Philip's Blog: Bikes Cleaned and Packed

Genoa is a great city! People are friendly, food is delicious; restaurants, cafes and bars abound and prices are reasonable. It has a long history and, amongst other things, is the home of Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the new world. It is home to one of the oldest banks in the world - Bank of St George - which was founded in 1407. This port city has fabulous architecture, numerous galleries cathedrals, palaces and museums. Well worth a few days visit on the next trip to Europe.

Genoa panorama - courtesy of Wikipedia

Yesterday was spent washing the bikes, spares and gear at a local self-service car wash. All bikes have to be in a spotless condition to satisfy Australian quarantine requirements so all traces of soil, plant material, dirt, grime, etc, had to be removed. Things were going well and we nearly got all seventeen bikes cleaned up before the facility owner came along and went ballistic at the amount of oil, grease and other "material" going into his drains. The job was completed at a rival business down the road. (He did make a few bucks out of us though so it's hard to feel sorry for him.)

Robert about to insert yet more "gettoni's" into the high pressure cleaning machine

Warwick on the job with the high pressure hose

Myles kisses good-bye to his bike

(Sold to John - or rather to his partner, Jan)

Weather was some of the worst we've had since the trip began - it bucketed with rain all day! So it was a long, cold, wet job and a cold wet wait for the shipping company to let us in to their secure storage facility at about 3.00 pm. But, by the end of the day all bikes were clean and locked up in the warehouse. Everyone looked forward to hot showers, hot food and something "sustaining" to drink.

Sparkling clean bikes on the waterfront at Genoa

Clean bikes - Graham in his transparent miniskirt

Today we fronted up to the shipping company at 11.00 am to pack the bikes. Sue and Ivan's bikes were packed into a 20 foot container for shipping to New Zealand and the rest were loaded into two 40 footers for shipment to Brisbane. Spare wheels were taken off to allow the bikes to be loaded transversely across the container and with a bit of pushing and shoving all were made to fit in.