From Africa to Australia

Melbourne, Australia - I'm sure my faithful readers have been wondering what happened to me since I finished my epic bikeride across Africa. It's hard to believe that it has already been a week since Tom and I passed the virtual baton to Xiao Biar and Ethan Gelber, the next and final participant riding for the Lonely Planet team. These two are now en route from Windhoek, Namibia to Cape Town, South Africa, where they will ride across the finish line on our behalf.

That afternoon I flew out to Johannesburg, and onward to Australia, for the next phase of my inter-continental journey.

This week I have been participating in an author workshop at Lonely Planet's headquarters in Melbourne. I can't post any photos, unfortunately, since it's top secret stuff that has been going on here. But needless to say, it has been an incredible week. It's not often that we authors have an opportunity to interact with each other, so we really made the most of our time: working all day and playing all night. I have slept very little, but we all agreed that this is no time for sleeping.

It has been exciting to meet LP's new CEO and to learn about some of the future plans for the company. Besides the regular workshop stuff, I have been answering editor queries about Boston, working with cartographers to prepare maps for Krakow, submitting the film footage we shot for Lonely Planet TV during the Tour d'Afrique and brainstorming ideas about future filming possibilities. It was a pretty shocking return to reality after a month in Africa.

Now tell me the truth... you didn't really think I would come all the way to Australia without stopping in to see the fish at the Great Barrier Reef... did you?

Tomorrow I fly to the Whitsunday Island for a week of sun and fun. Sadly I had to borrow a computer from LP so I can work on author queries while I'm there... but somehow I imagine they will be so much more tolerable when I am sitting on a beach!