I sit in the comfort of my cousin’s holiday apartment, situated on a quiet street near Little Beach in Nelson Bay. We have all been flat out on the computer and phones for several hours now; making sure everything is in order for our return to Sydney and our Return Festival in Cronulla on the 7th of December. It reminds me of our departure all those months ago, so busy and mentally demanding that there is no time to consider your feelings.
The fact that we need to pack up the mobile office, get on our bikes, and relocate 90km south to Newcastle this afternoon is the last thing on my mind. I will probably spend the first 50km of the ride thinking about all the things I wish we had time to do before we needed to start pedalling. With just one computer between four, and lots to get organised we have been really making the most of our time in front of the screen. Tommy “Morning” Gray takes the early shift, Anthony the when-we-are-riding shift, I do the night shift and Mereki is a great all-round gap filler. It works very well.
The last weeks of east coast have been really intense, and the last week has made the weeks before it look quiet. We are certainly planning to finish the tour with a BANG! As I look at my current situation – comfortably seated in an apartment just metres from a beautiful plunge pool called the Pacific Ocean – I reflect on some of the less desirable office conditions we have had throughout the year when friends, kind strangers and long lost relatives couldn’t be called on to help us get a roof over our heads. There have been some absolute shockers, with the following three making the most lasting impression on my memory of bad experiences on the road:
1. Somewhere between Broome and Halls Creek. We couldn’t find a single stand of trees with enough shade to cover all four of us simultaneously. Finally we settle for a leafless, fly ridden patch of burned out forest, deciding that it might be possible to trick our minds into thinking we are in a thick Amazonian rainforest. It didn’t work. As a result, we all lay exposed in the heat of the desert sun, writing journal entries for the previous few days which had brought little more shade fortune than the present situation.
2. Flies know they are annoying, and have a special sense that detects weak points in a person’s anger management. I have several. Flies up the nose is a great example, as is flies mating in my ear. Once the fragile point is identified they zone in relentlessly on the problem area to apply further frustration. I don’t think they understood how important it was for me to send off some important media emails and write my journal entry that day at a rest area in Kakadu. I sat and watched the battery dying as my progress seemed to be moving in a negative direction.
3. Cold hands and craniums, six 150km days in a row of riding without a shower, and a lightning storm outside your tent isn’t the ideal conditions to be working on a presentation for school children and editing a video. More often than not on this journey we weren’t given the privilege of choice! I look down at the computer as I type this and see remnants of many such nights literally ingrained on the keyboard. The computer has collected the dirt from our hands in every single state of Australia.
Early in the trip we realised that these conditions would soon become the norm in our daily activities so we borrowed a term from my father to kerb any attempts to complain about such adverse conditions. We call it the Silver Spoon. If anyone has a problem with not showering for a week or so, and voices their hygiene concerns to the team, we tell them to get the silver spoon out of their mouth.
As I reflect on these situations while shooing away a solitary persistent fly that has found the cut on my right ankle, I realise that often we put our seemed problems into a category much more severe than they actually are. Yes, we are working around the clock to make our return a great; yes, I probably should have had more sleep last night; and yes, this afternoon’s ride isn’t going to be the most fun I have ever had. I tell myself to take the silver spoon out of my mouth – there are huge positives that can be taken from each one of those realities and it’s important to focus on them.
Matt
matt@mypower.org.au