Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and run with it. Have you ever woken up, and felt like you are still in one of those bad dream situations where nothing will go as you want it to? That’s kind of how my day started, but I was soon to realise that the world usually has a master plan.
I awoke to the sound of rain pouring down on my tent in the Sundowner Tourist Park at Port Macquarie. We had Port Macquarie Public School and media booked in for 10am, so waiting for the rain to stop before packing up wasn’t an option. After packing my wet tent into the bag and ducking for cover in the camp kitchen I looked down at my phone – “Battery Low, 8 New Messages” – damn it, I better charge it up in case the media needs to contact us. Fifteen minutes later after a quick breakfast it was time to shoot off. Prime News was waiting for us at the top of the hill to get some riding shots.
The shoot went well and we caught up with the Port Newspaper after the school visit. It never ceases to amaze me just how intelligent the younger students are at the schools we visit. We had year 3 children talking to us about sustainability – our future is in good hands. We headed south along the amazing Port Macquarie coast road. I had forgotten just how awesome the north coast of NSW is. You tend to take for granted the places you live so close to.
It was about midday when I reached for my phone to check the messages... not in that pocket... or that one either... or my bag... or the car...oh no! I rushed back to the tourist park, wondering how many people would have been in the camp kitchen since nine o’clock this morning. I return to see that it had been taken. I start with the profanities but get interrupted by a young surfer sitting in the corner, “You looking for a phone dude?”
“Ah, yeah mate. Motorola with a cracked screen” (from an on-bike phone conversation)
“These guys in a Wicked van just dropped it into the office for you, it was sitting there for a while”
“Legends. Thanks for that mate.”
As I left the office, phone in hand, the sky started to clear. It was shaping up to be a pretty good day. I found the team working away on the phones and computer at a cool little place called Flynns Bookshop Cafe that had a huge assortment of second hand books. A wave of nostalgia swept over me as I pictured us at the Bookstation in Caringbah days before we left, talking to Tommy’s mum about the final plans we needed to make before heading off. That was a lifetime ago.
The owners of the place Marshall and Anne were great people, the kind I knew were legends before I’d had even spoken them. Maybe this is a sixth sense I have picked up on the road, meeting handfuls of new people every single day. We spent hours there, looking through books between shifts on the phones and computer organising our return to Sydney and all other things MyPOWER. Just when I thought we were outstaying our welcome a little Anne came out with some hot chocolates. “They are on the house”, she said.
A wave of hope came over me as I remembered the book I’ve been trying to track down for a while now, “The Kon-Tiki Expedition” by Thor Heyerdahl. I told dad a few weeks back about my plans to build a bamboo raft when I get back, after being inspired by Linda’s passion for the much overlooked building material in Grafton. The boys were in on it too. “Thor Heyerdahl!” he proclaimed. I thought he had learned some weird language since I spoke to him last.
“What are you talking about!?”
“Thor Heyerdahl” he repeated with much conviction. “Haven’t you heard of him before?”
“Nope. Who is he.”
He elaborated, and I scribed the name into my diary. I must learn more about this guy...
I asked Marshall and Anne with little hope of success. Surely they wouldn’t have some obscure book about an adventurer from the fifties. They did. I bought it. I’m hooked. The seed of my next adventure is planted.
I hear Mereki outside trying to get a contact number for his long lost aunty who lives in North Haven. He’s clearly having no luck. I join him outside to prepare for our ride out to Taree, finding that we won’t be leaving just yet – I’ve got a flat. What would usually take me 10 minutes to do takes more than an hour. Like a bad dream everything went wrong. First the patch doesn’t work. Next I put on a tube from my bag that already has two punctures. Then I realise the new tube I found has a different valve. This flat was causing me grief, and by this stage my face looked as if it had been mistaken for an auto mechanics grease rag. Why was this tyre change such a punish?
My question was answered after we finally got on the road and started heading through North Haven. We heard an unfamiliar beep from the support car behind and found that another car had pulled over. It was Leigh, Mereki’s aunty! What are the chances? We find out that there would have been no chance of an accidental rendezvous if we left an hour earlier for Port Macquarie.
Sometimes the world conspires in your favour. That book needed to find me, just as Mereki needed to see his long lost family, and so it happened.
Quote of the day
“Just occasionally you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but when you are right in the midst of it you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about.”
- Thor Heyerdahl – Author of “The Kon-Tiki Expedition”
Matt
matt@mypower.org.au