The Arrival

I keep repeating myself: im in Australia! Im In Australia! IM IN AUSTRALIA! After a couple more surreal moments my intellectual brains meshes with my rudimentary cortex and accepts that after a 14 hour flight on Virgin Australia, I am indeed in the land down under!During the two hour bus transfer up the coastal freeway from Brisbane airport to Noosa Leads, I listen to the Australian passengers speak freely and kindly with one another as if they have known each other for years! I finally pipe in and ask some simple geography questions to which I receive more complete answers than a college professor would give. A heaping bald man in his 30's ask's me "you on holiday mate?" I tell them of my planned excursion through the outback on two wheels. The bus driver tilts his head awkwardly sideways and says "Ahh, bloody hell mate, theres nothin out there but roos and emu's" I answer "that's why im goin" I come to the quiet conclusion they have me figured for another crazy American.After many well wishes and pieces of final advice, they drop my at my destination, Aussie Biker.As i walk through the door of this modest, well equipped shop, I hear "you must be Kevin" I look over to a desk in the corner to see and older, gaunt man with a salt and pepper beard fumbling through some papers. He invites me to sit with him. For the next hour and a half we chat about Moto GP, Triathlons and Hollywood, where he assumes I am from, given my Southern California address. Later, the shop owner, Dave, introduces me to my steed for the journey, an all red 650cc, BMW enduro bike which I quickly name "Eric the Red" after the Viking king who explored and conquered most of Northern Europe several centuries ago.In the early evening I am taxied to my hotel, The "Royal mail" a quaint, antique hotel with paper mache walls add black and white photos of the building in the 1930's before it burned to the ground then rebuilt only to burn again and be rebuilt again. After a quick jaunt around town i'm laying face up on my Pygmy sized twin bed staring at a wobbly ceiling fan creak as it painfully turns counterclockwise. Downstairs is the hotel pub where I hear throaty roars of laughter during a hotly contested game of darts. As I fade into oblivion I contemplate the monumental task that lay ahead and quite possibly the greatest journey I have faced yet!