Advancing years usually means that quite a few friends have been picked up along the way. When I first moved to Stanwell Park in 1972, Jane Wilson was a recently graduated art teacher who lived up the road. After about ten years, the family moved to Queensland. I kept in contact with Jane sporadically over the years, and she finally ended up at Sapphire Beach just north of Coffs Harbour in a splendid house overlooking the ocean with her partner, Andrew, a surgeon. When I knew that we were going through Coffs, I got in touch with Jane and of course she and Andrew invited us to stay. The boys were already catered for at Tom’s cousin’s house, but I spent three delightful but very wet days up on the mountain.
The plan after that was to cycle to Bowraville where another friend of mine from long ago, Dale Hawkins lives. She and her husband Ron had left Sydney to try to live more sustainably on the North Coast. They still have their own vegetable garden, composting toilet and fruit tree orchard, but as always happens, they had to supplement this with income from other sources. Fortunately Ron was a civil engineer and there was a demand for such services in the area.
I explained this to Jane and how Dale had introduced me to three other women who were wandering around Australia 36 years ago, as backpackers, and before the word was invented. They were Canadians from British Colombia. In July this year, I met up with these three, in Vancouver and Vancouver Island, stayed at their homes and did some canoeing, cycling and trekking with them. When I explained this to Jane, and how I was to meet up with Dale tomorrow, she said, “It sounds like you are doing an Old Flames Tour, but that is only appropriate before the Ashes Tour.” Well, I hope the Ashes tour is a fair bit in the future, but the Old Flames part has been delightful.
The MyPOWER website is full of photos and stories of the boys going to spread their message to schools, but you never quite experience how they do it. Jane, Tom’s cousins, aunt and grandparents and I decided to sit in on the one they did at Kororo Primary School. The boys had obviously done this many times before as it was very professionally done. “Hey guys….” they started off, taking it in turns to tell the kids about what their trip was all about and how they could make a difference simply by taking on some of the challenges in the website. They were seasoned professionals and had everyone enthralled, watching their very funny and entertaining video of the trip. At the end, I couldn’t resist telling all the kids that they should have a look at the web site and read what the boys have to say because each of them is an excellent writer. Their website has been so highly regarded by the National Library of Australia that they have the boys to allow their website to be preserved for all posterity.
Kieran