Adelaide, the capital of South Australia (the driest state on the driest inhabited continent) completed the Mark & Jim Friends Tour with a bang.

There are a lot of reasons to come to Adelaide. An Australian city that doesn’t trace its roots back to convicts, it has a long history of progressivism: South Australia was one of the first places in the world to give women the right to vote, and it was the first Australian state to outlaw racial and gender discrimination, to legalize abortion, and to decriminalize gay sex. Still, it’s known as the “City of Churches” and has some great 19th century architecture (the 19th century is what passes for “old” in Australia). As we learned, it has at least one remarkable tapas restaurant, making you feel as though you were in Spain for the night, and a nice Argentine restaurant too, with great live rock & roll as the night grew late. And, as if all that weren’t enough, some of the best wineries anywhere in the world.

Lots to like.

But we came here to see Pip. We first met her back when our world consisted of our Regent St. loft, our Davis Square office, and Gargoyle’s restaurant, strategically placed between the two. After we befriended her there she eventually came to work for us, left, came back, and left again, this time to return to her native South Australia. With all this time in Australia, no way we’d miss a chance to visit with Pip.

And, to our delight, some of her family, too. We took a train down the coast to Port Willunga where Pip, her mom, and her nephew Raffy met us for a day tour of the area. Beaches, wineries, hilltop vistas – it’s a great area. But mostly just a chance to visit with Pip and her peeps. Her mom Anna was a firecracker; get her on the subject of religion or Donald Trump or immigration and you learn quickly this is a woman I can relate to. Raffy was almost enough to make me rethink my belief that children are more trouble than they’re worth; he even laughed at some of my jokes. And there’s nothing like reconnecting and catching up with a wonderful friend like Pip, now working on a Masters Degree in Education.

There’s one piece of Adelaide’s history that really struck me. The city is named for Adelaide, queen consort of Britain’s King William IV. He was the third son of crazy George III, he of American revolutionary fame. George’s eldest son, also George, served as regent while the elder George was incapacitated and later succeeded him in 1820. George IV, though, had no legitimate sons and only one daughter, who had died in childbirth in 1817. Thus George III found himself (to the extent he was aware of much at that point) with nine children and no legitimate grandchild. The race was on to see who could spawn a king for the empire.

Number One son, George IV, had a miserable relationship with his wife, so there were no more kids coming there. Number Two son, Frederick, had a truly miserable relationship with his wife and they had no children. Number Three son, William, who would succeed George IV, was obviously fertile; he had a long-term mistress with whom he fathered 10 children. But that relationship was a bit on the rocks, and the kingdom needed an heir, so William went searching for a young bride. He found one in Adelaide.

As others in similar circumstances have found, Adelaide had but one duty: to have children. And she got pregnant plenty of times. A premature birth and quick death of the child in early 1819. Another pregnancy and miscarriage later in 1819. A daughter born in 1820, who then died just three months later. Stillborn twins in 1822. Truly a tragic story; ultimately she had no surviving children though she became a highly sympathetic figure in Britain at the time. With William & Adelaide ultimately unable to provide the kingdom with an heir, it fell to Number Four son, Edward, who died before William but had successfully sired one legitimate child, a daughter they named Victoria. And thus history was made.

So that’s Adelaide’s story. The modern city isn’t quite so sad. It was HOT, though, with daytime temperatures up over 100 degrees. Two of our days we spent with Pip & her family, but one day I went down to the local beach where sitting on the sand in the sun was insanely hot. For a while I moved up into the shade of some trees where I saw people out on their daily runs. Seemed a little insane to me.

And thus ends our time in Adelaide. We have one more stop in Australia, Perth way out west, before we move on to Bali. If this heat continues we’ll be plenty ready to leave.

This swing through Australia has been a remarkable opportunity to meet up with friends that we’ve made on the road. Before Australia, only once before – with Meg & Law in Bolivia – had we met other travelers at some point and then met up with them later on the journey. But already here in Australia we’ve reconnected with Piers & Charlotte (twice!) and Philippe and Mandi since meeting them in Fiji. St. Leonards, though, is the way it’s supposed to work: meeting up with friends we biked with in Myanmar three years ago!

St. Leonards was just a little two-day stop to visit with friends from that Grasshopper Adventures tour. There were only five others on the trip and two of them – Barbara and Lisa – were a couple from Melbourne. Well, sort of a couple, but not for long. Today they’re friends in Melbourne and Lisa invited us to spend a couple days at her beachside home in St. Leonards, about 65 miles southwest of Melbourne. So just a day into the new year Lisa and her dog Lucky picked us up at our hotel and drove us down. Barbara joined us the next day, with her dog Lucky.

It was a ton of fun to catch up with them. They’re both fascinating in their own way. Lisa, just starting a new job as an assistant principal in a prestigious public school, is finally finishing up a PhD in education and is passionate about the need to find ways to improve the teaching experience so teachers can be more effective. Barbara is a massage therapist who teaches other women in the field how to run their tiny businesses effectively. They’re fun, funny, interesting, and they both love their Lucky dogs.

I, unfortunately, didn’t get to visit much. After the drive down and an evening visit with Lisa, I woke up our first morning there with a miserable sore throat, the certain onset of what would be a miserable cold. So for most of the time we were there I just holed up in our bedroom, sipping hot tea and feeling sorry for myself, listening to Mark and Lisa and Barbara hooting and laughing and having a great time.

Two days were barely enough time to renew our friendship so now we’re going to push either or both of them to join us in Sri Lanka next December, where Grasshopper Adventures is sponsoring another two-week bike trip. It’s a great way to spend time with new old friends!

And then we were off to Melbourne to ring in the New Year. We’d been to Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, in 2004 and remembered it as one of the great cities of the world. We were not disappointed by our return.

Melbourne is Australia’s second city, smaller than Sydney, younger than Sydney, without the stunning natural beauty of Sydney’s harbor or the iconic Australian images of Sydney’s Opera House or Bridge. So Melbourne has to try harder. And it succeeds. Great architecture. Vibrant streets and street art. Wonderful food. Amazing museums. Beautiful parks. We loved Melbourne 12 years ago and we loved it again.

And on top of that, we had friends to visit. We met Mandi & Jean Philippe on our boat cruise in Fiji and, although they were on it for just three days, we really hit it off with them. When they saw on Facebook that we were in Australia they insisted that we let them know when we made it to Melbourne. And so on December 30 we caught a commuter train out to Narre Warren, a suburban community about 25 miles southeast of Melbourne for a traditional Mauritian upside-down dinner (Philippe is originally from Mauritius). We got to meet their two kids and spouses who were around for the holidays. And for a big bonus they’d promised us kangaroos, so before dinner they drove us out to an area where he runs and sure enough we saw dozens of kangaroos in the wild, just out hopping around. Pretty cool.

And speaking of friends, another couple that we’d met in Fiji, Charlotte and Piers, were passing through Melbourne at the same time so we had drinks with them, as well. When last seen Charlotte & Piers were in Surfers Paradise on their motorized excursion around most of the perimeter of Australia. Melbourne was their last stop before flying on to the Philippines, so we got to say goodbye to them over drinks on New Year’s Day. They’re starting to wind down their around-the-world trip, getting ready to head back to the world of apartments and jobs, but they’re such a fun and interesting couple I’m confident we’re going to find ways to meet up again soon enough.

The other thing we’ll remember about Melbourne is the amazing National Gallery of Victoria. I stopped in there when, on our first afternoon in Melbourne, I was headed to the park to read when it started raining. “Might as well duck in here,” I thought, and thus was lost for two hours in a remarkable collection of art spanning centuries and continents. I loved the way it was laid out and the combination of Australian artists mixed in with great European masters. And I loved the fact that the permanent collection is free, always my favorite price point.

Mark went on his own a couple days later, mostly to see a special David Hockney exhibit which he later described as one of the greatest exhibits he’d ever seen. It’s an exhibit of some 1,200 pieces just from the last decade, many of them created on Hockney’s iPad or iPhone. The exhibit was curated by the National Gallery of Victoria along with Hockney, so on top of it all it is a remarkable tribute to the NGV itself. I’d been reluctant to spend the time and the $20 or so they were charging but as I look at the pictures Mark took I obviously made a stupid decision.

And finally, the food. Early on we discovered a great bar/restaurant called Meatballs and Wine where, not surprisingly, they serve meatballs and wine. The owner is an Italian who loves meatballs and wine and found a way to transplant a bit of Italy to Melbourne. So after first trying them for lunch, that’s where we had our New Year’s Eve dinner before heading back to our hotel in the center of the city to watch the fireworks with a few thousand of our closest friends. Fun!