Tuesday 30th November 2010 – Last night I met a French lady in the hostel. Her English was a bit patchy so I endeavoured to fill in the missing words with my school-girl French. We ended up having quite a good conversation and I felt quite pleased with myself for managing to string a few sentences together.

So this morning I said au revoir to my new French friend and headed south for Coles Bay. The hostel manager, Paul, a keen biker, suggested I should take the road to St Mary’s instead of going all the way along the coast. This took me up the St Mary’s pass and down the Elephant Pass – both narrow twisty roads, but compared to my rainforest epic, a piece of cake! I even passed some of the WA boys on the way up. I passed some more of them outside the Motorcycle Museum at Bicheno but as I didn’t know it was there until I was level with it, I wasn’t able to stop so continued onto Coles Bay. I got there about 1pm, checked into what can best be described as a “traditional” YHA (i.e. needing a lot of work) then headed off to the Freycinet National Park and, by a remarkable stroke of good luck (rather than navigation) found myself at the start to the Wineglass Bay walk. So off I set – this time just in half motorcycle gear (I managed to strap my jacket to the bike). What a climb – took me almost 2 hours to do a 1.5 hour walk – but it was worth it as the view of the bay was fabulous. Unfortunately it was quite overcast so the colours weren’t as good as they’d been around the Bay of Fires but still a good view.

That night I decided to eat in the local pub. I sat next to a lovely couple called Wendy & Ross who were on their honeymoon. They were really interesting so it really brightened up my evening and, at the end, they even paid for my meal! I couldn’t believe how generous and friendly they’d been.

Next morning I went to the bakery for breakfast and got talking to some people who were part of a group of bikers over from Sydney. After I finished eating I paid for my food then put my wallet in my jacket and returned to the hostel. When I came out a few minutes later, one of the bikers was leaving a note on my bike saying he’d found my wallet and had put it in my luggage. Apparently it had fallen through the lining of my jacket. God, imagine if they hadn’t found it and I’d gone riding off without it? I could have gone miles before I noticed and then I wouldn’t have had a clue where I’d lost it! So thank you so much to the lovely biker from Sydney who tracked me down and returned it – I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness.