Gloucester to New Castle - Writing

Continuing south from Gloucester, we had some time to kill before meeting friends in Newcastle. We would stop in most towns and ride our way off the direct paths. Why not? We didn't have anywhere to be, which was a good thing because we were often approached with questions about our travels. It was nice to not be in a hurry so we could take the time to meet the locals and share stories. Fanstastic people. Beautiful land.

To avoid the busy highways leading into Newcastle, we took little roads that led us across the water where we could take another ferry directly into Newcastle. The outskirts of town were quite industrial, but Newcastle was a supprisingly vibrant city; clean and filled with independent shops and restaurants. Finding our way through the city to Sean and Misty's place, we were thankful to be able to spend a long weekend with them, even making it to a local festival and of course drinking loads of delicious wine. Thank you Sean and Misty for your amazing hospitality. Boy do we owe A LOT of paybacks after this trip. Wherever our feet may land in the future, we definitely hope to be able to repay the kindness we have experienced.

Somehow our 6 months in Australia passed extremely quick. We (again using the word "we" loosely as Ryan did most of the work) used Sean and Misty's place to break down the bikes to prepare for shipping. Unfortunately, we did not get to spend time in Sydney, but the way we see this adventure is that we are getting to see the small towns rather than the cities. The big cities will be on a different journey in life. Taking the train to Sydney, we said goodbye to another wonderful experience and were quite looking forward to the 5 weeks in Hawaii with Todd and Laurel!