Honda UK Racing's Jon Kirkham has been taking time out in Australia ahead of his return home to prepare for the start of the 2012 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship season.

Kirkham lines up alongside Michael Laverty for next season and in an exclusive blog for the official BSB website the former Metzeler National Superstock 1000 champion brings you up to date with his latest news.

Over to Jon:

I have been out here in Australia for two and a half weeks now and to be honest I cannot wait to get home and start my 'JK boot camp' so I'm in exceptional nick for 2012. I've come up to the sunshine coast in Queensland and the weather is venomous; they should call it the Scotland of Oz! Apparently it's sunny all year round... I also spent some time in Melbourne and Sydney and had a great time with two of my mates that I've not seen in a year.

I brought me bike out here with me (thanks to Leisure Lakes) and I have been smashing a few miles and it's also a great way to learn the cities and do some sightseeing! All it really needs is a mounted set of binoculars for looking at Sheilas on Bondi Beach when doing a ride by!

Skipping back a few weeks though....so the day before I left for Australia was the first day of the Motorcycle Show at the NEC and I had meetings with Honda. Carlsberg don't do meetings but if they did it still wouldn't be as good as that one! Me and my old man came out of it feeling tip top and on cloud nine!

This year I proved to myself and hopefully all of you reading this, that I've got the BSB minerals. I suppose I've been there and not had a great time at it in previous years; BSB is not like racing in something like the Superstock class though, where you can roll out with limited resources and still make an impact! It's about the package and the team you have behind you. The team did a fantastic job this year and all credit to them, it was a huge learning year with setup and electronics, but now I have got to forget all the stuff I've learned with the electronics. It isn't a bad thing as I found out last year that actually less is more as it was better for me to be less reliant on the traction control.

To be riding for such an established team as Honda UK is going to be a dream come true.

I read what Michael said about growing up in the paddock and coming through the support classes, Honda is a team that you dream you would ride for one day. Michael got that bang on; that's what I was thinking before I read it. Now the hard part really starts...I am back to the UK in a week to get the Christmas and New Year celebrations out the way and then it's all on with 2012.

Hope everyone has a great festive period and an awesome new year!

Bye for now!

JK