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Category: public transport

In praise of the teen age

Mar 28, 2016 | bike-camping, parenting, public transport | 2 comments
While we were on our book tour — the first Artist as Family adventure Zeph has missed —he asked his dad whether they could go away together when the rest of us returned. This weekend the two of them decided on Bright. To get there they bussed from Daylesford,

caught another bus at Woodend and zoomed down the range to Southern Cross in Melbourne.

They then caught a train to Wangaratta, where they biked around. Zeph showing his old man a thing or two about a different sort of biking,

while Patrick showed his eldest a skill or two at sniffing out a goodly stealth camp on the edge of town.

The next day they bussed on to Bright and found a lovely streamside campsite where only bicycles and walkers could get to. Zeph marked the land with teenage exuberance,

but after watching the documentary Crude (in the tent on the first night), about the poisoning of Amazonian rivers, soils and people by an American petroleum company, Zeph was immediately more sensitive to riding near streamside ecology let alone enter the water with his greasy bike.

Zeph has quickly become a competent bike mechanic. Without a bike shop in our town, he has taught himself everything he needs to know to maintain and fix his bicycle. Before we left he ordered a new derailleur but it hadn’t arrived, so he shortened the chain and made his bike into a single speed for the time being. Nothing was going to stop his week away riding downhill in Bright. Even climbing the magical Mystic mountain without gears,

in order to come down through the many varied and tricky tracks the mountain has to offer.

Patrick was fast falling in love with the intensity of mountain riding. Before they’d left he’d done some work on Meg’s old mountain bike and put a pack rack on the back to carry most of the gear. The two came down from Mystic, after their first morning, on quite a high. Patrick headed off to do some work on his new manuscript, while Zeph headed to the skate park to work on his stunts. Then disaster struck.

After the intense concentration of the morning and after an hour of tricks at the skate park, Zeph rolled his bike over to sit under the canopy of a tree, moving slowly to a resting place, taking off his sweat laden helmet before down he came. In his tiredness he miscalculated and landed heavily on his shoulder, breaking his collar bone.

Initially devastated, Zeph soon became philosophical. What can you do about it but take it in your stride. He is of course gutted to have his biking days once again reduced to broken-boned rest and recuperation for several weeks. But, then again, these are the life choices he makes and knows he has to take ownership. It’s a teen age, and there’s so much to learn and process and set forward, with returns, retreats and even collapse just as much a part of it. Go Zeph! We love your spirit.

Beginning our slow descent south (Blackheath to Gerroa)

Jan 4, 2016 | bicycle touring, family, permaculture, public transport | 7 comments
We loved visiting the Blue Mountains again, giving book events,

taking foraging workshops in Blackheath,

visiting next-gen food producers Erika and Hayden,

bumping into and then staying with an old school friend, Zoe and her family,

visiting dear poet friends Pete and Kate and their kids Ruby and Felix,

housesitting for 10 days, taking many a bush walk, contemplating life,

and having time to consider what being human means.

Restored by the mountains we zoomed back down to Sydney to house sit again, finding a very rare strip of safe bicycling bitumen in Centennial Park.

We skipped on Christmas, but Boxing Day’d it with fam at Bronte.

Took a roll or two at Bondi,

and jumped a train to Moss Vale, again smuggling onboard the only family member disallowed by the transport authority.

We gathered up cherry plums on leaving Moss Vale,

flew down the escarpment with steaming breaks and faced down a bull in Kangaroo Valley,

where we were invited to stay at this wonderful permaculture farm,

with Peter and Vasuda.

After taking an edible weed workshop on the farm and after a fun, shooting-star kind of New Year’s Eve with Peter, Vasuda, Zoe and her friends Andy and Paddy, we climbed up Bellawongarah,

where we spotted great swathes of Ginger lily (Hedychium gardnerianum), a non-edible garden escapee from the Himalayas that is apparently part of the lung cancer solution.

We rocketed down the mount to Berry and spoke at the local bookshop,

before setting up camp a few kms out of town on Broughton Creek.

We’ve been on the road for over two months now and most days have been fairly sweet, but on leaving Berry for the coast…

At the end of the day we came and stayed with Claire Wilson and her bike polo friends in Gerroa. Claire is a Warm Showers host, writer and gardener who lives without a car, and she offered the perfect antidote to our first day on South Coast roads.

We’re off to Nowra today to speak at DeanSwift Books at 3pm. If you’re in the neighbourhood, please come and say hello.

Thanks for joining us here again, Dear Reader. We hope that wherever you are, your soils are moist, your food is freshly-picked and your legs are feeling strong up the hills.