Читать книгу Cycle of Learning - Anne Fitzpatrick - Страница 11

Lismore – Woodburn – Lennox Heads – Byron Bay – Coolangatta – Brisbane – Plainland – Toowoomba – Dalby – Macalister – Chinchilla – Jandowae

Totals: 4,622 kilometres – 263 hours 22 minutes – $5,432

Saturday 9 April

Coolangatta to Brisbane, Queensland

122 kilometres – 5 hours 46 minutes

I spent a large part of the day riding up the M1, the motorway between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. While there was a generous shoulder for a lot of the way, there were a few sections of roadwork where I had to take it upon myself to reposition the barriers. My main concerns, though, were the numerous exits and entrances that needed to be crossed without getting in the way of the high velocity traffic entering or exiting the freeway. The mirror on my right handlebar helped a lot in these situations, letting me keep an eye on what was happening behind me. I quite enjoyed utilising this mirror as every time I finished with it and turned it back and folded it down, I saw myself as Luke Skywalker turning off his targeting computer before blowing up the Death Star.

Heading into Brisbane, I felt rested and ready for a new state, which already had filled my diary with more engagements than any other. I’d originally planned to only ride as far north as Rockhampton before heading west, but my “Don’t say no to a school” policy threw that plan out the window. Over the previous few months, as people from each new school – of increasingly northerly location – phoned to ask if I could visit, I had to sit back down with my maps and sums and plot new daily riding itineraries of greater and greater distances and correspondingly less rest. I was at the stage where it should be just physically possible to make the extra 1,000 kilometres to get up to Tully and still reach Darwin by the end of the second school term.

With this tough riding schedule ahead of me, I was glad of the mini Gold Coast holiday I’d just indulged in. I tried to be a tourist by visiting Tropical Fruit World, a tropical fruit-based theme park, and dutifully took a photo of the ambiguous-looking giant fruit at the entrance. I stayed with Rod, a friend I know through wrestling, who took me to the beach in the mornings to try and teach me how to surf. Rod is a very tactful guy and kindly blamed the weather for my dismal performance. He also provided a computer for me to work at when I wasn’t being a tourist or almost-surfer. I sent off a few dozen emails and got the Cycle of Learning website up to date. This side of things mostly consisted of me emailing my volunteer IT-support officer, Bonnie, with requests. Bonnie is an amazing friend who stepped in after a mini-meltdown I had in December. Things were falling apart with my plans for web page design and I had spent a few days storming around home, throwing things and yelling at the world. Bonnie and I had been friends for five years and I already knew she was a proficient composer, pianist and percussionist, as well as being an officer in the navy and a final year medical student. I had no idea that she could also design web pages, write programs, and speak binary, but when she heard of my problems, she stepped up to the plate and sorted me out. She was updating things and adding more nifty functions to the website while I was on the road, and I harboured a secret dream that she would invent a virus that could ask for donations better than I could.

That Saturday morning, before farewelling Rod, I sorted through my possessions. When I left Adelaide, Trailer was carrying 30 kilograms of gear. I’d already been shedding things I hadn’t been using (astronomy almanac, extra shoes etc); after a heart-wrenching hour, I whittled my equipment and supplies further down to 18.5 kilograms. I don’t think our overall weight was reduced though: I had made up the 11.5 kilograms by the impressive expansion of my thigh muscles; the grime embedded in my hair, skin and clothes; the biomass of accompanying microorganisms that made this grime their home; and the weight gain from my on-the-road appetite.

I finished my cull by handing over two bags to Rod. One had stuff to be returned to my parents via the little-known National Wrestlers’ Delivery Network; the other bag was given as a “gift” for Rod. He went above and beyond his hostly duties and pretended that the soap holder, pegs, and pre-owned vitamin tablets were just what he needed to cheer himself up after having his surfing reputation destroyed by association with me.

For all the emotional trauma of deciding what to keep and what to shed of my equipment, there wasn’t a noticeable change in the effort it took to tow Trailer. He did seem easier to navigate, though, around the twists and turns of shopping complexes and narrow streets I encountered once I left the motorway to find my way to my next hosts.

After getting lost a few times and dropping my map in a public toilet, I finally found my way to the home of the next family putting me up for the night. Like all good Cycle of Learning hosts, they live at the top of a ridiculously steep hill, and have a spot in the sun to dry out wet maps.

Wednesday 13 April

Brisbane to Plainland, Queensland

94 kilometres – 5 hours 31 minutes

Brisbane kept me busy for the three days I spent there. The school, church, radio interview and two homes I went to in that time were all just a few streets apart with one five-way roundabout in between. Somehow, though, every trip I took between them ended up taking at least half an hour, a dozen wrong turns and a shirtful of sweat.

I made another round-Australia friend in Brisbane who I found a lot less intimidating than Colin the walker. Also from Adelaide, Paul crossed my path online a few weeks before, and figured out that we would be in Brisbane at the same time. We caught up, shared some cheap chocolate and discussed important round-Australia cycling things such as the price of caravan parks, how to carry water, and what foods can be “cooked” by soaking them in warm tap water.

I stayed a few nights with another old wrestling friend, Madeleine, who took me along to her local training night. Given that I’d busted my only pair of shorts while fighting with Rod’s surfboard on the Gold Coast and didn’t trust my repairs, I borrowed a pair of Madeleine’s. Somehow, I managed to destroy these as well and decided to call an end to my travelling wrestling career for the year. Obviously, my thighs were out of control. Madeleine was very understanding, being a seasoned bicycle tourer herself. Madeleine spends her holidays navigating the outdoors by bike, foot, canoe, and sometimes even hand – every mountain she summits she likes to do a handstand upon. I first met Madeleine at a wrestling camp. We matched up very unevenly. She was about half my size, but exuded approximately five times the energy of most people. Between throwing me from fireman’s carries and flipping me over with hip heists, Madeleine – being a scientist as well as a wrestling whiz – had my head spinning with explanations of the structure of her favourite organic compound, and how electron microscopes work. After teaching me a few moves and answering my amateur science fan questions, she rushed off a few hours later to attend some sort of conference that was going to involve her speaking German.

Staying with Madeleine in Brisbane, it was wonderful to observe at close quarters a person who has got their priorities in the right place. I par­ticularly appreciated Madeleine’s focus on waste. Besides the normal responsible round-the-house actions such as collecting food scraps for compost, and making sure rubbish is recycled properly, Madeleine aims to create as little rubbish as possible from food and other purchases. In a previous share-house she participated in a year-long, no-waste-creation experiment. Besides what they could compost in their own yard, the housemates aimed to not buy anything that created rubbish. Even in my current simple cycling lifestyle, I accumulated a bundle of rubbish each day, which would be strapped to Trailer in a plastic bag when I was away from the city and the convenience of rubbish bins. Maybe I should have dedicated part of Trailer’s surface to a small vegie patch.

In the morning, I made an early getaway from Madeleine’s inner-Brisbane home to speak at a high school on the outskirts of the city. En route, I was surprised to bump into Paul who was heading north out of town. It probably would have been a bit less surprising for me had I realised we were in a unisex, not female, public toilet at the time.

After my school visit, I pushed on, as I needed to be in Toowoomba by the next afternoon. I’d been hearing scary things about the steep climb up the Toowoomba Range, so was hoping to get close to the foot of the range by evening.

As the sun moved lower in the sky, I started looking for camping options. There was no open scrub around; everything was fenced off. I reached a small town and sat myself on a petrol station veranda to weigh up my options. I had the following choices:

A. Carry Bike and Trailer over a barbed-wire fence into the property of someone who may very well own a shotgun and large dogs.

B. Take up the offer of the seemingly friendly motorcyclist I met inside the petrol station to camp in his front yard.

C. Sneak behind some abandoned shops down the road and hope that no one noticed me spending the night there.

D. Ride fifteen kilometres out of my way to a caravan park.

Pondering these options, I realised what was missing from the list:

E. Go back inside and buy the huge bag of reduced-price muffins on sale for $1.20.

Feeling emotionally and physically renewed after taking up Option E, I decided to head down the side road to the caravan park. I had only turned off for a few metres when I spotted a school with a big empty lot full of long grass next to it. Perfect. I had myself an Option F.

I waited out the remaining daylight hours back in the main street watching the low, thick clouds with evening sunlight breaking through, and munching on muffins.

Under the cover of darkness, I moved back to the vacant lot and started setting up camp. When my tent was only halfway up, a motorbike roared into life across the street and headed my way with its headlamp blazing. The only thing I could think to do was duck down behind the long grass and pretend that I wasn’t there. Then I remembered: Bike and Trailer were covered from top to bottom in reflective tape and I was still wearing my fluoro vest. As hard as we tried, we could not become invisible.

The motorcyclist drove straight over to us and turned out to be the school caretaker. Instead of sending me to jail for trespassing and possessing indecently cheap muffins, he offered me the use of the school showers and toilets. I was relieved, although arrest could have provided valuable publicity for Cycle of Learning.

Tuesday 19 April

Chinchilla to Jandowae, Queensland

76 kilometres – 4 hours 10 minutes

I was particularly excited to ride into Chinchilla on Monday afternoon. Chinchilla State High School was the very first place to book me in to speak. The principal had called me the year before, just hours after I had sent a pile of emails out. He’d been so friendly and enthusiastic about Cycle of Learning that I’d imagined that within days I would have hundreds of similar invitations from around the country pouring in. That did not happen; but my entire itinerary had been planned around this small town that I’d not heard of until that first phone call. I should have been aware of it though, as it is the capital of my favourite food: watermelon.

I can still remember how I felt, around the time of that phone call from Chinchilla. I’d just started my planning, I was full of ideas and excitement and I was sure Cycle of Learning would be massive and awesome. My massive and awesome vision was hazy around the edges, though. The vague images included the army of people I would have helping me deal with logistics; newspapers and TV stations following my every move around the country; businesses trying to outbid each other to have me accept their sponsorship; teachers planning units of work based on the resources from my website; and school children across the nation logging onto my web forum to send messages and questions to students in Kodaikanal. I just wasn’t sure exactly what I would need to do to reach these massive and awesome heights.

Before my first visit to Kodaikanal in 2001, I had a similarly hazy and quixotic image of the time I would have “volunteering” there.

The Road to Kodaikanal

I had been backpacking through Asia and was looking for some volunteer work to do before I returned home. When Norm suggested that I join him on his trip to visit the Grihini program in Kodaikanal I was thrilled. On the long train trip from Calcutta to Chennai, I thought how good it would be to actually be useful and finally contribute something. If there is any emotion I am good at, it is guilt. I’d spent nearly eight months travelling through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, Nepal and northern India. Like most people who visit these countries from a wealthy nation, I was struck by the poverty of many people I saw. I was also hounded by the disparity of my trip and their lives. I had worked a part-time job through three years of university and saved enough to travel in relative comfort through these countries for a year. I had the freedom to go where I wanted, buy food, pay for clothes and accommodation, and spend time reading, sight-seeing and wandering around because of the luck of where I was born.

I remember sitting at the top of a temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia one evening, when a wave of guilt-ridden nausea overwhelmed me. From the pure, logical facts of the matter, I should not have been sitting there watching street kids run (or limp, if they were missing a limb from landmines) from tourist to tourist selling postcards. I had done nothing to deserve this position of privilege. Logic told me that I should return to Australia immediately and devote any earnings or resources I had, or gained in the future, to people who deserved neither the poverty nor the hardship into which they had been born. But, of course, as the sun set and I climbed down the temple ruins, I managed to push the logic aside just enough to return to the first-world mindset that let me justify my indulgence and privilege.

As my travels continued, I kept feeling guilty. Despite the friendliness and hospitality of local people I met along the way, I felt as if I were intruding and imposing myself on all the communities I visited. “Volunteer work” seemed like a perfect solution. I thought three months of being useful and helping people in Kodaikanal would settle the score for the year. That was not how it worked out.

Chinchilla surpassed all expectations I had of it. Besides the watermelon, there was also an information centre where they tell you about the free campground at the picturesque weir. The library had free internet and friendly librarians and there was a fish and chip shop called Salty’s. The bank tellers called all their customers by name, even me – but only after I’d filled out my details on a deposit slip. The warm and enthusiastic welcome I received at the school was exactly what I’d come to expect from Chinchillans and most people inland from Brisbane.

Since meeting the friendly caretaker on his motorbike, I had been looked after by a bevy of friendly Queenslanders. A family had me stay for a few days in Toowoomba; in Dalby, one couple invited me into their kitchen to cook myself a vegetarian lunch. A chatty cyclist I met coming up the Toowoomba Range asked me into his bike shop for a cup of tea and offered to have a look over my bike. When he saw the amount of gunk in my chain, his jaw dropped and he spluttered, “You’ve ridden how far without cleaning that?” I’d always thought that cleaning bike chains was one of those things that people talk about but never do, like defragmenting computers and dusting. But after he’d spent a few minutes cleaning it out for me and I rode away from the bike shop using a third of the effort I had ridden there with, I realised that a clean bike chain has certain advantages.

The latest fabulous Queensland person I met was Fiona. I have to admit, when I first made contact with Fiona, the inexplicably large amount of similarities between us and the synchronicity of our meeting made me a little suspicious. I wondered if she was actually an undercover slave trader in the market for stock with high-quality thigh muscles for an important grape-crushing operation or running a leg-powered pirate ship. I first heard from her in a friendly email out of the blue telling me of her own project, five years previously, very similar to Cycle of Learning, but raising money and awareness for a poverty-alleviation project in Indonesia. It was the first time I’d encountered someone who’d done not just the same sort of Around Australia fundraising cycling thing, but had done it in a similar way – low key in the publicity and fundraising arena, with a big focus on connecting with schools and communities to share information. And we both obviously liked countries that start with the letter I. After an email or two, it came to light that I would be riding right past Fiona within a few days. It wouldn’t have been so strangely coincidental if she lived in a big city that I couldn’t have avoided, but she was on a farm in the middle of south-Queensland-nowhere. A nowhere that I happened to have planned in my itinerary in a few days’ time on my way to Chinchilla.

Accordingly, I headed out of a small road from Dalby, dismounted Bike at the entrance to a dirt track disappearing into a cotton field and waited for the designated time. The expected ute arrived, a shout from the window instructed me to load myself and my gear onto the back tray, and I prepared myself to be driven to the beginning of my life in the grape-crushing slave trade.

It turned out Fiona wasn’t luring me to her farm for my awesome leg muscles; she was entirely who she had said she was, and the exact person I had been needing to meet. Over a vegetarian stir-fry (we were even gastro­nomically kindred spirits) I shared all my fundraising, organisational and bike-riding worries with her, while Fiona made me feel better with stories of her own similar struggles and reassurances that the way I was going about things made sense. It was a wonderful relief, and encouraging to meet someone who had come out the other side of a project like mine, relatively unscathed. Fiona had taken a few bizarre turns since her circum­navigation, firmly establishing herself in the field of philanthropic consultancy while simultaneously moving onto this cotton farm to be with her partner, vast fields of cotton plants and what seemed to be a small army of green frogs (who appeared at various times of my visit when I least expected them, and screamed at me if I accidentally squashed them in sliding doors).

In a final demonstration of deep understanding of my present condition, Fiona served me the most comprehensive breakfast I had encountered so far that year – complete with two types of chocolate – before I headed off into the wee hours of Monday morning.