ride4acure

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.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 11:32 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.