Pics!

Cairns, Cape Tribulation and LEECHES!!!

Hey all,
I've been having a great time in Northern Queensland after saying bye to my bike and spewing carbon dioxide from the flight I took up here. Spent one night exploring Cairns (super pretty) and tried to go for a run, but heat + humidity + the middle of the afternoon made for a really sick Candice who had to turn around and walk back from her ambitious run. (Almost pulled a Vanessa - puking on the side of the road... eep!)

Up in Cape Trib, I've been learning a ton about the rainforest that we're in (it's a complex mesophyll to notophyll vine forest!) and went on a Jungle Surfing tour and a night walk to see lots of spiders. I've been swimming in really neat places without any crocs, but I saw one on the road this morning on a bike ride I did. (I managed to find a local willing to lend me his bike - no gears and a bit big... the continuously hilly ride was quite a workout!). A couple days ago I hiked up Mount Sorrow through the rainforest - a 4 km hike, but it's through thick rainforest vegetation, through spider webs, avoiding wait-a-while branches that catch clothes and skin and pulling off hundreds of leeches that started halfway up! Ew ew ew... I almost had a mini-freakout in the middle when they crawled into my shoes via shoelace holes. At the end of the hike we had nice fat leeches inside our shoes. Ew ew ew... so gross! Definitely worth the hike though - you climb all of the elevation at the end (about 680 m) and the lookout was fantastic (after a quick deleeching).

Hope you're all well and I hope to get some pictures up soon when I get a better internet connection! On to the Whitsundays!

Bustin' outta S'Melbs

Hi all,
Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this! It's been a busy last week in Victoria and I'n set to start the second half of my Oz adventure on the east coast in Queensland and New South Wales. (From fires to floods, so it appears!)

In my couple of extra days in Melbourne waiting for those crazy Otesha kids to come cycling into town I managed to do a ton of exploring. Most exciting was a trip to the Queen Victoria Market to check out the seafood. One of the girls on tour had a very dedicated "gentleman caller" who managed to meet up with us in a few towns. He hosts a radio show every week on sustainable seafood eating so, naturally, I was pretty excited when he brought pocket-sized guides for good seafood choices in Australia! Now I can jump back into eating seafood in the rest of my travels knowing that its healthy, caught in a way that doesn't wreak havoc on the environment, and from sustainable stocks! Wheeeee! Anyway, I wandered around the market checking out all the fishes for sale with my handy little guide. It was absolutely fascinating to see great options out there for really reasonable costs - sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less than terrible ones! For example, a Tasmanian salmon caught a couple days ago was less expensive than icky farmed Atlantic salmon that was previously frozen! Imagine my delight! Unfortunately, I couldn't lug around kilos of fish that I could not share nor cook, so I downgraded to some organic fruit bread, local cheeses and Australian grown figs for a picnic in the park.

The crew came home all in one piece (and not a bit toasty!) full of smiles and pride at finishing up their last 100 km ride into Melbourne. We had a great three-day retreat to decompress after the tour which kicked off with a huge party and a ride in Critical Mass. The whole crew made costumes for the ride of our favourite "Eco-Heros and Villians". I went as "The Green Spirit" and we had appearances from "Clean Coal Bandit", "Water-Wise Woman", "Perma-couture", "Mellow-Yellow" and "Granny Gear". (I have pics to chare soon!) We met up with 150 other cyclists and took over the streets of downtown Melbourne for an hour on bikes. It was INSANE! Teams worked together to block traffic so that the whole group could stay together, there were people on recumbent bikes, homemade bikes, bike outfitted with stereos and salsa music blaring!, everyone in all shapes and sizes cruising around to celebrate cycling. The Critical Mass ended at our party (a great way to get people to show up!) and we danced, drank CO2-neutral beers (don't worry, not flat... just offset and solar-powered!) delivered by bicycle, and performed the "adult version" of our skit (I managed to finally throw off the crew by an outburst of "f-ing EH!" and had to cover the next section of lines). Such a great way to end the tour.

One morning in the retreat, I got up a lot earlier than the rest of the crew and went for a 10 km run along the ocean. It was such an incredible morning. The sky was overcast and just enough that the sun couldn't quite overcome the clouds and there was a soft pink sky over the bay. It was quiet and cool and the smell of the water was so fresh, it was impossible to feel tired! 5 kms away from the place we were staying brought me all the way around the boardwalk in Mentone and up into the docks where a handful of sailed boats were moored. I turned back around and ran back home, managing to get myself lost somehow in the very last km of my run. I arrived to find people just getting up to start the day! Vanessa, I'll definitely be ready to run the half with you in May! ;)

I stayed with the friend I mentioned above on Sunday night and her boyfriend made us an incredible sustainable seafood feast! Whiting (caught that day in the bay around the city) and Kingfish (the molst delicious fish I have ever had) and salads and veggies grown in the garden behind his house. (I have been so inspired to start my own garden when I get back... hopefully will do better than I did with my poor basil last year!) After that, I've been in Melbs for the last couple of days on my own in a backpackers in the downtown core. Shipping my sexy lycra bike shorts and panniers home (forgot to wash them, sorry Mom and Dad for when you open that box to get your bday prezzies!) and shipping my bike to a store in Sydney that has offered to keep it safe for me until I arrive in a few weeks to pick it up and take it on the plane.

I hope everyone is well! I'm off to Cairns!
Cheers,
Candice

PS> Tons of pictures to come soon!

Tapping out at 1116 kms

Hey all,
An unfortunate note to update you all with. Around 100 km from the end of our tour, I've decided to tap out and train back to Melbourne from Kyneton. We had a bushfire scare in the area last night and, while the rest of the crew is making their way to the next town and back to Melbourne on Thursday, I figured that this is venturing into 'unreasonable craziness' and made the decision to leave.

We were relaxing in a mud brick home a few kilometres out of Kyneton's town centre when someone noticed black smoke off in the distance. The radio confirmed that there were bushfires about 250 hectares big and 25 km away from Kyneton. We decided to pack up and move into the town centre and meet up with a sustainability group hosting a BBQ for us early and get more information. The locals were very unconcerned about threat of the fire, but with us being on bikes and unable to evacuate quickly if necessary it was pretty alarming for our group. We kept an ear out for the radio and had a nice meal with the community group and performed our skit for a group of scouts. At the end of the evening, the fire was still far away from Kyneton and there was no alert for this town, but the group decided to ask to stay in the scout's hall for the night so that we would be closer to the town centre in case things changed over night. Towns south-west of us were on high alert and the winds were bringing the fire east, towards the town that we were planning to go to today.

We rotated team members over night to get up and check the radio updates every hour and had everything ready to go in case. The fire was downgraded from 'urgent' to an 'alert' in the area and it had slowed down its eastern movement, but by morning it had burned through 2200 ha and 300 firefighters were on location working through a cold morning to prevent it from moving further.

The crew had a meeting this morning and there were many mixed emotions as to the events of last night and everyone's perceived level of danger. I don't think that the crew is in any immediate danger on their ride today, but not being particularly comfortable with the team's ability to move or make decisions quickly in an emergency, I decided to head back to Melbourne today and will meet them when they arrive on Thursday.

So that is the end of my bike riding adventure around rural Victoria! It went really well and we had some really amazing experiences along the way. I'm really looking forward to starting the next leg of my Australian tour, but I'm definitely going to miss seeing the country from the seat of my bike. It's definitely the best way to travel!

Cheers,
Candice

Over 1000 kms!

Bush fire sunrise

Picnic in the park with a sustainability group in Maryborough

We're over 1000 km on our tour route and making our way back around to Melbourne. We're in the lovely town of Castlemaine at the moment and on to Bendigo tomorrow. Castlemaine is Melbourne's "weekender" town, so it is full of sidewalk cafes, kitschy shops and beautiful historic brick buildings.

Cheers,
Candice

Fire fighting in Victoria

We've been seeing this image a lot in the media in the coverage of the bushfires and I wanted to share it - the CFA in Victoria is really something spectacular. Almost all fire fighters in Victoria are volunteers. Only in big cities like Melbourne are there paid positions. All rural towns have a completely voluntary team. It's unbelievable how much they are expected to do though! They can be called at anytime and whisked away from their hometowns to help with fires anywhere in the state. Depending on their day jobs, a primary school might have a shortage of teachers because they are out fighting fires. I think that it's amazing that people are so committed to keeping their towns safe and providing members of the community to fight fires anywhere in the state. CFA is one of the world’s largest volunteer-based emergency services. There are around 58,000 volunteer members supported by over 400 career fire fighters and officers and more than 700 career support and administrative staff.

Over 900 kms so far... photo update

An update in photos from some of the tour legs. Text update below.

Me and Blue in a shovel at the gold mine in Stawell On top of the "Big Hill" overlooking Stawell

Birthday sleepies in Halls Gap! Midnight pancakes and jam (and wine)

Late night trailer practice in a parking lot

Dancing in the park in Warrnambool