Training Days

Hello all!
Just finishing up day two of training with the Otesha crew in Mentone, Victoria - a small suburb outside of Melbourne. We're lodging in a girls school with gorgeous grounds, a full kitchen and a gym with mats to sleep on (and stuff to play with!). We've been discussing the logistics of the trip, doing a lot of team-building exercises and talking about consensus decision making. We're walking the walk of living sustainability so far: letting things mellow (if you know what I mean), staggered showers (if at all) and eating mostly vegan and donated food. Something that has really been blowing my mind so far is how much totally delicious and comepletely wonderful food is being thrown out - or bakeries and grocers will gladly donate because it's going out otherwise. A lot of the people on the tour eat almost entirely for free by getting to know their local organic food shops.

The people on the crew are fabulous - everyone is very excited about the upcoming adventure and people are so welcoming and generous. It's really one of the most open groups I've ever met. We're already sharing fart jokes two days in to knowing each other, so I think we'll be quite close by the end of the trip. We're practicing a skit about sustainable living to put on at a lot of the schools and I've taken on the role of Mother Earth's lippy kid sister.

Tomorrow is a launch party and we'll put the play on for people in the Melbourne social justice/sustainable living community and stay at Ange's house for one last sleep before taking off for our first ride on Wednesday morning. We'll be heading from Melbourne to Geelong (sounds like juh-LONG, not GHEE-long like I have been saying all week, oops). It's about 75 km, but we'll be taking the train for about half of it to get out of Melbourne and on to less dangerous roads.

I'm still quite worried about the sun - I burnt my hands quite badly and they are still quite painful, but I have gloves now for them. I need to keep my knees covered (also already burnt) and ears! Outside of that, I have a couple things to pick up for my bike and I should be quite prepared for everything except actually getting out there!

Cheers,
Candice