New & exciting  - "Dreaming in Color" is now available in these online stores...
Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon, Rhapsody, Deezer and Tidal. (Or contact Ron@ron-marcel.com for more info.)

Meanwhile, spending Christmas with the family this year and getting ready for the EU trip! And, of course; writing new music...

Hey! I just started a new website for my music - ron-marcel.com Check it out...

Ron Marcel is my stage name (easier to spell and pronounce; Marcel is my middle name). There is an email in the "contact" section.

This isn't about the trip but I wanted to mention that I now have been given an opportunity to play at the Burning Man Central Café! (Monday, August 29th from 6:00PM until 7:20PM) Here are a few of the songs I will play (only orignal music allowed )... (note - simple, non-professional sample recordings here, only for copyright purposes)

1) "Dreaming in Color" - written for & about Iron Cowgirl Missy, who graciously took the time to teach me how to write music!

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/Ron%20Marcel%20-%20Dreaming%20In%20Color.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

2) "Children in the House" - my second song, could be titled "My Life in 6 Minutes"

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/Ron%20Marcel%20-%20Children%20In%20the%20House.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

3) "Remembering Amanda" - written just before the Australia trip

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/Ron%20Marcel%20-%20Remembering%20Amanda.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

4) "Enfants dans la Maison" - "Children in the House" sung in French! (On my niece's boat in Alabama...with an iPhone)

https://youtu.be/QwsgXvp_U9I

5) "Jenny" - written for my grandniece in Montreal. 1/2 in French, half in English.

 https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/08%20-%20Ron%20Marcel%20-%20Jenny.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

6) "Family All Around" - Written in Costa Rica about how we acquire new family in our lives.

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/Ron%20Marcel%20-%20Family%20all%20Around.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

7) "Matt, Lori, Iron & me" - written to document the new engine & trans gifted to me by Matt Levatich & Lori Oelhafen of Harley.

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/Ron%20Marcel%20-%20Matt%2C%20Lori%2C%20Iron%20%26%20me.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

8) "The Children" - inspired by my friends Rachel & Jesse's young daughter who reminded me what it was like to be young again! (if only for a little while)

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/The%20Children.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

9) "La Chatte" - A short instrumental written in Valleyfield, Quebec. Nicole suggested no lyrics; she was right.

https://sites.google.com/site/ironandmetravelingcom/audio/Ron%20Marcel%20-%20La%20Chatte.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

Going home! Australia will soon be a memory, a fine one at that.

Scott McConnell & Victory Melbourne were great! Gave me the quoted price back with no hassles. Sure was good to know when I started that I wouldn't have to worry about having an expensive motorcycle I had to find a buyer for & that's precisely how that happened. The Victory CCT was flawless in its performance, took me everywhere I wanted to go and not a hint of mechanical trouble. However, I am looking forward to getting re-aquainted with my Harleys!

Thanks to everyone's interest in my travels; it made it even more fun! So now on to a couple weeks in Montreal & Quebec, followed by the amazing Burning Man! If a couple months of Outback in the summer wasn't enough to prepare me for that, nothing could.

After that, spring of 2017 will be the EU trip, starting in France in late April. I may be starting another blog, but the web address will be the same, so check back in then.
Meanwhile, don't just wonder what the world looks like, go see!!

Hey, this didn't get me!! I've been checking the radar & this looked pretty bad over there, but I didn't realize it was this bad. I was there 3 months ago, but I've been up & down the middle since then. I am now where I started, at the Rockbank Caravan Park. Got here a day early 'cause rain should be coming in tomorrow (had an hour or so of light rain this afternoon). Takin' the bike back to Melbourne Victory on Wednesday morning. Didn't see one single snake, croc or deadly spiders - doesn't mean there weren't any - if there were some, I just didn't see them.

Back to Coober Pedy for a moment (Just uploaded these pictures from the camera...)
Yep; it's another "BIG" thing. Coober Pedy is famous for its Opal mines (they're everywhere!) I might not have noticed the spelling - I saw the "manually added" comment & grinned.

1C tonight! (34F). I am in a place obviously named by Astro, the Jetson's dog - "Orroroo".
Makes me wish I had brought all my heated gear, but I only have the gloves. Most of today's ride ride was around 57F, but with the stuff I had it wasn't bad. Winter in southern Australia is pretty tame & the next week or so will be OK, but not ideal. You can get a glimpse of my enthusiasm for the last week of riding by listening to this clip of a couple of Australian Ravens...
Australian_Ravens.mp3

Last little bit - about 1,250 miles to go! Rain in Port Augusta on Thursday so I'm staying here in Coober Pedy until Friday... the farther south I get the colder it will be.

Not far from Uluru is Kata-Tjuta. The bottom picture is King's Canyon, sorta on the way back to civilization. (200 mile side-trip)

This is arguably the most famous picture from Australia - Uluru (Ayer's Rock) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru. The bottom pictures shows how it just jumps right out of the surrounding plains. (No cellular last couples nights)

A few road signs...
Top - Red sign caught my eye, even though no way I would take this dirt road
Middle - no speed number means there is no speed limit here
Bottom - Leaving the "no speed limit" zone! Shrek's cruise drops out at 95mph, so...

Went back to Daly Waters, but this time yeah, it was cooler, but also crowded! Now heading to Alice Springs & Uluru. Not only weird animals & people here - strange trees, too. The Boab is here! Some of you will remember the Orchestra Boabab? That's what these are called in Africa. The locals call them "Bottle trees".

Well, back to Three Ways and down to Alice Spings, etc. However, it is now 63F there, getting to 40F tonight. I found myself 1,600 miles from Melbourne (about 10 days riding w/sidetrips) with 28 days left! So turn around I go, just kickin' around the warmer north until I have to go where it's colder. Only 125 miles up (took me 2 days to do this!) & it's 77F now with a low of 56F expected tonight - much more better! So I stop and take this picture - Yeah I know, it's just a bunch of rocks...(Devil's Marbles, this is called)

After all this time - another new creature!
The side trip really was quite awesome on its own: marvelous new scenery that would not have been visible from the main path. However, there was another aspect that really was quite amazing. Some of you will remember North American creatures in the bike's path - an alligator in the Everglades, a moose in Alaska, a grisly in the Yukon. But this was a first; I had to slow down and stop to allow camels to cross that little road! Hot again here but this time I will savor it before I go back to the colder south. 97F tomorrow and Saturday in Camooweal but there is a great pool & facilities here (which includes a pub to get food and play music!) so I will stay until Sunday.

Back in the Outback!
I got off the main road to get a glimpse of the real outback! The top picture shows the road to Middleton, then on to Boulia & Mt. Isa. This is what's called a "developmental road" so it is one lane only, no makings. Middleton is a one-building town, no cellular here! Please note the helicopter in the bottom picture! The old man has been here since 1959, used to have a couple hundred camels, which he took into town and sold.

A very rough drawing of the trip so far. Keep in mind that Australia is about the same size as the entire US! The bottom picture shows the red overlay of Australia (don't forget Tasmania shown in the Gulf of Mexico!) I'm seeing a lot & I'm missing a lot...

I promise not to post a lot of these things, but I am in fact a tourist. Ian Shoales once said: "Tourists are terrorists with cameras, terrorists are tourists with guns". The "BIG Mandarin" was added in 1983, no doubt to outdo the nearby town who erected a "BIG Orange" in 1977.
 Getting new "tyres" tomorrow & will be back on the road soon.

I'm going to miss the camping options available here when I get back to the states. In the US & Canada, camp in camprounds; that's it and that's all - nothin' is free (with a few exemptions of a very few small towns out west). But in Australia, the possibilities are amazing! The last 12 days of camping have cost me a total of $20 (+ a couple meals)
* Communities (called "Councils") maintain rest areas which allow for 24-hour free camping for travelers; some even have showers!
* Small towns all have a park (Lions, etc) and most (or many, anyway) allow overnight camping for free. Note - if you stop in their town, you'll spend money there!!
* A few small-town hotels will let you camp on their land free, hoping you'll come eat at the pub.
* "Roadhouses" (which is all there is between towns that are 600 or more miles apart) will charge you maybe $10/12 for a tent, knowing you'll probably buy gas and food, too.
* & then there are the ubiquitous "Caravan Parks" which charge mostly $20 or more (I've seen upwards of $45!) to put a tent on the ground.  AND, that's for one person - $5 for each additional!  (Large families beware...) This usually includes power, camp kitchen and showers, though.
#OK, one small avantage for US campgrounds - usually free wi-fi. Here, lucky to get an hour for $5!

Look out for the wildlife, except for when it's "tamelife"...
On my way south again - this time for a short trip to Brisbane. I was heading to Townsville as the place to get an oil change and new "tyres" but they once again did not have them. I called Brisbane & they expect the front on Tuesday, so there is where I will do it instead.

The "winged" sunrise alert system functioned magnificently yesterday morning and I actually saw the sun rising. There are some mountains off in the New South Wales distance but it is now mostly flat as I ride in south-central Queensland.  

Australia is a BIG place - in fact just going around the perimeter one time took over 13,000 miles. Now when they want something to show, it's got to be big. There is an entire collection of "Big Aussie Things" which can be viewed here -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%27s_big_things.
Hey, this even makes Shrek look tiny! http://biggoldenguitar.com.au/the-big-golden-guitar/

Rural south-eastern Australia - Having completed the entire circumference of the continent & Tasmania (13,800 miles in my case), I now am back up in the warmer (84F today) section. This is the western central area of New South Wales & as you can see it's really flat and uneventful. However, it was some very good riding here and I enjoyed it today. Yes, this is on fact a picture from a moving Shrek...

Echuca - the Murray River steamboats! The "Pevensey" was built in 1911. The water is now very low and it's green because of the heat a couple weeks ago, which produced all the algea (pronounced "al-gee" ~ hard g). I am staying at Don & Wendy's for a few days and will be back on the road on Wednesday morning. Yes, I am cheating and sleeping in a bed.

Roberto! A Koala!  I camped on The Great Ocean Road in Apollo Bay last night. In the morning I went walking through the trees around the campground, which was on a river right at the Indian ocean. The top picture is as I found him; the bottom one is after I whistled hard at him to wake him up. He just kind of looked at me like "whaaat?", turned around and went back to sleep.

I made it! About 1/2 of the Great Ocean Road. Normally, a few twisties on a mountain road are OK, but this time it was 40 miles of a rainforest with roadwork in progress. That means that a couple miles of these twisties were on one-lane mud! That was an adventure!! (& an adventure is best described as a disaster that didn't happen...) I did stop to get an actual picture of one of the places near a previously shown area - "Bay of Martyrs" near Peterborough.

It's COLD! Last night it was 8C (46F) in Yambuk, VIC. The ride yesterday was mostly 15C (59F) and it was 57F at 5PM when I stopped. Rob, the humorous fellow who runs the historic hotel & pub where I played a few songs last night, tells me it was built in 1868. I will be only 2,300 miles from Antarctica today on the Great Ocean Road. Since I don't take pictures from a moving Shrek, here are a couple stock images...(note - email address inside profile)

Grasshoppers on the Nullarbor...
The picture does not convey the incredible abundance of suicidal grasshoppers I encountered between Esperance and Port Augusta. Victory Adelaide had to wash it twice!

I think I like it here...
(above the coffee pot at Adelaide Victory)

Here I am at the midpoint of the Australia ride - at just over half the 40,000 KM the Victory dealer & I agreed to. I have now successfully completed the great North & West of Australia; tonight I am coming up on Adelaide for the 3rd oil change. I did relax a little; 3 days with Don & Wendy, 7 days in Darwin & 6 days in Perth. For those of you wondering how 4 1/2 months in a tent is even possible - well, so far it's been great! I am meeting new folks all the time and I play my music on most nights. In order not to allow myself the chance to sit around, I have planned a Quebec Road King trip in July and am meeting some friends at the Nevada Burning Man Festivities in August! Gotta go...

The corner of the top picture is a place I couldn't believe its name: turns out...

Eucalyptus salmonophloia or the Salmon Gum is an evergreen tree native to Western Australia. Other names of this species include Wuruk or Woonert

OZ is a good name for this place - not because of weird and unusual characters, of which there are many or strange and colorful ceatures, which abound in great varieties.

But rather because of the amazing diversity of landscapes. Every scene depicts a completely different planet - colors, trees and topology completely different from the last. The ride through the forests in southwest WA was awesome, in some ways reminiscent of North America with images and smells of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, even the great Redwood forests of California. All this in a place previously altogether different from this region.

Some of these creatures are rather friendly - these two don't seem to mind human proximity. Deer this close to a tent would be highly unusual. Some rain here this weekend & it's Easter (bad traffic / campgrounds full) so I'll stay put for a few days.

"Why Don't We Do It in the Road" - Camping in the weirdest places. This picture is designed to look like a real road, but it's really just a piece of unused road still laying there (near Cervantes). Thanks WikiCamps AU users for identifying this as a good place!

There are most certainly some rather colorful creatures around here - another campground wanderer. This peacock is about the size of a really large turkey.

More creatures... never did see a camel. Aslo, there are no squirrels, racoons, deer, possums, muskrats, etc. They do have wild horses! Have yet to see a snake, but I guess I shouldn't say things like that (even though I am firmly convinced the universe has better things to do than irritate me)

Today I passed a sign "26th parallel - you are now leaving the North West". Then I went up into a peninsula on my way to Monkey Mia where I passed another sign "26th parallel - you are now entering the North West". I guess I will pass it again tomorrow...

Now, I want to thank my bosses and all my amazing colleagues (who I spent quite a lot of time with over the years) for such a fantastic send-off! So I took the picture of that marvelous (& remarkably accurate!) cake and marked my route so far; I have gone a long way! I'll complete the circumnavigation of the "big island", then come back up the middle and east & back down again!

Success! An awesome experience of swimming a few meters away from a Whaleshark! Skipper Jimmy and the crew at www.oceanecoadventures.com.au were pros who knew how to do it right and treated us with style. A genuine unique Australian experience that I am glad I did not miss. I might have if not for the great advice from the owner of the Dampier Caravan park a couple days before. Say, I gotta get off the bike more often...

This particular Whaleshark was about 16 feet long..  for the entire set of pictures... https://www.flickr.com/photos/139678416@N03/with/25759796271/

Another Creature! I was hoping to see one of these things & as I was riding up to the Lighthouse Caravan park at the tip of the Ningaloo Peninsula one was crossing the road & I had to brake hard not to hit it. This might be the very same one; right after I got out of the pool and making coffee, this Emu just starts wandering the campground. Take a look at the truck tire tracks and you can get an idea of its size - huge! Here at the coast in this place, it is cooler - low of 68F tonight.

Tomorrow, I am getting picked up by the Whaleshark boat people and off we go to spend the day looking for them. If we do locate some, we get to swim with them! If not, I get to go again on Friday. So you see, I am getting off the bike to do stuff!

Still hot - 111F ride yesterday and 106F today. No pool or shower tonight; all parks around here are really expensive for just a tent spot (same as the motorhome price) so I am at a rest area with my 12V (1 amp) fan that runs off the bike all night (tested it earlier & still lots of power left in the battery in the morning). Now this particular rest stop has an added feature - a "Burger Bus"! It was just pulling out as I got here but she walked over and said they'll be back at 7 AM & handed me a breakfast menu!

The Burger Bus lady commented that I have already seen more of Australia than most Australians! But beyond that, I have felt it all and have been immersed in the environment whereas all the cars and caravans have Air Conditioning - seeing Australia as if it were a TV show: through glass. On the bike I hear, see, smell & FEEL it in its entirety. It can be a bit much but it is a glorious way to travel!

* Not something you're likely to see in a US highway rest area!

Western Australia - So far they were right; nothing here & lots of flies. However, it is in fact quite beautiful if still hot. Funny how  little perspective can help; I use to think 95F was too hot to ride. Yesterday, a few clouds and some rain to the east cooled it down from 104F & it was real comfy! There are supposed to be camels around here but haven't seen any. Rob & Marie (Darwin) gave me a small 12V hot water kettle (thanks!) and now I just plug that in and make some coffee in the morning (out in the boonies - AKA "everywhere in the north & west", it's $5 a cup!)

Another creature found roaming the campground near my tent this morning - Yellow-spotted Monitor, this one about 32 inches long. OK, I headed toward the coast; as I got to within about 25 miles, temp started going down, from 109F to 95F! Wow, this is more like it, I say. However, as I write this about 8:30 PM I am near the beach (can't swim here because of the stinger jellyfish) but it is still 88F with an expected low of 86F! Another hot night...alright, that's what I get for coming the hot part of Australia  (the north) in summer.

Today I'll be "Out of the Outback"! Riding yesterday was 106F again; no free camping in this weather! I need a pool & a shower to get through the night (low of 83F, and that only at 4AM). Will be on the Indian Ocean coast this afternoon in Broome & will follow that to Perth. Sign at the last town said "Next gas 183 miles" - that's about Shrek's limit at higher speeds so I picked up a gas can & added that to the bungy cord pile. Played at the pub again last night, but that doesn't work so good without amplification (drunks are much noisier than birds...) so I'll stick to less raucous environments. Wallabies were all over the place here last night; must have been over 60 of them hopping around!

Back on the road! Stopped at Victoria River Roadhouse next, where I took these pictures of cockatoos & wallabies. I then entered Western Australia & in Kununurra I encountered Dan, who wanted to play music; so even though it was 98F and a storm came thru, I was comfortable in air conditioning and doing what I love - playing, singing & eating good food! Thanks, Dan.