Comments by "Helmuth Schultes" (@helmuthschultes9243) on "American Reacts to 11 Things NOT to do in Australia - MUST SEE BEFORE YOU GO!" video.

  1. Definite Sydney bias there. As far as traveller under estimating size, we had a young couple from Germany, planning to buy bicycles, and then ride , covering VIC, SA,, NSW and finally up Queensland to Cairns. Firstly was complaint of cost of new bicycles. The first trip planned was Melbourne, to Mildura at top right, north-west on Murray River. Then down to Adelaide, and back to Melbourne via coastal area, including Great Ocean road in Victoria. They were used to cycling Europe, even Spain to Poland, but there cycling there are basically towns and villages rarely more than 10 to 20 km apart, so rest and refreshment readily available in easy cycle distances. Weather even in Spain mostly relatively mild, wind rarely an issue. Here they faced up to 80 km or more with nothing long straight stretches with strong headwind, and temperature inland up to 40 °C. Even the few towns were small fam communities, and mostly no real shop, restaurant or rest facilities. By the time they got back to Melbourne they had saddle sores, sun burn, dehydration and very sore muscles. As a result, cycling was shelved and Bus or train was used for further trips. But being less flexible many places were not really included in the travel, now reduced to major places of interest only as all the smaller, and side trips were just bypassed, zooming along in bus or train. They finally continued to New Zealand, with bikes carried as sports accessories as luggage on the flight. Around New Zealand they cucled, all being smaller scale, with shorter distances, very much cooler milder weather all went well on both North and South islands. Finally they were amazed, they sold their second hand bikes, with thousands of km, with worn patched tyres and various worn_scraped paint work, for about 15% HIGHER value than they paid in Australia new. Now they realised that bike prices in Europe were not just abnormally low but compared to Australia, New Zealand was far more costly. They definitely learned to judge distances, in sparely populated places as critical, and Australia is far bigger than brief map reading might suggest. Take the Japaese tourists, that asked the girl at airport car higher, for directions to Ayres Rock ( Central Australia), as they wanted to visit that before heading to their hotel in Melbourne, and how long the drive would take. Note: that is over 2000km and for most city drivers about 4 days each way, while I have done soin 3 1/2days and even once in 2 days of 14 hrs driving each day, including time for rest, fuel, food stops. TheJapanese, based on experience of test engineers on hot test work trips would definitely need 4 days or more each way, plus actual time at Ayres Rock and Olga's nearby.. Tourists without any idea of size, in Japan on their freeway/tollway, you would in a day get to drive the full length of the main island.
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