Jeremy: First night, sorted.

All my fears about Norman the Honda Shadow 750 not being able to.take the strain appear to have been unfounded. It's a really torquey bike, and only in 5th gear up a really steep hill at less the 90kph did it struggle, and even then help was only a down-shift away. The suspension seemed to cope fine as well, with us only hitting the bottom twice and only on very bumpy stretches of road. All of that with Bridget riding pillion, me driving, a completely stuffed gear sack and roll bag on the luggage rack and two completely loaded panniers with sleeping bags strapped to them and everything else (hopefully) that we need for camping for at least 3 weeks. I even fit my pocket trumpet in there! Just having a nice cup of tea in the wye river caravan park now. So, geelong to wye river no problem. It's early days yet, and we haven't been that far really, but so far so good anyway!