In the morning, after I had my revenge against the annoying teenage kids by stealing their shoelaces and locking them inside their tent while they were still passed out, I rode down to the ferry. The next service across the Spencer Gulf to Cowell left in just a few minutes so I quickly purchased my ticket and hopped on board.

The ferry was large but nowhere near the size of the one that took me to Tasmania from Melbourne. There were several other motorcycles on the parking deck, mostly Harley, and many cars. The passenger deck was more like a café and had large windows for a brilliant view of the water. I sat down at a table, ordered a couple cappuccinos' and conversed with an old couple for most of the two hour journey.

When the ship docked and rode off of the ferry I followed the other motorcycles because I wasn't sure of which direction to go to reach the main highway. They led me to the main road east to Lock; about 100 kilometers. At Lock I went north about 50 kilometers to reach the main highway called A1.

It must be said that I don't enjoy riding my motorcycle on these roads. Simply put, they are boring; straight, flat, bushes on the left, bushes on the right. And it's hot, very hot. Having not slept too well the night before and only driving three hundred kilometers I decided to find a place to camp near Ceduna. I couldn't find any proper campgrounds so I just pulled over, entered onto a large field through a gate and pitched my tent on private property.

One thing about Australia I cannot stand, and the number one reason why I would never live here, are the flies. They're bastards. If they land on my hand and I try to shake them off they won't budge. They also know when both of my hands are in use, like when I'm setting up my tent and take advantage of this knowledge by landing on my face and buzzing inside my ears.

Once my tent was erected I crawled in, zipped myself inside and killed all the flies that made it in. Since smoking regular cigarettes is too expensive here I bought some loose-leaf tobacco. I spent an hour teaching myself how to roll them and being satisfied with one of the results I lit up and blew smoke at the flies sitting through the mosquito netting of my tent. Later I read a book until it became too dark. The rest of the evening I lay staring at the sky searching for falling stars and satellites.

I woke to the sound of buzzing. It was light outside when I opened my eyes. Every square inch of my tent was covered not in flies but mosquitoes; thousands of them. I sat inside at least a half hour deciding how best to exit my tent and pack up my gear. The only idea that came to mind was to put on a jacket to cover my arms, slap myself repeatedly in the face every two seconds and wave my arms frantically, while I run in circles screaming swear words once in a while. It wasn't a good morning.

Stats of the battle: 2 bites on my neck and over 50 mosquitoes killed. Not bad.

The rest of the day didn't go too well either. The chain on my bike was sagging badly and there was no room left to tighten it. I also noticed that my rear sprocket was wearing. I figured that I would still be ok to get to Perth without changing them out. I was wrong.

My chain fell off more than a few times. The first time it happened I thought a link had busted. I coasted to the edge of the highway and noticed that it had simply fallen off because it was too long. I put it back on and took off. I didn't make it ten feet before it happened again. After a while I found that I had to accelerate slowly, very slowly, and couldn't go more than 50 miles per hour.

I made it five hundred kilometers to the border town called Eucla (on the states of South Australia and Western Australia - another 45 minute time zone change). I made it to a hotel, the only hotel in this town of 50 people, and asked the cute Irish receptionist if there was a mechanic in town.

"There is just one mechanic in town and he lives just up the road there. I don't know if he works on motorcycles but you can ask. Hopefully your problem isn't too big because he's booked with work. My car is at his place and he's still getting around to looking at it. I was just passing through, like you, and my engine blew. I decided to take a job as receptionist here because I couldn't find anything else to do with my time. May as well earn a bit of money, right?"

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Oh, about six weeks now", she smiled.

I stared at her. I'm so screwed, I thought. "He's the only mechanic in town?"

"He'll probably let you use his tools if you have parts and know how to fix what you need. But it's Sunday, he might not even be working today."

I had all the spare parts, sprocket and chain, but it definitely wasn't a one man job since I didn't have any way to stand the bike up while I took off the tire. I also had all the tools I needed except for a tool for the chain links. If I had to stay in a place like this for more than a day, let alone a few weeks, I'd slowly die inside.

I walked down to the mechanic. At first I wasn't sure I was at the correct place. It was a residence, not a shop. A nice older man answered the door and he looked over my bike and chain.

"I have some tools you can borrow if you want to do this yourself; I'm a bit busy at the moment." He motioned to the cars in the lot. I have only worked on my bike once, and even then it was under supervision. "I'll help you get the bike up on a crate so you can take off the tire." We setup the bike out front of his house, in the sun.

It turned out that we needed to saw off the chain since there wasn't a master link. He did this for me. He helped me take off the tire then took it back to his shop and put on the new sprocket for me. He didn't have any tools for putting on the new chain so we used hammers, pliers and raw force to join the two ends. This took a couple hours. We put on the tire and only then did we realize that we forgot to measure the chain; it was five links too long.

I was getting frustrated. He told me to come back in the morning at eight and we'll work on it then. That was fine with me, the flies had been bothering me the whole time we were working, along with the sweat in my eyes and too much sun on my face.

At eight the next morning I arrived back at the mechanics. He didn't answer the door so I waited on his doorstep for a half hour before he showed up. He said he had stayed up all night to finish working on a car. He dropped it off at her house this morning and walked back. This is why he was late and I was no longer mad at him.

We took off the new chain without problems and sawed off five links. Putting it back on was easy as well since the o-rings were already compressed. I was very pleased that the bike was fit to ride and I could finally be on my way. I asked him how much I owed him. He shook his head, "Ah, no worries, mate. No worries."

What a guy. I love Australians. Sweating in the sun with flies buzzing all around helping some stranger fix his motorcycle for free - you won't find that in the States.

Making up for lost time I spent the entire rest of the day riding west through the Outback. One stretch of road had a sign that boasted "Australia's Longest Straight Road - 90 Miles without a Single Turn!" or something like that. But yeah, 90 frickin' miles of straight road, not even a hill.

Riding it reminded me of the Roadrunner. Remember that cartoon show? When the coyote is chasing the roadrunner the background keeps repeating itself. The same tree goes past fifty times, same with the bushes, cactus and canyons. Except here there are only bushes. If only I had a rocket I could strap myself to, then I'd get to a civilization faster. Beep-beep!

I made it to a small town (what's new?) called Norseman. I decided to stay at a hotel because of my newfound fear of mosquito thickets. Plus air conditioning wouldn't be half bad. At the hotel I met another receptionist. This girl was Canadian and she told me that she actually applied for a job in the middle of nowhere. She tried to explain why but my mind couldn't grasp it. I kept thinking, who the hell would want to live here? She'd been there two weeks and had another eight to go before she went back to Perth. I wouldn't have lasted a few days.

I drank a few beers and played a game of pool with a guy at the bar. He was a local and worked as a police officer. He wanted to check out my motorcycle so we went outside and brought our beers. I found it amusing that it was illegal to drink on the street. He said he didn't take his job seriously. I believed him. He looked a bit drunk and I asked if he was driving home. "Yeah mate. I'm the only police officer on duty tonight". I had to laugh.

The next day I made it to Perth just in time for Australia Day, which is equivalent to the American Independence Day. Last year I was in Whistler, Canada with my friend Andrew and I actually celebrated Australia Day there since every person who worked there was an Aussie. People were binging in bars for 24 hours straight and the parties where quite great. I hoped that Australia Day in Australia would be better.

I made the mistake of arriving in Perth without a reservation for a hostel or hotel. I hadn't at all imagined that the hotels would be booked, but I thought wrong. I went to the Northbridge area of Perth, where I knew all the hostels to be located. I drove around and tried booking into three or four hostels, all of which were completely full. I had to settle for an expensive hotel with a not so lush room. Whatever, I will checkout tomorrow and find myself a hostel, I told myself.

I checked email for the first time in ages and sent messages to my friends in Perth hoping they would get my message in the next few hours so I could hang out with them for Aussie Day. By ten o'clock they hadn't responded so I decided to go to a bar and hopefully I'd meet some people to hang out with.

I went to a place down the street. Every man in the bar wore a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and all the women wore miniskirts and heels. I was the only guy in there with jean pants and black boots, and I oddly felt overdressed. 

I ordered a beer and found it to be outrageously expensive, like everything else in Australia. I listened to the live band for a bit and tried to talk with some people but they were already drunk. For the sake of my budget, sanity, and feeling uncomfortable about being around so many people after being in the outback, I left. Australia Day in Canada was better.

Next day, the 27^th, I moved down the street to the Underground Hostel on Lake street in Northbridge. They had free parking for my motorcycle in an underground garage. My roommates were pretty cool and all Irish. As a matter of fact the whole hostel was full of Irish. I spoke with a few of them and learned that jobs were hard to find there, so they were all moving to Australia for a year or two. I imagined a great exodus like the great famine but they all seemed to be healthy. I spent ten days at the hostel and began to wonder if there were any more Irish people in Ireland.

During those ten days I hooked up with my friend Nav who I met in Buenos Aires, Argentina seven months ago. She still speaks in her broken Spanish phrases (I don't know whether she actually learned a whole sentence in Spanish) and chats to some of the other friends we met in Buenos Aires. I went out with her and her friends to a few bars and house parties, all of which were fantastic.

I also met up with Tristan, my first real friend when I started traveling in the summer of 2005. He was throwing a ‘going away' party because he and his beautiful girlfriend Sasha were headed to South America for six months and working in Canada for six months. His party was a costume party but I hardly dressed up. I was going to go as Che but figured everybody would be dressed as him. Tristan was.

The party was fantastic and the girls were beautiful. Since Tristan was headed away for a year he had to spend time with his other friends as well so I didn't get to talk to him as much as I wanted. We both got supremely drunk and made asses of ourselves, just like old times.