an hour free to sit in Bill Hauritz's kitchen, drink some of his coffee (thank you Bill) and pore over the questionnaire for civic groups prepared by the United Nations in advance of the 2012 Earth Summit. How am I going to get the work done for this, given everything else? Any offers?! or suggestions, dear readers and followers? It is kind of important that we get our views into the UN process now, as the agenda is revised and worked upon by Govt representatives. Even if they are coming to it from a paradigm that humans are separate from nature, nonetheless, we need to engage with them now.
By way of distraction, my eye wanders, and skirts to the colourful programme for the 25th Woodford Folk Festival here in southern Queensland, nestled against the high hills (that we have to climb up later). The colourful programme includes a dress code:
..sequins, top hat, silks, a VB singlet, satin knickerbockers, a Pocohantas costume, lycra, faux fur, face-paint, a Venetian mask, blue jeans, a poncho, a tuxedo, a tracksuit, thongs, a cocktail dress, gumboots, a sundress, sandals ... dress up, outrageously, fantastically, beautifully in character, or dress down and relax. We invited you to take advantage of being away from the daily grind to inhabit Woodfordia as the creature of your dreams - for one week, you can come as you are, or come as you'd like to be/ Festivillians are welcome to indulge their sartorial style in whatever way they please, from the casual to the costumed - there's no dress code here.
www.woodfordfolkfestival.com
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 November
Monday 29 November 2010. Last full day in Brisbane
Seeing Gasland yesterday was an eye_opener. To imagine that two thirds of the USA could now be irretrievably polluted, and the oil/gas companies are now drilling in the same way in Australia/Queensland, frac-ing the ground with the same highly toxic chemicals, and set to do so in Europe and north Africa.
Ilawarra,New South Wales - http://www.otfordeco.com/GasLandMovie.html
War in AUSTRALIA - pitting angry locals against big gas companies. and behaviour more like the worst dictatorships ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaWA_TDG56I
Was pleased that with my Bike the Earth hat on, I was able to bring together Fiona Sullivan (Be the Change Australia), John Price – www.grandkidzfuture.com and Bruce/Sally from St John’s Environment Centre in Ashgrove, Brisbane together after the film, to help galvanise collaboration and campaigning in Brisbane as to the effects on its water supply if affected by the pollution known to occur with the de-fracking. And the great farming the grand artesian wells I suggested that Six Degrees have one volunteer at ever film showing to take email addresses of exiting attendees, and help to broaden the campaign against oil and gas drilling onland in Australia.
Spent morning with Roland in central library poring over maps and rechecking our route to Maryborough and northwards to Cairns.
Tuesday 30 November 2010
Brisbane/Sandgate to Woodford
71km
hilly climb just near end with 10% incline
26 degrees at 0930. 21 degrees at 6pm. 33 degrees max in the day. HOT riding.
After being based in Brisbane, in West End for a week, and in Bardon for 3 weeks, (2 weeks in NZ where I had to go to renew my Oz visa) we are on the move again. A generous donation was received by Bike the Earth 24 hours before we left, enabling Roland to stay on the ride till about Cairns. And with coaching from Simon Richard to us both, phenomenal quantum stuff, Roland and I are beginning to work more powerfully as a team. We will be the best of friends of the worst of enemies by the end!
Thank you to so so many people who have offered us help, chilled with us, hosted and donated. Your generosity and support has been incredible.
Got the 7.18 train from Roma Street to Sandgate. Had the works (large breakfast) at Doug’s Café/ Local cyclists there. Always a good sign. Got talking to them. What a lovely place to live and cycle . Doug's do good fish and chips too.
Flat vista. Far and wide. Looking out to sea. Tidal. Olderhouses built for the floods. Newer not so well designed for when there is a high tide.
Arrived in Woodford at 5pm - hard work on this first day after so long. Muscles tired. Now staying in Woodfordia, courtesy of the Woodford Folk Festival team: http://www.woodfordfolkfestival.com/
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
In Auckland, New Zealand, waiting for renewal of Australian visa,
Shortly after this, Chris left Australia for New Zealand to reapply for another 3 month visa. He is waiting for this to be renewed, but taking the opportunity to work onthe accounts of the last few months, transpose people's business cards to a database, and think about how to deepen our engagement with people we meet on our journey, both to ask them for money, and to move ourselves forward: how do we create a sustainable world in FOUR YEARS?
Catching up on outstanding paperwork, I came across this gem from a book I read in Castlemaine:
God help me to live slowly,
to move simply,
to look softly,
to allow emptiness,
and to let my heart create for me.
Chris Le Breton
Auckland, NZ
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Bellingen - Dental, distraction & deviation
Bellingen - Dental, distraction & deviation
Bellingen is ace! A wonderful town perched on the high bank of the Bellingen river surrounded by a lush valley. Its spectacular now but it takes my breath away (& pains my heart) to imagine how phenomenally amazing it would have been filled with rain forest, red cedar, animals & plants before it was logged and cleared! :-(
Bellingen has gathered an amazing community of people from all walks of life, locally & around the world including the farming, logging, town/city, plateau/escarpment, coast, valley, sustainability, professional & transition communities. Its funny how even now with all the development & clearing and so called progress the community is still bound by the same sort of geographical connections that the indigenous people were. With all in the Bellingen Shire bound together by the river with Dorrigo up the escarpment on the plateau at the head waters of the river, Bellingen the valley / river community & Urunga the coastal river mouth community making up the shire and the real community that is Bellingen from my view. Its funny how it has been the river / valley community that has gathered the stronger sense of sustainability around it being much more tied to the rhythm and constraints of the river and its cycles and impact on the valley. Dorrigo almost a little aloof and removed caught in the clouds of farming and the immensely lush fertile conditions of the cold climate mountain position on rich volcanic soil and the great rainfall has produced. With much of the landscape cleared and turned over to farming as a result yet providing a huge contribution to the sustenance and economy of the valley & beyond. Urunga on the other hand open to the ocean with the highway passing through it, subject to the coastal climate & the flooding influence of the river, flatter and more open, exposed to the sun & moderated by the cooling sea, and shaped by the rhythm of the waves & the arterial nature of the pacific highway.
So here we stopped for a bit over 2 weeks while Chris continued his dental surgery inspection tour of Australia with some more emergency dental work. It was a welcome break for us from the physical aspects of the ride and a time for some of the stresses that we have been confronted with to surface and for us to see how we can clear, shift & communicate about this. I can't speak for Chris but suspect he agrees that the ride has been a huge undertaking. The physical nature of the ride is a challenge at times but remarkably easier that I would have expected, so much so that I think almost anyone could ride what we have done given the time. Especially as there have been plenty of towns along the way that would have given less fit people opportunities to take the ride at a pace that works for them. Yet is is the combination of the physical nature with the psychological & emotional aspects as well as the scale and breadth of what we have taken on that has been a challenge for us to manage in the 24 hours available each day.
Like many small business owners starting their business this is a 24/7 commitment on many levels. We are living this while on the road and constantly calling upon ourselves to see what more we can connect with. Our riding days are .5-1 hours meditation + .5-1 hour yoga / stretching + .5-1 hour for breakfast + often .5-1 hour admin & logistics for the day, & + .5-1 hour connecting with our hosts & or community people + 4-8 hours cycling + often with a .5-1 hour lunch + at times a .5-1 hour logistical / admin / email/ media connection session + .5 – 2 hour meet and connect with our new host /set up camp / or find & get into a pub or hostel, .5 hour to shower and get cleaned up + 1-2 hour dinner with our computers or our host + .5-2 hour time to check emails, contact future places we are connecting with & or staying, email media, plan interviews, update the blog & facebook & twitter. All up we rise about 6;30am and go to sleep usually 11+ pm and are working all that time between 6+ days a week over much of our journey. Looking over this I am struck that they stress of the personal financial implications of the ride, the close nature of the working / living situation Chris & I have created & the work we are trying to do & living on the road has stressed me greatly and definitely contributed to my perception of time and work done and what is needing doing. Mmmmmmm....
On the other hand for me Bellingen will always be a special place. Our host Olivia Bernardini is great! An awesome supporter and contributor to what Chris and I are doing. On modest means she opened her home to us, offered food, taught us yoga, showed us around and helped us to look at the ride in new ways & connect with others so that we could be more effective in what we are doing. It was also wonderful to connect with her on a personal level and to be able to inspire and support her in all she is doing and who she is being for her community in Bellingen in the small way we were able too.
A week in to our time in Bellingen we went off to Broadwater in NSW to run a small introduction / symposium for the community around the area organised by Tony Gleeson. We caught the train & bus up which was both a pleasure and a strange experience. A pleasure to be not riding an able to talk about what we planned to do and to enjoy the comfort & relaxation that powered transport provides. Strange as the bus went such a circuitous route which meant a 80km direct journey took almost 3 hours and the motion & claustrophobic environment of the bus was strange after the freedom cycling. I also found myself worried and nervous that at any moment their would be a cyclist on the road as there was no shoulder and in the dark, with no shoulder and narrow roads at high speeds almost no chance of the bus stopping in time. Reminded me clearly why riding after 4pm on Australian rural roads in the evenings is so dam terrifying!
The event went well with a small and committed group of local people clear that a shift in the local sustainability initiatives was important. The direct questions of one of the participants and the sound levels made for some challenges and in the end it was a great result with everyone very supportive and inspired by what we were doing with a young woman considering joining us as a cyclist! Not only is she a keen cyclist but had lots of experience working in sustainability roles in a number of countries and spoke a number of foreign languages including Arabic & Indonesian!
The return journey got off to a troubling start after a great morning seeing us at the bus stop by 7 am fed and ready before the bus arrived, said good by to our host and jumped on the bus, only to have Chris realise that he had left his wallet in our hosts jacket he had worn when we arrived and went in the rain to see if any whales were playing of the coast! A quick call to our host and a dash by him to the 2nd bus stop down the road had the wallet reunited with Chris!
Back in Bellingen (Bello) to the locals Chris and I spent some time unpacking the challenges we were facing and found a space to work from. It is frustrating for both of us when we bounce of each other and especially if this is not cleared fully each time as these things tend to fester. So it was great to get down in that murky territory and clean it out.
One of the great things we got to do was to go to a free adult indigenous language class held at the local school and funded by the local community so as to allow non-indigenous people to connect with and learn more about the local indigenous culture. This is held by a local indigenous man Michael Jarret who actually had to relearn the language as it was actively discouraged when he was younger. Aided by some of the late the local indigenous elders realising that they were the only traditional speakers left and so pooled their pensions & engaged a young interested & supportive Jesuit Priest to assist them to document with writing, & recordings of the language such that now the local language is one of the best preserved indigenous languages in Australia. Michael was fantastic and agreed to have us interview him for our video documentation. It was a great privilege for me to have this opportunity (it was on the day that Chris had 3 teeth drilled & filled!). The interview was plagued by dusk setting in and cleaners & other noises causing us to shift location 3 times and thus getting very dark by the end but the content of what Michael shared is awesome and we have now started in include an edited version of this in our symposiums and will have this online as soon as we understand how to do this.
We also created an opportunity to tell some more of the locals about what we doing through the transition film night by assisted by Olivia. We spent a long while preparing as we only had 15 min and really wanted to create something fun, interesting and compelling. A last minute change of venue to a park with the darkness and ambient noise proved challenging and a shortened time due to the late start found us from my view not achieving what we intended. I would even say a complete flop. Chris on the other hand took it more positively.
Roland
Bellingen is ace! A wonderful town perched on the high bank of the Bellingen river surrounded by a lush valley. Its spectacular now but it takes my breath away (& pains my heart) to imagine how phenomenally amazing it would have been filled with rain forest, red cedar, animals & plants before it was logged and cleared! :-(
Bellingen has gathered an amazing community of people from all walks of life, locally & around the world including the farming, logging, town/city, plateau/escarpment, coast, valley, sustainability, professional & transition communities. Its funny how even now with all the development & clearing and so called progress the community is still bound by the same sort of geographical connections that the indigenous people were. With all in the Bellingen Shire bound together by the river with Dorrigo up the escarpment on the plateau at the head waters of the river, Bellingen the valley / river community & Urunga the coastal river mouth community making up the shire and the real community that is Bellingen from my view. Its funny how it has been the river / valley community that has gathered the stronger sense of sustainability around it being much more tied to the rhythm and constraints of the river and its cycles and impact on the valley. Dorrigo almost a little aloof and removed caught in the clouds of farming and the immensely lush fertile conditions of the cold climate mountain position on rich volcanic soil and the great rainfall has produced. With much of the landscape cleared and turned over to farming as a result yet providing a huge contribution to the sustenance and economy of the valley & beyond. Urunga on the other hand open to the ocean with the highway passing through it, subject to the coastal climate & the flooding influence of the river, flatter and more open, exposed to the sun & moderated by the cooling sea, and shaped by the rhythm of the waves & the arterial nature of the pacific highway.
So here we stopped for a bit over 2 weeks while Chris continued his dental surgery inspection tour of Australia with some more emergency dental work. It was a welcome break for us from the physical aspects of the ride and a time for some of the stresses that we have been confronted with to surface and for us to see how we can clear, shift & communicate about this. I can't speak for Chris but suspect he agrees that the ride has been a huge undertaking. The physical nature of the ride is a challenge at times but remarkably easier that I would have expected, so much so that I think almost anyone could ride what we have done given the time. Especially as there have been plenty of towns along the way that would have given less fit people opportunities to take the ride at a pace that works for them. Yet is is the combination of the physical nature with the psychological & emotional aspects as well as the scale and breadth of what we have taken on that has been a challenge for us to manage in the 24 hours available each day.
Like many small business owners starting their business this is a 24/7 commitment on many levels. We are living this while on the road and constantly calling upon ourselves to see what more we can connect with. Our riding days are .5-1 hours meditation + .5-1 hour yoga / stretching + .5-1 hour for breakfast + often .5-1 hour admin & logistics for the day, & + .5-1 hour connecting with our hosts & or community people + 4-8 hours cycling + often with a .5-1 hour lunch + at times a .5-1 hour logistical / admin / email/ media connection session + .5 – 2 hour meet and connect with our new host /set up camp / or find & get into a pub or hostel, .5 hour to shower and get cleaned up + 1-2 hour dinner with our computers or our host + .5-2 hour time to check emails, contact future places we are connecting with & or staying, email media, plan interviews, update the blog & facebook & twitter. All up we rise about 6;30am and go to sleep usually 11+ pm and are working all that time between 6+ days a week over much of our journey. Looking over this I am struck that they stress of the personal financial implications of the ride, the close nature of the working / living situation Chris & I have created & the work we are trying to do & living on the road has stressed me greatly and definitely contributed to my perception of time and work done and what is needing doing. Mmmmmmm....
On the other hand for me Bellingen will always be a special place. Our host Olivia Bernardini is great! An awesome supporter and contributor to what Chris and I are doing. On modest means she opened her home to us, offered food, taught us yoga, showed us around and helped us to look at the ride in new ways & connect with others so that we could be more effective in what we are doing. It was also wonderful to connect with her on a personal level and to be able to inspire and support her in all she is doing and who she is being for her community in Bellingen in the small way we were able too.
A week in to our time in Bellingen we went off to Broadwater in NSW to run a small introduction / symposium for the community around the area organised by Tony Gleeson. We caught the train & bus up which was both a pleasure and a strange experience. A pleasure to be not riding an able to talk about what we planned to do and to enjoy the comfort & relaxation that powered transport provides. Strange as the bus went such a circuitous route which meant a 80km direct journey took almost 3 hours and the motion & claustrophobic environment of the bus was strange after the freedom cycling. I also found myself worried and nervous that at any moment their would be a cyclist on the road as there was no shoulder and in the dark, with no shoulder and narrow roads at high speeds almost no chance of the bus stopping in time. Reminded me clearly why riding after 4pm on Australian rural roads in the evenings is so dam terrifying!
The event went well with a small and committed group of local people clear that a shift in the local sustainability initiatives was important. The direct questions of one of the participants and the sound levels made for some challenges and in the end it was a great result with everyone very supportive and inspired by what we were doing with a young woman considering joining us as a cyclist! Not only is she a keen cyclist but had lots of experience working in sustainability roles in a number of countries and spoke a number of foreign languages including Arabic & Indonesian!
The return journey got off to a troubling start after a great morning seeing us at the bus stop by 7 am fed and ready before the bus arrived, said good by to our host and jumped on the bus, only to have Chris realise that he had left his wallet in our hosts jacket he had worn when we arrived and went in the rain to see if any whales were playing of the coast! A quick call to our host and a dash by him to the 2nd bus stop down the road had the wallet reunited with Chris!
Back in Bellingen (Bello) to the locals Chris and I spent some time unpacking the challenges we were facing and found a space to work from. It is frustrating for both of us when we bounce of each other and especially if this is not cleared fully each time as these things tend to fester. So it was great to get down in that murky territory and clean it out.
One of the great things we got to do was to go to a free adult indigenous language class held at the local school and funded by the local community so as to allow non-indigenous people to connect with and learn more about the local indigenous culture. This is held by a local indigenous man Michael Jarret who actually had to relearn the language as it was actively discouraged when he was younger. Aided by some of the late the local indigenous elders realising that they were the only traditional speakers left and so pooled their pensions & engaged a young interested & supportive Jesuit Priest to assist them to document with writing, & recordings of the language such that now the local language is one of the best preserved indigenous languages in Australia. Michael was fantastic and agreed to have us interview him for our video documentation. It was a great privilege for me to have this opportunity (it was on the day that Chris had 3 teeth drilled & filled!). The interview was plagued by dusk setting in and cleaners & other noises causing us to shift location 3 times and thus getting very dark by the end but the content of what Michael shared is awesome and we have now started in include an edited version of this in our symposiums and will have this online as soon as we understand how to do this.
We also created an opportunity to tell some more of the locals about what we doing through the transition film night by assisted by Olivia. We spent a long while preparing as we only had 15 min and really wanted to create something fun, interesting and compelling. A last minute change of venue to a park with the darkness and ambient noise proved challenging and a shortened time due to the late start found us from my view not achieving what we intended. I would even say a complete flop. Chris on the other hand took it more positively.
Roland
Bellingen to Half Way Creek
Bellingen to Halfway Creek
MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER
First day on road –
Cycling day no.
Total day no:
Day XX
Distance
Weather: Hot Building to a storm later
Rode on freeway to Coffs Harbour. Made good progress given wide cycle path on most of verge. Had packed lunch at Russell Art Gallery – suffering because they cannot put up a sign on the main highway to attract visitors, whilst it Is littered with signs saying, Rest, Revive, Survive. Chris
Chris got off to an earlier start as I found myself dreading getting started after the big stop we had in Bellingen. I had connected so deeply with Olivia I found myself dragging my heels to pack and get ready to leave! It was a wonderful surprise to meet to have an immediate strong attraction to Olivia who is such a committed active, integral and passionate community oriented sustainability activist who welcomed both Chris and I into her home. Transition Bellingen & the community has a extraordinary valuable team member even if I am a bit bias! Added to this we hadn't been riding, or at least I hadn't (Chris had ridden up to Dorrigo & to Coffs harbour to check out the sites). I was content to chill (and thus started to pay for it when back on the bike) & to some extent stick my head in the sand with all that needed doing! Some how I seem to see a pattern here!
So it was quite hard for me to leave. Once on the road with a few tears and a heart full of emotion I slowly got up a rhythm. I caught up to Chris at a “rest stop” more like a “junk stop” for the petrol, caffeine, sugar & additive addictions of the contents of the sea of cars! I couldn't wait to get out of there and was so happy when we did. After a short visit to a bike shop we climbed out of Coffs and headed north. Dam it was hot. It is great to not be freezing but the warm weather is way more tiring.
Not long after catching up with Chris he said that he had another tooth that seemed to be playing up! I was immediately thinking, “What is going on... there must be something in this for Chris and I to connect with?” I said to him did he think that it needed more treatment and he said most likely as it was giving him a large amount of discomfort but that he said we should continue and asses it that night or the next day to see what we would need to do...
It was getting late and we needed a spot to stop for lunch and as I had a packed lunch we were on the look out for a good place. It is one of the pleasures of not racing along in a car that cyclists get to connect to the environment around them. I had stopped and said to Chris lets look out for a place to eat. The road looked very desolate so I was not so hopeful but only a few kilometers down the road looking to the left was lake or large dam through some trees with a sign saying art gallery & cafe. It was a wonderful oasis and a great place to share the packed lunch that Olivia had kindly pulled together and get a few coffees and a cake each! Roland
Old freeway alignment. Hillier. Less space for cyclists. Chris
Heading north had the road narrow and later it was up a reasonably steep hill. As it got later and closer to the 4pm witching hour of truck terror I started to get nervous.
Before now I knew that there are a lot of trucks on the road. When I have driven on the Pacific Hwy (1) I have seen lots of trucks but I have been travelling about the same speed as the trucks so the ones that we passed were only a fraction of those on the road! Now I really have a better idea of just how many.rom about 3:30 – 4pm onwards many times there have been trucks passing us every 30 -60 seconds! If you times that by the 100km per hour speed they are traveling and the 4000+km of roads on the busiest sections of the main roads in the eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales & Victoria you start to realise just how many trucks there are. We are talking anything up to 100,000 or even more trucks on the road every night! Most of these are double articulated (B-Double Semi Trailer Lorries). To get an idea of just how big these are, one carrying standard sedan cars can carry 14-16 cars with a standard city car length being about the same length as the back sets of wheels! These travel at 100km per hour often with sets of 3 or 4 getting as close together as possible to slip stream (travel in the wind shadow of the front truck) so as to save fuel! This means that they may not have time to avoid something if the front truck suddenly swerves either way. The biggest trucks are the freighters which are “two trailers and a total length of 25 or 26 metre - with permits from state authorities - (82 ft to 85 ft), 62.5 ton (137,788 lb) B-doubles are very common in all parts of Australia including state capitals and on major routes may outnumber single trailer configurations. ” and these are the other approximate dimensions from North American “102 inches (2.6 m) wide, 13.5 feet (4.1 m) feet in height” ! In other words DAM BIG! For more info here is another wiki link
So now imagine a box the length of 6-7 sedan cars & stacked at least 3 high and then imagine more than 100,000 of them full of stuff. Travelling every night 365 days a year and growing! A standard freight train is between 30-60 carriages – so this is about 2000 freight trains worth of trucks per night – so if this is so it does seem that investing in train lines may actually be way more viable considering how little trains impact the environment as compared to trucks. This investment in trains would have impacts on the houses and environments along their routes yet if we factor in the costs of roads and & the cost of the impacts (environmentally, socially e well being implications) then it makes a lot of sense in investing in rail. So standardizing gauges nation wide & investing in at least double tracks on all lines enabling them to be capable of handling freight services of at least every 30 min starts to make complete sense! And if we chose to have 4 sets of tracks on the main lines (Brisbane – Melbourne & Sydney - Adelaide + maybe Perth) this would allow the invest met in a high speed rail network of passenger trains connecting the highest density areas & 2 dedicated local rail travel & rail freight tracks on the busiest routes. Or if we really wanted to shift things, 2 dedicated freight lines and a system of 1-3 carriage light rail / tram networks on one lane on all the toll, free & motor ways / main arterial routes. I would suggest (with just a tad of bias) that each of these also have an extra section set aside for bikes too!
I just had a vision of a transport system. Say you want to travel to Brisbane from Melbourne. People either own their own electric vehicle, that if it was system compatible it would have positive cost implications (cheaper registration, travel – ie tolls etc, energy & maintenance), or were part of a service that provided them a range of vehicles such that these were parked every where in such numbers that they were freely available, with inter-deals between providers providing discounts for brand loyalty, that when you arrived at the car your personal communication device allowed you access to the car, personalised it to you & your tastes (colour, sounds, even smells & driving devices – mirrors + seat position etc) that you could then either drive manually or tell it where to go and it would take you by the route suggested or the one you choose. This could take you take you to the local train station then either actually joins the tram / light rail if it's your own vehicle or you leave the car share vehicle at the station and board the train which then takes you to a the local train hub where you connect to a medium distance train or the fast hig speed train which tales you all the way to Brisbane. When boarding the train your communication device allows you to pay for your ticket, check in, custom your seat position / comfort & your entertainment choices delivered to your personal headphones or directional zone speak system so that others dont need to listen to your audio with the screen for visual in the back of the chair in front, a retractable screen or screens built into our glasses / sunglasses. Once at the station you get out, connect with other smaller more local mass transport, chose another car-share vehicle or detach and continue your journey....
I am imagining more but maybe if someone wants to ask me to continue my vision of a possible future world then do so and I will? Roland
7km to the left from Half Way Creek is the Nature Philosophy Centre founded on the principles of Tom Brown on Montana Five students were being taught how live off the land, collecting fruits, skinning road kill, and using the brains to tan the hides, growing veg, chooks, and how to make fire with a bow, string, and other wood. http://www.naturephilosophy.com/About%20us.html
Stayed the night there. Camping in a forest clearing. No electricity. Lit fire for hot water under the bath, and a fire in front of where we had taken our chicken and chips bought from the petrol station 10km away.
Compost toilets. The best I have come across anywhere in the world. No smell at all, and no flies, unlike so often in Africa. B
Rain. Chris
Once off the main road it was a race as darkness fell to get to Nature Philosophy property before dark and before the approaching rain. Made it just in time and got to have, dinner by the fire, a cuppa under cover with one of the participants in the year long residential program who had previously ridden around Australia on a bicycle, fire bath after the rain passed with the stars peaking through before retiring to bed. Chris's teeth were still paining him and he said that he thought that we would need to see about going to a dentist asap. His immediate thought was to head back to Bellingen but this was a full days ride back the way we came! This was really challenging for me but hadn't thought about how else to manage this and moving forward to keep the event we had planned for Thursday in Lismore (100km north!). Left it hanging to see how things were in the morning. More rain later though & Chris has a troubled sleep with his teeth and his camping mat going down over night with a leak!
Nature philosophy takes sustainability to a new level. Besides the short courses that build on basic skills they also offer one year residential programs. Yes one year where you build your own shelter from natural materials, collect and grow your own food, create fire by hand without matchers, a lighter or flint and steel. Collect your own water supplemented by infrequent basics. This may seem as an extreme form or returning to a bygone time but as they are not suggesting every one do this and but open to and see the value of learning this level of personal reliance it seems to me that it is about individuals really getting in touch with what it really means to be sustainable and responsible for every thing in their lives. Food, clothes, shelter, fire, water, utensils, containers and more made & processed by hand from naturally occurring + some found urban materials and some from the impact of nature with urban infrastructure. It also is a way for these individuals to strip away the conditions, conditioning and understandings of our contemporary world and then replace this it with the personally learnt skills, knowledge & understanding of what it really takes to really survive / rely on ones self who for almost everything! Spending one year doing this may not be every ones “cup of tea” but definitely worth acknowledging and respecting for the commitment to personal integrity and responsibility.
I am inspired to do this when I return as I feel that maybe some time to be static, self contained and grounded literally as well as metaphorically would be good. But the shorter courses to learn the basics. Although I have been interested in this before the ride it could also be being coloured by a very pale tinge of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” at the moment
Roland
MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER
First day on road –
Cycling day no.
Total day no:
Day XX
Distance
Weather: Hot Building to a storm later
Rode on freeway to Coffs Harbour. Made good progress given wide cycle path on most of verge. Had packed lunch at Russell Art Gallery – suffering because they cannot put up a sign on the main highway to attract visitors, whilst it Is littered with signs saying, Rest, Revive, Survive. Chris
Chris got off to an earlier start as I found myself dreading getting started after the big stop we had in Bellingen. I had connected so deeply with Olivia I found myself dragging my heels to pack and get ready to leave! It was a wonderful surprise to meet to have an immediate strong attraction to Olivia who is such a committed active, integral and passionate community oriented sustainability activist who welcomed both Chris and I into her home. Transition Bellingen & the community has a extraordinary valuable team member even if I am a bit bias! Added to this we hadn't been riding, or at least I hadn't (Chris had ridden up to Dorrigo & to Coffs harbour to check out the sites). I was content to chill (and thus started to pay for it when back on the bike) & to some extent stick my head in the sand with all that needed doing! Some how I seem to see a pattern here!
So it was quite hard for me to leave. Once on the road with a few tears and a heart full of emotion I slowly got up a rhythm. I caught up to Chris at a “rest stop” more like a “junk stop” for the petrol, caffeine, sugar & additive addictions of the contents of the sea of cars! I couldn't wait to get out of there and was so happy when we did. After a short visit to a bike shop we climbed out of Coffs and headed north. Dam it was hot. It is great to not be freezing but the warm weather is way more tiring.
Not long after catching up with Chris he said that he had another tooth that seemed to be playing up! I was immediately thinking, “What is going on... there must be something in this for Chris and I to connect with?” I said to him did he think that it needed more treatment and he said most likely as it was giving him a large amount of discomfort but that he said we should continue and asses it that night or the next day to see what we would need to do...
It was getting late and we needed a spot to stop for lunch and as I had a packed lunch we were on the look out for a good place. It is one of the pleasures of not racing along in a car that cyclists get to connect to the environment around them. I had stopped and said to Chris lets look out for a place to eat. The road looked very desolate so I was not so hopeful but only a few kilometers down the road looking to the left was lake or large dam through some trees with a sign saying art gallery & cafe. It was a wonderful oasis and a great place to share the packed lunch that Olivia had kindly pulled together and get a few coffees and a cake each! Roland
Old freeway alignment. Hillier. Less space for cyclists. Chris
Heading north had the road narrow and later it was up a reasonably steep hill. As it got later and closer to the 4pm witching hour of truck terror I started to get nervous.
Before now I knew that there are a lot of trucks on the road. When I have driven on the Pacific Hwy (1) I have seen lots of trucks but I have been travelling about the same speed as the trucks so the ones that we passed were only a fraction of those on the road! Now I really have a better idea of just how many.rom about 3:30 – 4pm onwards many times there have been trucks passing us every 30 -60 seconds! If you times that by the 100km per hour speed they are traveling and the 4000+km of roads on the busiest sections of the main roads in the eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales & Victoria you start to realise just how many trucks there are. We are talking anything up to 100,000 or even more trucks on the road every night! Most of these are double articulated (B-Double Semi Trailer Lorries). To get an idea of just how big these are, one carrying standard sedan cars can carry 14-16 cars with a standard city car length being about the same length as the back sets of wheels! These travel at 100km per hour often with sets of 3 or 4 getting as close together as possible to slip stream (travel in the wind shadow of the front truck) so as to save fuel! This means that they may not have time to avoid something if the front truck suddenly swerves either way. The biggest trucks are the freighters which are “two trailers and a total length of 25 or 26 metre - with permits from state authorities - (82 ft to 85 ft), 62.5 ton (137,788 lb) B-doubles are very common in all parts of Australia including state capitals and on major routes may outnumber single trailer configurations. ” and these are the other approximate dimensions from North American “102 inches (2.6 m) wide, 13.5 feet (4.1 m) feet in height” ! In other words DAM BIG! For more info here is another wiki link
So now imagine a box the length of 6-7 sedan cars & stacked at least 3 high and then imagine more than 100,000 of them full of stuff
I just had a vision of a transport system. Say you want to travel to Brisbane from Melbourne. People either own their own electric vehicle, that if it was system compatible it would have positive cost implications (cheaper registration, travel – ie tolls etc, energy & maintenance), or were part of a service that provided them a range of vehicles such that these were parked every where in such numbers that they were freely available, with inter-deals between providers providing discounts for brand loyalty, that when you arrived at the car your personal communication device allowed you access to the car, personalised it to you & your tastes (colour, sounds, even smells & driving devices – mirrors + seat position etc) that you could then either drive manually or tell it where to go and it would take you by the route suggested or the one you choose. This could take you take you to the local train station then either actually joins the tram / light rail if it's your own vehicle or you leave the car share vehicle at the station and board the train which then takes you to a the local train hub where you connect to a medium distance train or the fast hig speed train which tales you all the way to Brisbane. When boarding the train your communication device allows you to pay for your ticket, check in, custom your seat position / comfort & your entertainment choices delivered to your personal headphones or directional zone speak system so that others dont need to listen to your audio with the screen for visual in the back of the chair in front, a retractable screen or screens built into our glasses / sunglasses. Once at the station you get out, connect with other smaller more local mass transport, chose another car-share vehicle or detach and continue your journey....
I am imagining more but maybe if someone wants to ask me to continue my vision of a possible future world then do so and I will? Roland
7km to the left from Half Way Creek is the Nature Philosophy Centre founded on the principles of Tom Brown on Montana Five students were being taught how live off the land, collecting fruits, skinning road kill, and using the brains to tan the hides, growing veg, chooks, and how to make fire with a bow, string, and other wood. http://www.naturephilosophy.com/About%20us.html
Stayed the night there. Camping in a forest clearing. No electricity. Lit fire for hot water under the bath, and a fire in front of where we had taken our chicken and chips bought from the petrol station 10km away.
Compost toilets. The best I have come across anywhere in the world. No smell at all, and no flies, unlike so often in Africa. B
Rain. Chris
Once off the main road it was a race as darkness fell to get to Nature Philosophy property before dark and before the approaching rain. Made it just in time and got to have, dinner by the fire, a cuppa under cover with one of the participants in the year long residential program who had previously ridden around Australia on a bicycle, fire bath after the rain passed with the stars peaking through before retiring to bed. Chris's teeth were still paining him and he said that he thought that we would need to see about going to a dentist asap. His immediate thought was to head back to Bellingen but this was a full days ride back the way we came! This was really challenging for me but hadn't thought about how else to manage this and moving forward to keep the event we had planned for Thursday in Lismore (100km north!). Left it hanging to see how things were in the morning. More rain later though & Chris has a troubled sleep with his teeth and his camping mat going down over night with a leak!
Nature philosophy takes sustainability to a new level. Besides the short courses that build on basic skills they also offer one year residential programs. Yes one year where you build your own shelter from natural materials, collect and grow your own food, create fire by hand without matchers, a lighter or flint and steel. Collect your own water supplemented by infrequent basics. This may seem as an extreme form or returning to a bygone time but as they are not suggesting every one do this and but open to and see the value of learning this level of personal reliance it seems to me that it is about individuals really getting in touch with what it really means to be sustainable and responsible for every thing in their lives. Food, clothes, shelter, fire, water, utensils, containers and more made & processed by hand from naturally occurring + some found urban materials and some from the impact of nature with urban infrastructure. It also is a way for these individuals to strip away the conditions, conditioning and understandings of our contemporary world and then replace this it with the personally learnt skills, knowledge & understanding of what it really takes to really survive / rely on ones self who for almost everything! Spending one year doing this may not be every ones “cup of tea” but definitely worth acknowledging and respecting for the commitment to personal integrity and responsibility.
I am inspired to do this when I return as I feel that maybe some time to be static, self contained and grounded literally as well as metaphorically would be good. But the shorter courses to learn the basics. Although I have been interested in this before the ride it could also be being coloured by a very pale tinge of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” at the moment
Roland
Halfway Creek to Lismore - Make way! Dental & Train use emergency!
TUESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER
Teeth really paining me and spent morning ringing around for dentists as the heat built up in the forest!
Decided to cycle to Grafton and train it to Lismore to get there for a dental appointment the next day. 2.5 hour ride or so to Grafton on the freeway. Circa 36km.
At Grafton. Had to dismantle bicycles almost completely to get into a box to go on the train. Took wheels off trailer. Boarded train. On arrival in Casino, coaches were available to take passengers on futher. Choatic. No system. We and bikes just go there. Arrived to stay with Paul and Gemma at a house surrounded by trees with possums up there.
Chris
___
I was really challenged in the morning. Chris initially wanted to head back to Bellingen to the great dentist he had found there especially as he had given Chris his last treatment for free! I totally understood this but with that meaning a full days ride south back the way we had come and maybe no appointments available in time for us to get to Lismore I tried to suggest an alternative. With no appointments available in Bellingen this is what we needed to do. We had to look at options so Grafton being the closest city made sense. Chris got some suggestions but everyone in Grafton was booked up except on option around early afternoon on the Thursday, the evening we were due to hold a symposium in Lismore 80 km away! We booked this but this didn't seem so workable so we contacted our contacts in Lismore to get them to call all the dentist there and see what was available. While we decided to head to Grafton anyway and see what happened with the reasoning that we could cycle to Grafton then catch the train & bus to Lismore & if needed borrow a car to get Chris back to Grafton and back to Lismore for the event if needed. This also allowed Chris to also take up any appointments that become available in Lismore.
Riding off from Nature Philosophy late morning as it started to get hot and humid in the sun we decided there was no rush so got to have an amazing swim in the secluded water hole in the creek surrounded by lush forest with all the residents and teachers. Heading off from this we found ourselves racing the approaching rain again as we tried to get to the petrol station before it hit. Got caught a bit but missed most of it while we had lunch at the service station. Its funny how even riding back the 2 km from the turn off back to the service station was a mental challenge for me! Once we left the sun was hot and strong so the ride into Grafton really showed that we had moved away from the sea and had definitely moved into a more tropical / northern climate.
By the time we got to Grafton Tony had called us to say that someone had canceled an appointment at a dentist in Lismore the next morning so Chris was sorted! Thankfully we had decided to train and bus it on!
Trains in NSW suck! WT#! Why is it that to take a bicycle on a rural train in NSW (& to Melbourne or Brisbane from Sydney as the trains are NSW trains) passengers must disassembled their bikes (even if only one station).and put it into a box! This meant taking off both wheels, both pedals, one pannier rack & my saddle! Dam was I furious & I lost some spaces! Especially as we were only going 2 stops! It was sort of understandable seeing as the 2nd stop was by bus but still this has got to be one of the most anti bike rules we have come across and absolutely makes it less likely for people to catch trains as well as use bikes in rural NSW. That said the station people said that they go through at least 4 boxes per week with cyclist using the train. What it says to me is that there could be at least a doubling of the numbers of cyclist using the train from that station alone if they chose to find an alternative way to house and manage bikes in the future. As the trains are often not full it seems that they might well be advised to see how they can encourage people rather than discourage them! Roland
Teeth really paining me and spent morning ringing around for dentists as the heat built up in the forest!
Decided to cycle to Grafton and train it to Lismore to get there for a dental appointment the next day. 2.5 hour ride or so to Grafton on the freeway. Circa 36km.
At Grafton. Had to dismantle bicycles almost completely to get into a box to go on the train. Took wheels off trailer. Boarded train. On arrival in Casino, coaches were available to take passengers on futher. Choatic. No system. We and bikes just go there. Arrived to stay with Paul and Gemma at a house surrounded by trees with possums up there.
Chris
___
I was really challenged in the morning. Chris initially wanted to head back to Bellingen to the great dentist he had found there especially as he had given Chris his last treatment for free! I totally understood this but with that meaning a full days ride south back the way we had come and maybe no appointments available in time for us to get to Lismore I tried to suggest an alternative. With no appointments available in Bellingen this is what we needed to do. We had to look at options so Grafton being the closest city made sense. Chris got some suggestions but everyone in Grafton was booked up except on option around early afternoon on the Thursday, the evening we were due to hold a symposium in Lismore 80 km away! We booked this but this didn't seem so workable so we contacted our contacts in Lismore to get them to call all the dentist there and see what was available. While we decided to head to Grafton anyway and see what happened with the reasoning that we could cycle to Grafton then catch the train & bus to Lismore & if needed borrow a car to get Chris back to Grafton and back to Lismore for the event if needed. This also allowed Chris to also take up any appointments that become available in Lismore.
Riding off from Nature Philosophy late morning as it started to get hot and humid in the sun we decided there was no rush so got to have an amazing swim in the secluded water hole in the creek surrounded by lush forest with all the residents and teachers. Heading off from this we found ourselves racing the approaching rain again as we tried to get to the petrol station before it hit. Got caught a bit but missed most of it while we had lunch at the service station. Its funny how even riding back the 2 km from the turn off back to the service station was a mental challenge for me! Once we left the sun was hot and strong so the ride into Grafton really showed that we had moved away from the sea and had definitely moved into a more tropical / northern climate.
By the time we got to Grafton Tony had called us to say that someone had canceled an appointment at a dentist in Lismore the next morning so Chris was sorted! Thankfully we had decided to train and bus it on!
Trains in NSW suck! WT#! Why is it that to take a bicycle on a rural train in NSW (& to Melbourne or Brisbane from Sydney as the trains are NSW trains) passengers must disassembled their bikes (even if only one station).and put it into a box! This meant taking off both wheels, both pedals, one pannier rack & my saddle! Dam was I furious & I lost some spaces! Especially as we were only going 2 stops! It was sort of understandable seeing as the 2nd stop was by bus but still this has got to be one of the most anti bike rules we have come across and absolutely makes it less likely for people to catch trains as well as use bikes in rural NSW. That said the station people said that they go through at least 4 boxes per week with cyclist using the train. What it says to me is that there could be at least a doubling of the numbers of cyclist using the train from that station alone if they chose to find an alternative way to house and manage bikes in the future. As the trains are often not full it seems that they might well be advised to see how they can encourage people rather than discourage them! Roland
WEDNESDAY 29th SEPTEMBER – Lismore- Teeth Teeth, going once, going twice, going three times. Drilled for the tall english sounding man on the blue bike
Chilling out and preparing for the symposium on Thursday while Chris continued his dental assessment tour! Also looked into how we could shift things around Bike the Earth and the stress we are noticing is affecting us working together, especially around using our personal finances to fund the work we are doing. We had hoped to already have sponsors and supporters joining us and getting behind us & sharing the personal effort we are putting into Bike the Earth through more financial support.
We have realised that what we really wanted was a sense of community and being part of a larger movement. We realised to meet our budgeted costs what was needed, could be met by a smaller number of people, businesses or groups sponsoring us for a larger monthly amount, but what we now see will be more empowering for us and others and inline with our mission is a larger group / community contributing a smaller amount each per month. This compliments those for who it has been and those who will aid us along the way with accommodation, food, services, products, training & assistance.
We see this as metaphorical expresses of how each of “our actions do make a difference” (Desmond Tutu). Like our collective contribution to the problem it is our choice to each redirect at least some energy away from contributing to this to facilitating a new way fo relating to the planet that will really make something possible. It also for us provides us with the psychological, emotional and energetic support that we desire that will be the wind at our backs. It gives us the sense of belonging too, being supported and encouraged by a community! It also expresses what is needed to create the metaphoric world wide Mexican Wave we are creating in the lead up to the UN Earth Summit in Rio in Dec 2012. We know that although it will be us and others riding around the planet it will actually be the people, communities & initiative standing up to be counted and staying standing with resolve and commitment to hold our leaders to account and have them represent us with the question “What did you do once you knew?” Drew Dellinger
So we are now seeking people to join our team for 3000 people donating (less than ½ a coffee) $1 or more a month for 3 years. . If you are inspired to contribute more this would be ace. $1 will contribute to a coffee. $5 per month will buy us both a coffee, $10 will buy one of us a lunch, $20 will buy 2 of us our lunch, $50 will cover 1 of our daily expenses, $100 both of a day's expenses. For those that can contribute $100 per month you will be invited to join us in Brazil in December 2012 to stand with us and some key invited guests in person when we present ourselves to the policy makers.
Our host Gemma & a friend Tamsin have offered to be on our team remotely helping us to connect with media and to help create this as a relay style position with others being able to step in to the role at future times. As have Paul (Gemma's fiance) & Tony offered to be our video editing team! Now its just creating this within what their commitments are and what we need. Thanks heaps Gemma, Tamsin, Paul & Tony!
They are joining our growing team which includes Tathra our coach. If you feel inspired to be part of our team and can offer time & or a service remotely pro-bono in a similar way, especially if you see that there is something that you know how to do and can see that we would be assisted with it. Some areas we have identified that could really lift what we are capable of achieving are - website design & development, marketing & promotion, logistics & planning, some other riders (South East Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, Europe, America & South America), specific country coordinators & a translator(s) in non English speaking countries. Roland
We have realised that what we really wanted was a sense of community and being part of a larger movement. We realised to meet our budgeted costs what was needed, could be met by a smaller number of people, businesses or groups sponsoring us for a larger monthly amount, but what we now see will be more empowering for us and others and inline with our mission is a larger group / community contributing a smaller amount each per month. This compliments those for who it has been and those who will aid us along the way with accommodation, food, services, products, training & assistance.
We see this as metaphorical expresses of how each of “our actions do make a difference” (Desmond Tutu). Like our collective contribution to the problem it is our choice to each redirect at least some energy away from contributing to this to facilitating a new way fo relating to the planet that will really make something possible. It also for us provides us with the psychological, emotional and energetic support that we desire that will be the wind at our backs. It gives us the sense of belonging too, being supported and encouraged by a community! It also expresses what is needed to create the metaphoric world wide Mexican Wave we are creating in the lead up to the UN Earth Summit in Rio in Dec 2012. We know that although it will be us and others riding around the planet it will actually be the people, communities & initiative standing up to be counted and staying standing with resolve and commitment to hold our leaders to account and have them represent us with the question “What did you do once you knew?” Drew Dellinger
So we are now seeking people to join our team for 3000 people donating (less than ½ a coffee) $1 or more a month for 3 years. . If you are inspired to contribute more this would be ace. $1 will contribute to a coffee. $5 per month will buy us both a coffee, $10 will buy one of us a lunch, $20 will buy 2 of us our lunch, $50 will cover 1 of our daily expenses, $100 both of a day's expenses. For those that can contribute $100 per month you will be invited to join us in Brazil in December 2012 to stand with us and some key invited guests in person when we present ourselves to the policy makers.
Our host Gemma & a friend Tamsin have offered to be on our team remotely helping us to connect with media and to help create this as a relay style position with others being able to step in to the role at future times. As have Paul (Gemma's fiance) & Tony offered to be our video editing team! Now its just creating this within what their commitments are and what we need. Thanks heaps Gemma, Tamsin, Paul & Tony!
They are joining our growing team which includes Tathra our coach. If you feel inspired to be part of our team and can offer time & or a service remotely pro-bono in a similar way, especially if you see that there is something that you know how to do and can see that we would be assisted with it. Some areas we have identified that could really lift what we are capable of achieving are - website design & development, marketing & promotion, logistics & planning, some other riders (South East Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, Europe, America & South America), specific country coordinators & a translator(s) in non English speaking countries. Roland
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