It's always great to spend time with my dear friend Ramona and her beautiful family. They have adopted me as one of their own. If you are in Melbourne and looking for beautiful photos for women and couples, look up Ramona at Ramona Lever Photography.

After the expo I packed the bike, said my farewells to my lovely friends and headed off for South Australia - via Mount Gam in the South East. I learnt some very good lessons today!

Note to self: Always carry cash when travelling.

I had a couple of opportunities to get money from an ATM in Melbourne but passed them up. I also had an opportunity to fill my bike with petrol but figured there's always more up the road. Not this day!!

I rode west past the Cat's (AFL) heartland, Geelong, and along the Hamilton Highway towards Hamilton. In my wallet I had no cash, about $3 in coins and of course my credit cards. After some time I notice the fuel getting low so I pulled into a petrol station in a small town but it was closed. At this stage I realised the reality of driving through a regional area on a Sunday afternoon, where you could expect most things to be shut. It was around 4.30pm and I decided to push on and try my luck. My computer told me I had about 60kms left in the tank and it was still almost 100kms to Hamilton, a larger town where they would have 24 hour fuel.

I pushed on to the next town about 30kms away and they had an open petrol station, but it was here I discovered that a Telstra sub-station had had a fire last Thursday and that EFTPOS was down throughout a large part of the mid-west of Victoria…right where I now found myself. Having no cash and a now useless credit card, I decided to take my chances at the next town and if everything was still down I would just find some accommodation and stay the night.

At the next little town, the pub was open and the publican informed me that they had no petrol bowser in the town and no accommodation, and that I had no choice but to continue on to the next town. My computer was telling me at this stage I had 20kms left in the tank and the kind publican told me that the next town was 20 miles (30kms) away and with a chuckle said, "good luck mate".

I had little choice so continued through some beautiful rolling hills of sheep and cattle country at a gentle 80km/h to conserve fuel. It became a battle between my GPS and my fuel readout. They both came together at 10kms to go and counted down as I approached the little town. Apparently there was a petrol bowser there that had 24 hour access through pre-paid credit card and 'hopefully' is was not affected by the Telstra breakdown.

As my GPS read 2kms to go my computer read 3kms, so I was winning, but I had still not reached the centre of town by the time the GPS said zero. I pulled up next to the bowser with one kilometre of remaining fuel on the computer! I put my card into the machine and waited for a minute until it told me that it could not connect with the bank.

EFTPOS was down!!!

This was a slightly larger town and across the road was an open pub. The kind publican had a fuel card that operated without EFTPOS. Although I had no cash I was able to give credit card details and ID so purchased $20 of fuel that got me to Hamilton. I pulled into a van park, purchased a room with my card and all I needed was a good feed. Fortunately there was a fish and chip shop across the road so I ordered chips, a veggie burger and a couple of drinks. They cooked it all up, handed me the food, then told me, "Sorry cash only. We don't accept cards."

AHHHHHHGGGG!!!