both of us modding the headsets). Once again, I love the Earmold Australia headphones. They cut out sooo much noise (a little too much to be honest).

Sunday we said goodbye to Frances & Lee early and headed down to Phillip Island (it is 'The Island' after all). This was the first day we actually got rained while riding on for more than 30 secs, and it poured down. A 200k journey took us most of the day, due to roadworks (What is the deal with all the roadworks in Vic!!!) and rain etc. There was a heritage vehicles race on at the track which was pretty cool. We stopped in at the Phillip Island G.P. museum due to the rain which was really interesting. We ran out of time for anything else unfortunately, but worth it for the track.

We headed back to Melbourne to meet up with the other Boys coming to Tassie and say Hi to Sarah who is now living down there.

That will do for now, Guy or I will no doubt update you on the Ferry to Tassie and our first stop Strahan.