In the morning Dea and I walked the few blocks to Commuter Cycles. Dea was so excited about building her new bike - it was great. At the shop we met Huw again; an immensely likeable guy who seemed to have a permanent smile on his face. Dea wanted to build her bike herself, and we’d ordered some of the parts online, but she’d organised to get the frame and the rest of the parts through the bike shop. Dea had already picked out a Saga Soma frame in racing green and Huw collected it from out back and put it on a stand for us to see it. He then went through and helped Dea pick out all of the parts she still needed – wheels, bottom bracket, crankset, derailleurs, shifters, and so on. This was going to be a really great touring bike, because Dea wasn’t just hoping to ride from Melbourne to Gold Coast on it, but if everything went according to plan, all through the Americas and back to Europe with me too.

But Dea’s really great touring bike wasn’t going to be built just yet. Once Huw had set aside all of the parts that she wanted, we moved on to the next stage of a logistically-complicated week in Melbourne, which rather ridiculously involved cycling 50 kilometres south. This was because a few weeks earlier I’d suggested that we find a warmshowers host to send the parts that we’d ordered online to, and then I’d left Dea in charge of finding that host whilst I was away from the Internet crossing the Nullarbor. Dea had never used the warmshowers website before, and failed to take advantage of the map which shows you where the hosts are, and she’d accidentally had everything sent 50 kilometres away from where it was needed. These things do happen. Luckily Huw stepped in and offered to lend Dea a bike until hers was built, and so we could cycle there together.

This did give us a chance to ride bikes together again, and to see some of the city of Melbourne on the way through. With its trams and coffee shop culture and Aldi stores, Melbourne is probably the most European city in Australia, and it looked interesting enough to me. A good mix of tower blocks and modern art, graffiti and bicycle lanes, and streets bustling with life. Not that we had much time to stop anywhere, other than at another bike shop in St Kilda, where we ticked another box as Dea picked up her new Ortlieb panniers. From there we hit a bike lane which followed the shoreline of the bay for a good twenty kilometres or so. It was lovely cycling as the skyscrapers of the city centre once again disappeared into the distance and just for a while it was magical to be cycling with my girl again.

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Unfortunately the day had rather got away from us and it began to get dark at just about the same time as we ran out of bike path. The road going down the coast was extremely busy with fast moving traffic and we had no choice but to continue on the footpath. Even this was a little risky, as we were passing driveways and had to be cautious of cars entering and leaving. It was now completely dark other than the streetlights and I could tell Dea was getting tired and no longer enjoying it.

We finally reached what I thought was the right address. It was the right number anyway, and it was on the right street, but unfortunately it was an estate agents. I went in anyway, in case Dea’s ability to find a good warmshowers host could have extended to accidentally arranging an appointment with a realtor. The woman behind the desk looked at the address I had, and said it was right, but I was in the wrong town. Apparently I wanted the same address but in Seaford, which was still another ten kilometres down the road. Ah. I went outside to break the news to my weary companion. It didn’t go down too well.

But just at the moment that I told poor Dea we would still have to cycle ten more kilometres, a middle-aged man walked up to us and announced proudly: “I’m Mick.” I looked at him like he was a bit strange, which was fair enough, because he did seem a bit strange. “You’re staying with me, ain’t ya?” Ah, he was our host. “I’ve got my truck here, chuck your stuff in if you want.”

“Oh, no thank you” I said, and looked around for Dea, but she was already busy throwing her stuff in the back of Mick’s ute.

I cycled the rest of the way alone and couldn’t help but laugh about it. Oh dear, what a start - our first day cycling together and as soon as a guy comes along with a truck she’s off! But I made it the last ten kilometres myself and pulled into Mick’s driveway. Inside the house I discovered that my first impressions had been correct - the guy was completely insane. But he had at least escorted Dea safely here. He now ran around like a headless chicken, ranting about this and that. He kept calling us ‘kids’ and then announced he was going out for the evening. I asked him where and he said it was none of my business. Then he sat down and very seriously told me: “You’re Solo-Man. I know a Solo-Man when I see one. I’m a Solo-Man myself. Okay? I know what I’m talking about, okay? You’re Solo-Man. But now you’ve got a lady here. You can’t be Solo-Man anymore. You’ve got a lady to think about. You’ve gotta be Not-Solo-Man now. Okay? Good boy.”

And then he went out. I don’t know where.