ride4acure

Tuncurry was brilliant staying with Fiona, having a wonderful presentation from Seachange Op Shop of $1000 for ride4acure! Wow how generous. Thanks to Christine for organising the fundraiser and the generous community of Seachange! And of course to Fiona for generously opening her home and heart to us. Fiona knew Hannah through horsemanship camps.  

What a fantastic ride, huge long hills and awesome big long coasts down the other side! The biggest longest hills I’ve ridden yet-65 kms in just over 3 hours of riding and averaged 20.5 kms per hour which is my best yet. But of course this ride isn’t about the speed, I think of Hannah all the time and every other young person living with the uncertainty of cancer and in particular melanoma. Every day I meet people who have lost loved ones, or are themselves living with this disease. Esther had a moment the other day where she said “Mum your riding 1500 kms for melanoma, that’s the same number almost that die each year from it!” A very sad statistic, this is the same as our national road toll. The generosity of strangers continues to stagger me. People daily generously giving donations in support of ride4acure.

Today I had Fiona Murray from Tuncurry where we’d been staying ride with me from Coolongalook to Buladelah (a 30 km stint along Pacific Highway), it was the first time I’ve ridden with someone else, and Fiona is an actual experienced long distance bike rider! She was fabulous to ride with, we yacked along side by side as the shoulder was in most parts a couple of metres wide, Fiona also could ride and take photo’s! Now that impressed me, I would’ve ended up in the table drain or under a b-double! Started to rain in the last 10 kms, so much so I sailed right past the caravan park we’re staying in tonight at Buladelah and had to turn around at the bottem of the hill and come back up hill to camp! Like I hadn’t had enough hills today! I’m stoked with how I went today and my body is really feeling fantastically strong. I’m doing plenty of stretching, Fiona gave me a great massage yesterday and I’m on fire today! Am heading to Tea Gardens Hotel tomorrow, forecast is for thunderstorms/rain and strong 43 km SE winds! aagghhh….. and 55kms to cover! Not the best conditions. Have found a fantastic weather site online that gives me all the info. I have to confess though in my naivity I didn’t know if the wind direction was  telling mewhere it was coming from or where it was going! Now that is right up there eh!  Esther made it safely with her horses to Quambone and is coming back to Kemspey to pick up her other horse then heading back to Wagga. Goodie I will hopefully get to see her. And thumbs down and  shame on Sharon McIver driving past me today and not stopping to say g’day and give me a hug from home! LOL :-))

Wow what a fantastic day. I woke up at 5am after a night of being awake every couple of hours. I’d just wake up think about what I’m doing, then talk myself back to sleep. This happened all night! We camped at Haley Barnes home with her partner Matt near Laurieton. Haley is an old friend from Moparrabah/Warbro area who is now living in the Hastings. Many years ago Haley was part of an upriver gang of kids who with my crew of kids used to get to the bus stop at McKenzies Creek just after 6am and we’d light a campfire and cook sausages for breaky on bits of wire and wrap them in fresh white bread (I know what your thinking but mmmm did they taste good??)and hook in before the bus came! The bus used to leave at 7.10am (and we had to drive 9kms from the farm to get to the bus!) and the kids loved it. The bus trip in those days was the best part of their day as they got to hang out with their mates for an hour and a half!

Back to the bike ride eh…I got going from camp at 6.30am and rode the 4 kms back out to the Pacific Highway then hooked along at great speed! I had a lovely soft tailwind, ideal temperature, light traffic and the sweetest road surface to ride on …I was flying. Made great time to Taree and met up with Esther and Joe at morning tea and had a coffee at Macca’s on the Purfleet side of Taree. Also met a lovely woman Lesley and her daughter who had heard of ride4acure in the ABCRA (rodeo and campdraft magazine article) and again were shocked that Hannah had died from melanoma. Hannah’s story highlights to people that melanoma can strike anyone and that is everyone’s business. I had heaps of ‘toots’ and waves today off truckies, who I have to say, in my limited experience, are so respectful of cyclists.

Everday I hear stories of young people dying from melanoma. A year ago I only knew of one! It is like the genie is out of the bottle.

Back to the day. I rode out of Taree to the Lakes Way turn into Tuncurry and it would have to be the ‘deadest’ rode to ride a bike on, I thought my tyres were flat, brakes on etc…the surface was terrible, rough, bumpy, some short, steep hills, no shoulder to ride on…and I had 20 kms of it. Took me an hour and a half to get into Tuncurry, then another half an hour to find the crew as they had rang earlier and told me they were by the water and  I knew Joe was off fishing and Ez was on the phone (thus I couldn’t contact her to find where they were parked!) I rode around for half an hour -thirsty, hungry looking for the ‘rig’, eventually finding them and we had lunch by the water and headed off to Tuncurry Primary to meet up with about 100 Year 1 & 2 students. What a fantastic group of students and teachers. We were very welcome and the kids really engaged with the message and asked heaps of great questions. And again Tuncurry Primary will be doing some fundraising for ride4acure. 

Staying with a ‘horse mate’ of mine, Hannah’s & Esther’s, Fiona Murray in Tuncurry (that rhymes!) and today have a morning tea function in town and am hopefully meeting the mayor of Tuncurry ‘Jan’. Then I get an afternoon off and will catch up on some other stuff like washing my bike, oiling the chain, pumping tyres. And gas bagging with Fiona as she’s a long distance cyclist with a fair bit of knowhow about bikes. I am a complete novice having a crack at a long  distance ride for the first time and learning as I’m going! Fiona has earlier this year completed a trip across Cape York on her bike!

I swap drivers today as Esther has to go back to work in Wagga Wagga (after delivering a horse and a pup to a drover out at Quambone near Warren), my eldest sister Yoni will be driving for the next week. I’m swapping drivers each week, however my main man Joe is with me for the long haul! He is the caravan whizz and has packing up and setting up down to a T and finding fishing holes! Joe’s find of the week is some spray on prawn scent he’s trying out on his ‘fake bait’ things.  Ez and Joe have had a couple of ‘trying’ moments where they wanted to ‘throttle’ each other (as only brothers and sisters can and get over it 2 minutes later), but it’s all grist for the mill.

Left the beautiful North Haven at about 8am, had intended to leave earlier but it was so lovely to be sitting with friends  Janine Taranto and Jim Bignell drinking tea and telling stories. Had a lovely early morning ride on the ferry and headed off down the Oxley Highway to head to Camden Haven near Kew for a presentationat  Camden Haven High School with all of year 7. They were really engaging, 20 of the students had entered the ‘slogo’ competition with some very clever entries that’ll be hard to beat. Every time I present I think of ways to improve what I’m delivering. sharper, more succinct ways of saying things that capture the kids attention and understanding. I am happy to say that Camden Haven is also going to have a fundraiser for ride4acure and also have some merchandise to sell too.  The ride to Camden Haven was delightful at nearly 40 kms, took me just under two hours, of course plenty of wind today but thankfully not so hot! And for the first time in ages no marauding magpies attacking me. I see lots of birds on the highway, and what is beautiful at present is all the flowering native hibiscus along the sides of the highway.

I saw two seperate brake drums today and a wide variety of engine hoses and amazingly what I see a lot of is the ‘balancing’ bits that go on tyres.   Makes me wonder how there’s not more vehicles broken down as sometimes the ‘shoulder’ looks like a Repco shop! The highlight of ‘how do they do it’ today was a big 4wd wagon towing a dual axle caravan flat out with two left hand side flat tyres down to the rim, with sparks flying off for a metre, the noise was incredible and the driver kept on roaring down the highway at about120 kms per hour oblivious to the catastrophe they were towing down the pacific highway. Roadkill today included two foxes, a turtle, a blue tongue lizard, a couple of birds and about three owls and a fox…all that in 40 kms! Thank you to the dozens of people texting me messages of support . I love to receive them, they keep me powering on. I had a radio interview today with the Taree station, and also a newspaper interview for the Camden Haven news.  Am heading to bed now for a very early start tomorrow.

Wow…what a wonderful send off from Kempsey, a big crowd gathered to say goodby at the Kempsey skin Cancer Clinic which is where this whole journey with melanoma began almost two years.  a crowd gathered to wish meack up crew, Joe and Esther,  well and also to draw the raffle. With first prize going to Kerri Scobie won first prize of the wonderful weekend farm stay at ‘Bermurrah Homestead’ at Pee Dee via Bellbrook, Jodie Cliff won the wonderful painting by Anita Humprhries, and local legend Bill Smith won the two final prizes of the chainsaw package Donated by Greg and Regina Hawkins of Hawkins Mowers and Chainsaws Kempsey and the $2oo voucher for Retravision donated by Janeelle Clarke from Greenhill General Store.Amazing with nearly two thousand tickets sold many of them out of town, that four locals won the prizes! I left town at about ten am, to lots of cheering and clapping. As I crossed the Kempsey Traffic Bridge I was surprised by a large group of my TAFE colleagues cheering and waving a few posters, gave me such a boost I hardly felt the climb up the big hill…it was so wonderful, I have felt very nurtured and supported throughout the time I’ve been planning and preparing for this. I am taking all that wonderful positive support with me as I head down the highway. 

After the raffle I left town and rode to Port Macquarie in very high temperatures. It was stinking hot, now wind, tons of traffic.

I averaged 19 kilometres an hour to port, but had a couple of 15 minute breaks en route.  I arrived at Port just before two pm, just in time to get set up for St Joseph’s Primary School, and presented to the whole school of 450 kids . Esther and Joe were great getting all the gear ready and set up for me.  The students were wonderful, engaging, curious and had some really cool questions about melanoma and skin cancer.  One of which was ‘are the uv rays stronger in an aeroplane because your closer tothe sun? StJoseph’s are going to run a fundraiser day and donate the tally to ride4racure. We stayed with friends at North Haven and caught the ferry over the Hastings River. Joe loved it and had a fish in the Hastings before we kicked off this morning. Last night we caught up with friends and well wishers at Finians Irish Tavern in Port for a beer and counter tea which was great.

Joe is the dedicated caravan set up person, and is very nifty at setting the camp up! We are so grateful to Watson’s for the wonderful sponsorship of this Jayco van, it certainly makes things easier and more comfortable.

I had a couple of interviews, the Macleay Argus and Port Express, also the TV (not sure which channell) filmed me at St Joseph’s while I was giving the presentation. I slept like a log for a good 8 hours and woke up feeling on top of the world and ready for my ride to Camden Haven high school.

Last night we held the second ride4acure-Hannah Rose Melanoma Research Fund dinner dance and auction. Wow what a fabulous night of music, dancing, great food and  entertainment. We raised a total of $11 600 which is a beautiful reflection of the generosity and heartfelt support for ride4acure! Go Kempsey and supporting communities. We had people travel from across the ranges from Armidale, Tamworth, Moree and Narranderra – 1100 kms away! What a top crew of supporters!  Hannah I know would be so proud of everyone getting behind ride4acure to support research!

I have less than a month now before Ihit the road with the ride. Am cointinuing to train, seek sponsorship and create educational resources to use on the trip when talking with students and communities en route….not to mention plan the logistics of being on the road for nearly six weeks! Am looking for a dog sitter for my two jack russells Hamish and Clancy (who are a bit ‘hang dog’ about being left out of the party for this road trip.) I am also still awaiting confirmation of sponsorship for a motorhome or caravan  for the journey! If anyone has a ‘connection’ in the industry please let me know!

KEMPSEY ride4acure CATTLE SALE: Today we held the ride4acure cattle sale at Kempsey Saleyards. A fantastic day, with three head of cattle donated by Coggie and Linda Wilshusen of McCoys Creek, Moparrabah via Kempsey, Steve & Bryson, Pappinbarra via Wauchope, Roma Moss , ‘Ngambi’ Duri via Tamworth. Together the three head of cattle netted $1660, plus we sold another $417.50 worth of raffle tickets, t-shirts & vests!  So a very productive day with a profit for the fund of  $2 077.50. Thank you Kempsey and visitors  for your support! 

Now it’s 6.30pm and I am about to go out to the gym for our ‘Girls Night In’ to raise money for our Relay for Life team, I’m on the Curves Gym team and we have the relay on 17 & 18th October just before I set sail on my bike ride….. we’re having a talent quest tonight and quite fittingly am doing a little performance poetry with a rendition of Banjo Pattersons all time great poem, ‘Mulga Bills Bicycle’, how fitting.

Awesome day on Wednesday. Rode from home to Port Macquarie return 117kms. The best part was catching up with Lloyd Newell from Gordon Street Cycles in Port who has now generously given me some sponsorship with a new bike and gear for the big road trip to Melb! I was speechless with this amazing gift of generosity! Take delivery next Wednesday and am very excited little Vegemite right now.

In the meantime spent the day yesterday selling raffle tickets and ride4acure merchandise on the streets in Kempsey at the Clyde Street Market. Had a fantastic day meeting many people who share their stories with me of their journey’s with melanoma and cancer. Frequently  I hear is that ride4acure is the first ‘thing’ people have found that directly talks about and supports research into melanoma and that they can give to…as the leading cancer in young people melanoma ought to be top of the tree, the highest priority for research.  Not to mention that at least three times yesterday I had older people tell me they’d lost their husbands/wives to melanoma. Now I find this amazing as I live in a town of barely 10 000 people, 28 000 in the whole shire…..I was gonna say ‘do the maths on that’ but of course I suck at maths myself and couldn’t work out the %’s…hhhmmmmnnn! but I’m saying that’s a lot of melanoma stories for a small town eh?

TRAINING UPDATE: My training is full steam ahead with weekly rides of over 100km range plus my weekly total over the 200km mark. I’m also keeping up with gym training 2-3 times a week and stretching each day.  I’m getting so strong and feel positively dangerous! I face the normal challenges of the-learner-intraining-soon-to-be-long-distance-cyclist which includes such things as headwinds, failing brakes, bugs in my eyes, overheating, sweat stinging and streaming into eyes, swooping magpies EVERYWHERE, I had half a dozen attacks on Sunday on a 102km ride, the magpies swoop from behind and ‘clink’ my helmet with their claws or beaks, I sing out to them to ‘Go Hard Maggie!’ I had the thought of sticking some of those crafty eye balls people use on toys onto the top of my helmet, however I decided that would definately shift me right into the FREAKO category of bike rider!  I’ve seen a couple of other riders with 20cm stick thingo’s poking out of their helmets (I did wonder at the time if they were OK —hhmm hhhmmm…) but now me thinks they’re one step ahead of me and my marauding magpie mates!!

CATTLE SALE: 19th Sept at Kempsey Sale Yards two head of stock donated to date from Coggie & Linda Wilshusen of McCoys Creek Moparrabah, who have donated a Brahman steer we’ve nicknamed “Daffodil”,  and also Steve & Anne Bryson from Beechwood with a young limousin bull. This is an awesome donation from very generous livestock producers.

DINNER DANCE and Auction: Saturday 26th Sept Kempsey Golf Club 6pm. At the , dance away to “The Nobodies”, who were awesome at our previous dinner dance on 5th Sept.  Tickets are selling fast and are available from Silver Dollar Saddlery in Belgrave St Kempsey ph Suzie Argue on 0265621899 to enquire about tickets and bookings.

Raffle 'chicks' in KMC

Today was the first day of selling raffle tickets. Had a great time talking with people on the streets in Kempsey and sold about 40  tickets! The raffle prizes are awesome. Am including a photo of two of Hannah’s good mates Garnei and Sam, who gave me some moral support whilst on the street selling tickets….Go Girls:-))