ride4acure

Stinking hot today, lots of long steep hills, ACT roads brilliant, NSW roads a lot to be desired! the difference is remarkable. Left Canberra about 9am and was thrilled to be able to keep up with the caravan (being driven by my sister Veronica with Joe riding ‘shotgun’) yelling encouragement to me out the window! We left at the same time and because of the traffic lights I could keep up for the first 4 or so kms, but then lost them on Northbourne Av heading out to the Barton Highway. Because of the heat  Ron and Joe stopped every 10kms for water stops for me, I certainly consumed a lot today.   I landed at  (30kms along) about 12 and we pulled up the camp in a beautiful shady spot at Murrumbatman and had a long lunch and a  ‘chillax’ through the heat of the day. At about 3pm got underway again and then landed here in Yass about 5ish. It was hot, airless and fly infested! I swalloweded a good few today (upped  my protein intake for sure). 

Road Kill today included three turtles! Two massive kangaroo’s, a magpie, a couple of blue tongue lizards. Also again there was a trailer hitch on the highway, d shackles, wheel nuts! Anyone who tows please check your towing gear out and all your wheel nuts! I am stunned with the amount of towing/trailer bits I see on the roadside! I’ve picked up a couple of very nifty Stanley shifters in the last few days ride including a spring loaded lock on plier/shifter still with a nut in the ‘grip’. I did also  find but it was too big and heavy to carry a massive 75-80cm screw driver! it was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen and obviously was the prize of some truckies toolbox . I was sorely tempted to carry it (but it was massive and would stick a mile out of my pannier), but I did a reality check I was 20kms from the back up vehicle, was in hilly country, it was hot and decided that I’ d got through life this far without one and left it there for another soul to find so I left it.

We’ve pulled the camp up at a Rotary members home here in Yass, Touie and Denise, who have very generously hosted us for the evening, had a lovely dinner and am now just about ready for beddo!

I am definatley going to be on the road very early in the morning as soon as visibility is good. I so want to get as many k’s behind me early in the day.  Have a big ride from Yass to Gundagai (99kms) Gundagai Tourist Park have donated a nights accommodation for us which is very generous right on the Murrumbidgee and with a pool!

I really enjoyed the ride across from Goulburn down the Hume then Federal Highway. We were camped at Governer’s Hill which is on the Sydney side, it was a 10km ride back out to the Hume. Was so beautiful riding through town and the residential areas out near the Big Merino, so many fantastic gardens chocka block full of roses! Made me want to put my hands in soil…. had a coffee stop on the edge of town and then hit the hume. I felt like I was flying, great conditions for cycling, good road most of the way, wind helpful, cloudy and gently raining for the first hour or so but eased off. I did plan on leaving earlier but visibility was poor til 8ish. Imade really good time and had ticked off 30kms by the time Amanda and Joe caught me up for my first tea break.

It was spectacular crusing along the edge of Lake George, paddocks of incredible feed, magnificent mobs of cattle, birds everywhere. Also as I was coming out of Goulburn there were so many wild flowers and ‘escaped’ domestic flowers. I saw freesias  and roses happily growing along the side of the road!

I arrived in Canberra about 3.30ish to my nieces home in Campbell right near the War Memorial. We had a lovely roast chook dinner, followed by half of Joe’s birthday cake because Amanda flew back to Melbourne 6am Sunday morning.

It’s Joe’s 11th birthday today 8th November and we’ve just opened presents and am up to cooking him a yummy breaky; scrambled eggs and bacon- in bed. 

I took Joe to the Go Kart track at Hume at lunch time and he and I had a ‘petrol head’ blast hooning around madly in two go karts for half an hour! It was ‘mad’…except I’ve got one thing to say to the builders of go karts, “Power Steering“! it’s like driving a brick! I have to say with every turn I made in the Kart I’m thinking I was gonna dislocate an elbow and how was I gonna ride my bike the rest of the way with one arm! Oops — but did that stop me! hhmm.

I bought Joe the new ‘electronic Australian version of Monopoly’ and I’ve already been thoroughly cleaned up by Joe on the first game over breaky. Hannah’s good friend Garnie Fuller introduced Joe to this game a few months ago and he’s been raving about it ever since. No paper money it’s all eftpost! The tokens are things like a gold pair of thongs, a ute, a koala etc.  Later in the day we played with both Kate and Adam and after a couple of hours of consumer driven activity Kate absolutely flogged us by inheriting 12 million from free parking! We decided making lasagne for dinner was higher on the needs agenda than playing on so we all retired!

Veronica arrived late last night and we’re all about to swing into action and head off to Yass where we’ll be camping with one of the Yass Rotary Club members who has very generously offered us some space at his place.

Last night on 60 minutes Hannah’s Doctor Ass. Professor Grant MacCarthur was featured with a new break through clinical trial drug that is working really well with some patients.”  It was called by the reporter “hope in a pill!  This is very exciting and both heart breaking. For me and my family this has come too late to save Hannah.   Only a few minutes after the show I received a text  from a friend informing me of yet another young  person who has died of melanoma.  At the time that Hannah was at Peter Mac there was absolutely no clinical trial available that was suitable. The chemotheraphy she was receiving was our hope of slowing down the disease long enough for a ‘breakthrough’.  The startling fact that Grant spoke about and that I’ve been shouting from the roof tops for four months is that every year in Australia 1500 people just like Hannah lose their lives to melanoma. This is the equivalant to our national road toll. We need more money and resources going into melanoma research to stem the loss of life. Esther in the first week of the ride said to me, “Mum do you realise that every kilometre your riding is one life lost to melanoma!” I think about this every day, every k, 1500 a year is 1500 to many.

A long but good day of riding the big long climbs but completely unlike yesterday I had some down hill runs too! One of which I wound my bike out up to 58.9kms per hour! I hadn’t gone over 45 since my scarey incident coming down onto Mooni Mooni bridge on Tuesday and my bike got the speed wobbles at about 50kms per hour! It was pretty hair raising, at the same time I got speed wobbles, i ran out of shoulder, the road got rough and I had to merge into the traffic on the bridge because on my ‘reconoitre’ back in ! August I failed to notice that important fact

Anyway it was all pretty scarey. I ended up getting new tyres on my bike as they were’nt seating right in the rims. I had been a little ‘reticent’ to take it up to a high speed again, but today I just ‘went wild’, there I was coming down a huge hill 30kms from Goulburn, sweet wide shoulder smooth as a baby’s butt and I thought what the hell, now or never and wound her right out! It was exilerating, I nearly hit 60kms per hour! And enjoyed every second of the descent. Good to feel like i’ve ridden through fear after my ‘near death experience’ on Mooni Mooni.

My crew came into Goulburn when I was about 35kms from town to set up camp and do a few jobs. I pulled up at Marulen for a hamburger with the lot and a coffee. I’d been visualising the hamburger for 20kms! It tasted pretty good.

Was very happy to pull into camp here (after I overshot the caravan park because again I was going flat out down a hilll after an extremely steep long climb into goulburn at Governer’s Hill! The van park was just before the bottem ofthe hill, there was no way I was pulling up! The Govern’ers Hill Caravan Park has generously donated a nights site fee to ride4acure! Which I am very grateful for.

Am riding into Canberra tomorrow to Campbell whihc is very close to Capitol Hill. My niece Kate and her husband Adam are generously letting us ‘camp’ in their front yard with the caravan! Amanda will be flying back to Melbourne and my sister Veronica will be taking over the ‘ute wheel’ for a week. It’s Joe’s birthday on Sunday, the big 11! He’s pretty keen that he’ll be spending it with some family and it’s a day off the bike for me!

Thanks to all the people who are sending me lovely messages of support! I absolutely appreciate them.

I especially appreciated a photo Fiona Murray sent me yesterday, she’s droving a mob of cattle with another crew from Wingham to Nabiac for a campdraft this weekend. The future of ride4acure eh?

Yes I beleive it is!

 Now I absolutely know why they call it the Southern Highlands, I never knew that from Cambelltown to Mittagong is practically all up hill for 50 kms then last few kms really steep to Hill Top! Then a very pleasant ride of about 6 or 7 kms into Mittagong.  Add showers, poor road condition, the shoulder was mostly ‘as dead as a door nail’. The shining light on the day was having my neice Amanda with me, she’s flown up from Victoria (Drouin a couple of hours east of Melbourne where she’s working as a busy country vet). She arrived at Narrallen Vale last night just after midnight. And then of course we sat around talking for an hour and went to bed after 1am ish! And I was up and at it at 6am. We languished over a yummy breakky of scrambled eggs and bacon and copious amounts of tea! Then headed off about 8.30amafter packing up the camp,  (me thinking it would be an easy ride of about 3 hours into Mittagong. We called into St Mary’s Towers at Douglas Park at about 10.30ish  to see my very dear friend Chris Chaplin for morning tea. Joe enjoyed having a good look around the buildings (160 years old, was built by Sir/Major Thomas Mitchell in 1841) Joe enjoyed going up into the tower and took some great photo’s. Was lovely seeing Chris. We were back on road after a good 90 minute break. Climbing, climbing, climbing…..I was flat out getting over about 12 – 14 kms per hour! Very few breaks from climbing. This afternoon at about 2ish I was very happy to see the wonderful Dennis Fitzgerald pull his car up on the side of the road and greet me with a warm hug and friendly smile! He’d driven from Woolongong to see how I was going! He was full of sympathy for my day of climbing and plied me with many words of encouragement.

 I feel so grateful to have people with his level of expertise for advice, de briefing and no question of mine as the very novice cyclist is ever considered ‘dumb’. There’s a couple of other very experienced cyclist who are part of Dennis’s crew who check in with me. One of which is Reg who also drove from Woolongong last night to give me an awesome massage of which I am so grateful! Ifeel so priveleged and very well looked after.

Even with all the climbing I stayed relaxed and all day had a metaphor of Reg’s going through my mind, “Ride Soft, Ride Well’, which for me as a horsewoman epitomises good horsemanship and now good bikemanship (I keep finding so many parrallels between the two).

I rode into the Mittagong caravan park (who have very kindly donated tonights caravan site fee for ride4acure) this arvo at about 2.45pm and found Amanda and Joe had set up the camp, found a great Pizza shop that would deliver gourmet pizzas for an early dinner. We all had very long, very hot showers, Joe then went off picking up rubbish around the shower block area while he waited for me and Amanda to finish our  extra long hot showers and the manager of the caravan park came along and gave him 3 free icecream vouchers for picking up the rubbish. So  Joe provided dessert for us after pizza. We’ve just had a great game of scrabble (Amanda won) Now in our happy little camp at 9pm, Amanda’s kicking back engrossed in a novel, Joe is curled up in bed watching “The Excellent Adventures of Bill and Ted” (an 80’s classic comedy) and of course I’m sipping a pot of tea and wrapping my day up here on the blog.

Tomorrow is a big day of 85 kms very similar to today, lots of climbing to Goulburn. We’ll be staying at the Governer’s Hill  Caravan park where the owners have donated the site fee for ride4acure which is very generous.

YESTERDAYS NEWS FROM BLAIRMOUNT PUBLIC SCHOOL

Joe and I visited Blairmount Public School at 9.15 and presented the ride4acure presentation, and I spoke about skin cancer awareness, told stories and engaged the students with questions etc. The students were all year 5 & 6 and Micheal Newcombe the Principal purchased each student their own ride4acur wristband making a donation of $400. The students put in entries in the slogo competion with some very exciting entries. I  couldn’t narrow it down to two winners so had to select three. The winners are Brock Larkin, Evangeles Kaillis & Erica Revere. We had over 100 students present yesterday and they all entered the ‘slogo’ competiton. The winning entries form each school go into a ‘grand finale’ draw in Melbourne where we’ll have to narrow it down to two finalists who’ll win a digital camera and a digital photo frame for their efforts. But most importantly will create resources for school kids with their work. The students at Blairmount were so incredibly well behaved and respectful. It was again a real privelege to be invited there and meet everyone.

CAMBELLTOWN CURVES GYM 11.30 ride4acure presentation and lunch.

The wonderful Maureen from Cambelltown Gym organised an event yesterday with about 10 women present. We had a lively presentation and discussion followed by a light healthy lunch. What a great bunch of Ladies, so warm and friendly. I said I felt right at home with them. Everywhere I go people are so kind and inclusive. Cambelltown Curves had collected $209 in donations. Which is a fantastic effort. Big thanks to Maureen and her crew for their organising for me to come.

Am perched in the caravan tossing up going to bed early, or do this ? Either way have just made a pot of tea and am going to enjoy a well earned moment.

I have now officially ridden my bike to Sydney! Woo Hoo….I feel chuffed with this achievement, and in small stages was great. Today was a stinker, got up to 38.9 in Liverpool, hot Westerly wind.  I run into trouble with my bike and had tyre trouble, Ended up taking my bike to a bike shop in Liverpool and met a great guy there Mark who sorted it out. The tyres weren’t ‘true’ and were off balance which was causing ‘extreme’ wobbling coming down hills when I went over 40kms per hour. I nearly lost the bike coming down Mooni Mooni, but was able to recover myself, but it continued to happen each time I went fast. consequently much slower, no speed thrills, kept things contained.

Am staying at Narralen Vale with Michael Newcombe and his daughter Maddie. I am presenting at Michaels school where he is Prinicpal. We’ve just pulled the van up on his front lawn and plugged in! Happy campers. Tomorrow have a presentation at Blairmont Priimary School at 9.15am then onto Cambelltown Curves Gym for an 11.30 presentation. Then some R  & R. My neice Amanda is flying into /Sydney tomorow night to drive for this week til Canberra.

Today is day 14 of the ride- 24 to go! I am enjoying every minute of this advenure. I think about Hannah heaps (situation normal!) The long hours while I’m riding I think about all the other young people out there living with melanoma and it’s associated uncertainties and pray that through ride4acure  good will come…and I know it already is on many levels. Raising the profile of melanoma generally but in particular as a young person’s disease, creating awareness of this disease amongst young people, highlighting prevantative strategies that save lives-joining the dots on the sunsmart message by building an udnerstanding of the UV index and creating barriers between us and it! And most importantly encouraging kids to take resonsibility, sharing Hannah’s story helps kids put melanoma on their radar. So far has been well received everywhere by students and teachers.

Joe has been sick today, had the vomits and a headache. Its his birthday this Sunday and he’ll be the big 11 we will be staying with my neice Kate Luxford and her husband Adam in Campbell in the heart of Canberra I think. Again taking up residence on the street! Good night:)

Then tomorrow arvo a well deserved rest.

Have had a long day riding 112 kms (bonus as it was 16 shorter than Google maps said I’d be riding!) Rode from Raymond Terrace to Ettalong Beach. Had a lovely hot epsom salts bath, a stretch and a power nap now am rearing to go. Am having a BBQ tongiht with friends. Am staying with Joe’s Godmother (Patricia Nolan)’s brother Maurice and MaryAnne Carrol at Ettalong Beach. I made great time this morning, riding 70kms in 3 1/2 hours! I was stoked. However the rest of the ride was much slower, once I hit that massive hill set outside of Gosford on the highway, went on for nearly 20kms up, up , up! Then down into Gosford wow that was scarily awesome! I have to say my butt was feeling it by the time I arrived here at Ettalong and I was happy to hop off.

Roadkill count was high today, saw numerous dead rats! probably about 6, 3 bandicoots, a dead green tree snake, several small sweet looking birds, a wallaby and a freshly mown  down fox.  I then saw two large water dragons and two baby ones all alive.

The highway ‘Repco’ shop was in full swing too, I saw hoses of all descriptions, fan belts, a haymen reece tow bar pin! several ‘d’ shackles and a few spark plugs!

My trusty ute has to go to a mechanic in the morning for a little ‘tweek’….started to ‘choke’ a little today. Not sure what’s happening as it had a thorough going over before we left Kempsey! Probably something simple.

Am giving two presentations in the morning at St Edwards then on to the ABC studio’s in Erina for a live interview. Then home here and prepare for an early start on Tuesday as I’ll be going to Liverpool.

I have been so fortunate with the people who are supporting me, my friend Fiona Murray(also a cyclist and her mates who are cyclists too)  from Tuncurry has teed up a mate of hers ‘Reg’ to come to Liverpool to give me a massage, and also Dennis her partner is teeing up a mate of his who has a few bike shops to check my bike over in Canberra! Having said that my bike is brilliant and is a dream to ride-I do stuff like wash off the chain every couple of days and keep the chain lubed and it’s going well.

Please read through the comments page, a wonderful little story from Katie re Hallaween collection where they raised $250 trick and treating for ride4acure. Well done Katie and Friends.

From little things big things grow……

ride4acure team visited Seaham Primary School yesterday afternoon. What a fantastic group of students and teachers. We had a lively presentation engaging with the students who when asked in the ‘wrap up’ who learnt something new today every hand inthe room shot up enthusiastically! Seaham Primary School very generously made a $200 donation to ride4acure which is awesome.

A few of the year 5 students at Seaham were a wee bit green when they were asking Joe about being on the ride with me and having some time off school to do it!  Joe is keeping a journal (at this stage it is a very, very, very  brief journal, with a total of 250 words!) However he has sent his first installment to his class and did half an hours maths online!

We’re off to do a presentation this morning at Curves Gym in Heatherbrae and a fundraising morning tea.

Have spent hours this morning unsuccessfuly trying to update the powerpoint, what has actually happened it has become a meditation in staying calm. Nothing has worked as I’m using a new little computer with a different version of powerpoint than my one at home and am unsure of my way around it, so therefore the opportunity to become increasingly frustrated has been high! 

Very thick fog this morning until 8am which is a no go for cyclists. When I was training I had a few days up on Walcha mountain, got caught out riding high and a fog came in with nil visibility. Very scary being unable to see traffic. So thick fogs and thunderstorms are my only no go zones with riding. I won’t be any good to anyone as a traffic accident cycling statistic! My cycling gear (other than the pants all black, only selection is black, black or black) is super high visibility, have been told by a few members of my family rather close to me who love me dearly – that I look like a glow in the dark freako….however at least I’m a visible freako!

We’ve had a little change of plans due to weather conditions. Which looks like more wet stuff hanging around for a few days. I had planned on camping in at Clarence Town at dear friends of ours, however with the weather (due to dirt roads) decided on riding ahead of schedule to Raymond Terrace (instead of camping at both Clarence Town and also Newcastle will be just going into visit now) and living it up at the Pacific Garden Park caravan park in Raymond Terrace for a few days. So today I am liasing with schools re visits, doing more radio interviews (ABC Radio are giving me great coverage , trying to catch up on emails and doing much needed paperwork, banking, shopping, maintenance on my bike and hopefully getting to a movie with Joe. He’s also hoping to catch up with a mate of his who holidays at Moparrabah who lives in Newcastle. My driver Yoni has gone home to Armidale til Saturday to catch up on work commitments so we’ll be simply ‘spearing’ out from Raymond Terrace to our commitments at schools in this area and also a Curves Gym tomorrow. All good. My next driver is my beautiful neice Amanda who is a vet down in Drouin Victoria who is flying in to Sydney on 3rd November for the week down to Canberra. Which will have us in Canberra for Joe’s 11th Birthday!

Joe and I had a thrill last night. We were looking for a noodle shop in Raymond Terrace and came upon a movie set and were absolutely thrilled to find it was “Tomorrow when the war began” being shot right in Raymond Terrace! So we had a good perv and will be going back today to try and get a photo or two! Joe happens to be listening to the last CD talking book of the series at the moment, Hannah, Esther and I have all read the complete series a few years ago now.

90% chance of rain today, high UV, 19 degrees.

I had an absolutely brilliant day on my bike, smooth sailing, my tube stayed inflated all day, my patch obviously worked. I was stoked. Having said that I checked it about 20 times during my ride. The conditions were almost perfect for riding. I did have a SE wind but minus the rain (a few spots but nothing compared to yesterday). I made good time with an average speed of 20.7 kms per hour 55kms. And pulled up feeling good. My arms were still aching from the day before. Fiona Murray came across to Clarence Town and very generously gave me an awesome ‘pain erasing’ massage, where I was visiting our good frinds Danny and Lee Woodland and their wonderful kids Breanna and Josh. Fiona bought her daugher Lexi who was besotted with Lee and Danny’s array of horses, dogs, chooks and took many lovely photo’s.

Fiona also bought me three high pressure tubes! Bless her!

Joe and I stayed the night here with Lee and Danny and I’m heading back into Raymond Terrace. I had planned to bring the van into Clarence Town but due to weather etc decided to simply camp at Raymond Terrace in a caravan park. Am heading back in soon as I have a radio interview at noon with Newcastle ABC. Was on the air yesterday morning with Kim Honan on local ABC and had many texts during the day from people saying they’d heard.  My goal is to get melanoma on young people’s and the communities radars and that is certainly happening.

Yoni my driver had to go back to work at Armidale University for a few days so we’ll be staying put at Raymond Terrace and going out to functions from there.  On Sunday morning  I will ride out to Ettalong/Gosford area where I have several functions on.

Thanks so much to everyone for the messages of love, support and encouragement. I think about you all, all the time, your support makes the roads smoother for sure!

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It has rained non stop all day with a very gusty South Easterly that nearly blew me back to Kempsey all day. And when I eventually left the Pacific Highway to make my way into Tea Gardens along a very ‘dead’ road I couldn’t beleive the  fierceness of it, I was right back to about 10-15 kms per hour. I had a very challenging day. Was on the road for 8 hours all up and had three flat tyres! All had to be changed in the pouring rain, had all kinds of trouble with the new tubes, I had four spares, but I blew one out straight away, then punctured the next one in less than a few kilometres from the first tyre change, then did another one late this arvo just out of Tea Gardens and decided to walk in the rain pushing my bike the last couple of kms because I just couldn’t change another one, I was wet to the bone, freezing  cold, hungry, hanging out for a two gallon bucket of hot tea, a hot shower, warm dry clothes and a huge feed! Well I finally got to the Tea Gardens Hotel at about 5.45 and finally checked my phone messages and found one from  Tea Gardens Rotary Club inviting me to come to their weekly meeting tonight at 7pm at the Tea Gardens Country Club to give a talk about ride4acure. So I had a shower, got cleaned up, actually blow dried my hair and put some make up on! Grabbed a quick coffee some garlic bread and headed off leaving the road crew tucking into a couple of juicy scotch fillets! I intended to have mine when I came back after 8pm, but ended up just having a pear slice, cuppa, and yet again changed and patched my rear tub ready for tomorrow’s stint to Clarence Town. I am out of tubes now and the ‘crew’ have to make a detour to Raymond Terrace and pick up a supply for me. Turns out the four spare tubes I had were the wrong size, they’re racing tubes and are too skinnny for my machine. I had asked for suitable tyres for my bike for this trip . This is all learning and I was certainly on a steep learning curve today. My arms are so sore tonight, keeping my bike on the road was hard work, the wind and rain was working against an easy ride today, and the trucks were ‘sucking’ me into the road. I kept a really strong focus and steer straight. The thing that kept me going in this very challenging situation was the knowledge that cancer doesn’t quit, take the easy way or sleep. It’s alway on the go, I think a lot of people living with cancer, daily facing the uncertainty, and feeel like I’m riding for them too. I’m riding also for the people who lost their lives to melanoma, who don’t have voice any longer, and when tonight I spoke at the Rotary meeting, I’m there for everyone whose in this mileau of melanoma madness. I am riding for everyone, speaking for everyone I’ve met and heard of. It is tragic that bright young people are losing their lives to this disease.  I know without a doubt that all of my professional and personal resources will be channelled into getting melanoma on young people’s radars! And it’s started big time.

Tonight Rotary made a donation from their ‘fines’ and also I sold a heap of pens, which netted $135 dollar plus Rotary have pledged a donation that  will be posted.

Joe had an hours fishing here at Tea Gardens, didn’t have much luck but had a few bites. He was just happy to be out of the ute and near some water. He’s really into this, he’s the ‘caravan man’ and knows all the bits with it.

Well am going to bed now, I have a radio interview at 6.40 am tomorrow with Kim Honan.