Eating ants, bush fruits and eels, and meeting crocodiles (Narragon Beach to Daintree Village)

Sep 14, 2014 | banana, Blue Quandong, crocodiles, Daintree, fishing, free camping, free food, G20, green ants, herbicides, long-finned eel, native taro, poem, sugar cane, tandem bicycle, tree snakes, Warm Showers | 8 comments

It was very hard to leave our free-camping sanctuary with our freshwater pool streaming onto Narragon Beach just down from the Clump Point jetty where we pulled in our evening hauls of fish.

It was also hard to leave our lovely new and not so new friends.

We had our last ride in to Mission Beach with the delightful Tom Dean, the errant wayfarer, before once again setting our compass north.

Our restored senses went immediately into shock after we got back on the Bruce Highway. Trucks, motorhomes, caravans, misnamed ‘eco’ tourists, roadkill, roadside memorials, anthropogenic garbage and sugarcane mayhem all came flooding back to raze the peace and make us harden back up for another dose of digi-industrial reality. Needless to say we took the longer back road to Innisfail, via south Johnstone and Japoon, which rewarded us with this little haul of free fruit,

and a croc safe (at least in the dry season) swimming hole.

Further down the road we stopped to investigate some of the hidden ingredients in conventional banana farming.

This farmer was using two different pesticides: Echo 720, a fungicide and known carcinogen and the herbicide Gramoxone 250, which is an extremely dangerous chemical. The active constituent in Gramoxone 250 is paraquat dichloride, which is banned in 32 countries including China and all the EU nations including Switzerland where Syngenta, the chemical company that produces it, has its headquarters. This chemical has been linked to the development of Parkinson’s disease.

What is incredible is that bananas are considered ‘health food’ in Australia! When we’ve been stuck for food and have had to resort to supermarkets on this trip we routinely ask one of the staff where the ‘health food’ and ‘organic’ foods are. These minuscule couple of shelves contain products that have too much packaging or are also packed with hidden nasties such as refined sugar.

To paraphrase Michael Pollan: If it comes from a plant eat it; if it’s made in a plant don’t. The sugar industry in South Johnstone had certainly made its mark on the town, the cane trains surge down the main drag like cocaine through a major vein.

We just keep thinking: what would it look like if the Queensland Government pulled its subsidies from cane farmers, taxed refined sugars like they do tobacco and transferred the revenue to organic food producers or farms transitioning to organic food, bringing the price of organic food down so as everyone could purchase it? Imagine the savings made to public health! Imagine the beautiful ruination of predatory pharmaceutical companies and irresponsible doctors who have built their businesses on an innutritious, immune depleting food system! And then there are the environmental questions.

Imagine if soils were no longer mined to grow a substance that isn’t necessary and that is causing so much ill health. Can you imagine in these razed fields as food forests of Maccadamia nuts, Davidson Plums, paw paws, bananas, grapefruits, oranges and a hundred other fruits all grown as a polyculture with leguminous plants interplanted, used as chop and drop fertilisers, where thick humus would form, repairing the soil and its mycorrhizal strata, and where perennial groundcovers would spread out after the first years of pioneering annual weeds doing their work to repatriate the earth, where a billion organisms live and build soil structure, and who through rigorous competition fight off the threat of dominating species, so as no pesticides, no corporations making decisions about our health, no organic certification was necessary because agricultural pesticides were all banned and common sense prevailed? But for now this is the present: millions of acres of completely unnecessary sugar cane.

Because Woody has never had refined sugar, his taste buds are open to all foods and their sensations. Whereas we older ones in the tribe may have a few blue quandongs here and there, Woody seeks them out with a passion. He’ll eat the tart ones, sour ones, mildly sweet over ripe ones, as well as the way past desirable ones.

He’s becoming the most enthusiastic forager of us all. He’s also partial to autonomus meat. At the free-camping spot at Babinda, Patrick hand speared a small black fish for bait and used it to catch this lovely creature on a 40-pound hand line:

an Australian long-finned eel (Anguilla reinhardti). We made a fire and cooked it on the coals for around 12 minutes each side. It was heavenly dining after peeling back the bitter skin and revealing the extraordinary white, moist flesh.

Artist as Family gave blessings to this powerful water creature and slept with the watery whirlings of the eel inside us. The next day we packed up early,

and took to the road. Our long-finned fuel powering us all the way into Cairns where we stayed with this delightful family:

Meet warm showers hosts Sarah, Oscar and Renee, who we look forward to spending more time with when we return to Cairns. After a night of great conversation, games, showers and delicious shared food, we picked up some supplies from the community food co-op and from a local park,

and headed north again. Sarah and Oscar rode ahead to steer our departure as Zero was having an RDO as our biological GPS.

One species that we have camped with everywhere, been stung by, admired their architecture but so far failed to try out as a bush food is the green ant (Oecophylla smaragdina).

These amazing fruitarians are everywhere and we’ve now incorporated them into our everyday diet as a robust free food species. Like whitchetty grubs they have a high fat content; perfect as a cycling fuel. They are a zingy citrus-like edible, which is not surprising as they love citrus. We have all, including Woody, learnt to catch them by the head with our pincers, killing them instantly and popping them whole into our mouths.

We only got as far as Smithfield, an outer suburb of Cairns, and Patrick’s front wheel rim spilt open, possibly as a result of his eating too many green ants.

While waiting for the repairs we walked for a few hours in an industrial wasteland along the A1 and found these delicious ripe bush passionfruits (Passiflora foetida).

They oozed the devine right off the vine: no built religious environment was necessary to partake in this godly moment.

We were rather abruptly asked to leave the bike shop in Smithfield, prompting Patrick to write the following poem from our campsite at Unity Reef.

It felt right to be kicked out of the bicycle shop
in Cairns. We had coveted all their back room
power points with our touring stench. Baby and dog
running in and out of the place unsettling the gloss
while we waited for the expensive repair.
But perhaps it was really the ‘G20 – – – – LIES’
writ large across one of our tail panniers
that prompted the call for our exile by the boss.
After all the city was in feverish preparation
eager to celebrate the international visitors
with a cultural festival of entertainers
known as ‘the arts’.

Even if our schooling system today does its best to breed out the inquistive and critical in the population this doesn’t mean that the forthcoming G20 bankers get-together in Cairns isn’t a pox on the planet. But obviously many disagree, especially in Port Douglas where we came across this holidaying couple near the beach. When we asked the lady wearing it about her singlet she boasted it cost only $3 from K-Mart. Is it a joke? Are we missing the irony? Where do you start with such intransigence to life and the suffering of others for the sake of a $3 joke?

No doubt G20 finance delegates will flock to Port Douglas with all its monetary shmaltz. We on the other hand couldn’t wait to leave, legging it back to the A1 after a picnic lunch with fake artisan bread, temporarily being split up by big sugar before the town of Mossman in Kuku Yalanji country, on the way to the Daintree.

Not far on we met this fantastic duo who were heading south and who are working on a very exciting bicycle touring project. It was lovely to meet you Simon and Alia!

Just nearby we found a laden grapefruit tree, loaded up, gave some to our fellow tourers before pushing on to find some ripe guavas, which we have commonly picked all along the east coast from as far south as Kempsey.

We camped the night at Newell Beach and the following day arrived at the village of Daintree.

Prone to regular flooding and therefore constant change the Daintree River is an ecological hive of activity.

We adults were as wide-eyed and excited as Woody when we saw fishing birds such as this pied cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius),

the numerous reptilian water critters such as this grand male estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porous),

and these common tree snakes, sunning themselves.

While in the Daintree village we also learned more about Far North Queensland plant life, such as native taro (Colocasia esculenta var. aquatilis), which requires much lengthy preparation in order to make the tubers edible,

and Woody, completely unprompted, collected up all the Kuku Yalanji forest delights he knew including blue quandongs, satin ash fruit, peanut tree pods and hibiscus flower.

We were fortunate enough to meet Linda, a Kuku Yalanji elder, who was collecting freshwater mussels (Velesunio ambiguous) from the river. Linda told us that there are many important Aboriginal places around the village including a burial site that the local historical society is simply not interested in marking. Daintree village seems to be another case of white history told, black history conveniently disappeared.

We are resting up here for a few days, readying ourselves for the final northern leg, up the Broomfield Track to Cooktown, which is going to be quite a challenge from all accounts. We hope you are meeting all your challenges too, Dear Reader, and we thank you, once again, for joining us on our adventure.

From Bwgcolman to Djiru country: entering the wet (Cassowary) tropics

Sep 4, 2014 | ball tree, black bream, Blue Quandong, Cardwell cabbage, cooking on coals, dianella, Djiru, fishing, free camping, Great Morinda, herring, Pacific rosewood, pandanus, queenfish, scurvy weed, sugar cane, trevally | 4 comments

We jumped off the ferry from Palm Island late in the afternoon, grabbed some supplies and hightailed it out of Townsville for several kms until we found this little, unofficial, free camp site/ office at Bushland Beach.

We were fairly exhausted after a big learning week on Palm, so we travelled only a handful of kms north the next day too, to Bluewater’s official free camping ground, and where this lovely lady greeted us with tea, cake and a banana for Woody.

Thanks Irene! We set up camp on the sports oval,

and headed across the field to the community hall for the Friday night social to dance with the locals and caravaning nomads. The downside was we ate some really bad tucker that night, and with poor fuel in our tanks we sluggishly rode on to Rollingstone the following day and camped beside the Rollingstone River where turtles,

eels and black bream are in numbers plenty.

It was great to get some decent tucker again, tucker we were actively engaged in procuring,

and rest up for a few days.

Heading north from Rollingstone we came across Pandanus spiralis for the first time. This is why these trees are called screw palms and like pandanus species generally they have edible base leaves and kernels.

We rode back into sugar country as we approached Ingham and found excellent public interest billboards put out by the health ministry of the Artist as Family collective.

We’d heard there was a free camp ground behind the tourist info centre in Ingham, so we stopped in, only to find that bikes carrying small tents weren’t allowed, only RVs with their own toilets. We went inside the centre and politely asked if there was any free camping for non-polluters. Zero, like the rest of us, wasn’t impressed with their answer.

As it happens it was Woody and Patrick’s birthday so we celebrated by having a shower and washing our clothes, booking in for a night’s camp at the town’s carvan park. The next day after a fearless night’s sleep coralled by mobile nursing units and other such caravans we climbed the Hinchinbrook Range,

and entered Cassowary country and the base of the Cape York Pennisula, where these particular fruits grow.

The Beach Calophyllum or ball tree (Calophyllum inophyllum) is called Wiri by the Girramay people, who valued the kernel of the seed for its pain-relieving body oil. Nuts were eaten after a lengthy process of washing and roasting.

We arrived in Cardwell, a town recently rebuilt after Cyclone Yasi, and found another useful species, the Cardwell cabbage (Scaevola taccada).

The Cardwell cabbage, unlike the Camberwell carrot, is a coastal plant and the juice of the ripe fruits were traditionally used to sooth dry or inflamed eyes.

We fished on Cardwell jetty, but the previous days of wind had stirred up the mud in the water making visibility a problem for jagging white bait or silver spinning for trevally.

We free-camped looking out to this little vista, back-dropped by the ancient, mountainous Hinchinbrook Island.

We were nicely tucked in behind the public toilets in a local beach front municipal park, until the floodlights came on and played all night with our circadian rhythms.

We left Cardwell a little tired again, stopping to pick up some supplies from Sue’s Store,

including delicious sun-dried bananas. Sugar, temporarily, had a rival monocrop in this part of Queensland.

Not far out of town we rode into Martin, a cycle tourer from Newcastle in the UK. Hello Martin! Stay safe on the Bruce, our beloved Road of Death.

After another short day we stopped and rested at Bilyana.

This micro-touring is very agreeable, although the Bruce is considerably dull. Next stop Tully, an industrial town framed by the industry that cooks sugar into a more harmful drug than cocaine. We found little to sustain us,

so we headed to the Cassowary Coast where we found immediate sustenence in these Blue Quandongs (Elaeocarpus angustifolius).

They may be reported to have little nutritional value compared with other autonomous foods, but compare them with supermarket fare today and we’re sure they would romp it in. This was the first time we’d come across these beautiful sour, zingy blue fruits and they were pretty good eating. At Mission Beach we also came across scurvy weed (Commelina cyanea) in flower,

blue flax lily (Dianella caerulea),

and this supposed whichetty grub, the larvae of the cossid moth Endoxyla leucomochla. Although according to knowledgeable Matt (see below), it might be the larvae of a rhinoceros beetle (Dynastinae). If you know for certain Dear Reader, we’d love to hear from you. In two minds we decided not to experiment with eating this critter.

We did however have no qualms eating the delicious flowers and flower buds of the Cotton Tree (Hibiscus tilliaceus),

one of us gobbling them up with great gusto.

These beautiful flowers turn into these beautiful fruits and the leaves were traditionally used to make an infusion to treat wounds and ulcers.

We camped at Mission Beach in the council run caravan park, and met this beautiful lady, who bestowed on us gifts of homemade sauerkraut, yoghurt and tumeric she had grown at her local community garden and had ground herself.

Thanks Claire! We left the park topped up on fermented probiotics and headed north a few kms to do some fishing at Clump Point jetty, where we met this awesome couple:

Lavina and Hola. Lavina is an elder on council of the Djiru tribe, a descendant of the Clump Mountain people of Mission Beach. Hola, originally from Tonga, is her man. We fished with these two on the jetty on several afternoons,

and talked about raising children, Indigenous and non-Indigenous sovreignty and the ethics of killing animals, which to all of us concerned is nothing to do with sport. We asked Lavina’s permission to camp on her country, and she warmly agreed. We found a beautiful spot just north of the jetty on Narragon Beach.

We stayed a week, swimming in the fresh water coming into the sea,

washing there (using no soaps or detergents),

and fishing on the jetty where we caught yellow-fin trevally,

queenfish, jewfish and herring.

Each day we cooked fish on a small beach fire.

While in Djiru country we also came across a number of Great Morinda (Morinda citrifolia) trees, some with nearly ripe fruits or cheeses. When ripe the fruits apparently turn almost translucent white, smell like rancid cheese and can be eaten raw or cooked.

And we met many beautiful peeps as we settled in to this paradise where rainforest meets the reef, such as this sweet family:

Meet (from left) Matt, Eli, Jill and Nina. Nina, Jill’s sister, has co-written a local text on Indigenous foods and medicines in the area. We hope to get hold of a copy before we leave.

And to top off a wonderful stay we reunited with the awesome Tom Dean, our fellow cycle-touring mate originally from cold Melbourne but equally comfortable up a coconut tree.

This is our third hook-up with Tom and each time our little tribe has loved his company.

We have enjoyed your fine company too, Dear Reader and hope to share the next leg of our journey with you as it comes to pass.

Friends and foes en route (Mackay to Airlie Beach)

Aug 3, 2014 | Airlie Beach, autonomous water, citrus, cluster figs, cycle touring, elephant creeper, fishing, free camping, guava, magpie geese, Ngaro people, psychoactive plants, quoll, snake, sow thistle, sugar cane, Tim Burder | 4 comments

We left Mackay and travelled the long but quiet route to Calen, witnessing more ill-effects of the sugar industry.

Dispersed beside the monocultural fields we found plants that have no economic or ecological status, such as these health-giving sow thistles (eat the young tender less bitter leaves),

guava (this is the largest fruit we’ve seen so far, measuring 80mm in length, and oh so delicious!),

and public citrus. (If you’re in the air when you pick private fruit does that make it public??)

We got a bike-eye view of sugar processing, which confirmed our resolve to remain a processed-sugar-free family (which means not purchasing the great majority of supermarket items),

as we travelled along the cane fields,

and beside the cane trains that were busily moving Australia’s obesity epidemic around in little carts.

We travelled the Mirani – Mt Ossa Road west of Mackay until we got to Boulder Creek,

where Jeanie and Peppe, our Warm Showers hosts in Mackay, had suggested we camp. We’re glad they did. Thanks J and P! The water was pristine and we refilled our bottles with this dynamic, autonomous mountain brew (there’s not many places left in Australia where the water hasn’t been polluted by conventional agriculture).

We met a bunch of unruly free campers at Boulder Creek, and we shared stories about our respective communities and where we are heading before it was time to take to the road, once again under Queensland’s mid-winter sky.

These quiet roads really are a blessing. Our senses are alive with the absence of motorised transport.

Collecting free citrus in the region is also an absolute treat, and there’s no shortage.

In this little public park at Calen, just before we returned to the Bruce Highway, we helped ourselves to free oranges, bush lemons and grapefruits, as well as free power, recharging our devices behind the public toilet block while we feasted.

Not far north of Calen we spotted for the first time these cluster figs (Ficus racemosa),

a well-known bush food of northern Australia, which also grows in India and South-east Asia. When ripe they turn soft, orange and then red, and have a similar texture to commercially-grown figs, only less sweet to taste. They were lovely to eat but a week or more ripening time would have produced a better result.

After nearly nine months of cycle touring we have seen hundreds of snakes on the road. All of them dead, until now. This lively black snake went to cross the Road of Death just south of Bloomsbury, then decided against it, possibly after sensing the hysterical vibrations of Zero’s barking. Needless to say we quickly tethered Zero, snake bite being a common cause of death for Jack Russells.

Later in the day we passed another couple of road-killed snakes, several birds of prey, a grass owl, countless kangaroos and wallabies and this little quoll.

We took a few side quiet roads into Bloomsbury and discovered this very interesting vine:

the elephant creeper (Argyreia nervosa), aka Hawaiian baby woodrose, Adhoguda, woolly morning glory, elephant climber, elephant ear vine or silver morning glory. This plant may have been introduced by Aborigines on their route from India thousands of years ago, however some botanists believe it is a relative newcomer and an invasive weed. An ancient healing plant, the seeds are said to be psychoactive, producing similar effects as LSD. We just need a baby-sitter for several hours so we can investigate…

We stopped for the night in Bloomsbury, knocking on the principal’s door of the local primary school to ask permisssion to camp the night. Sam, the school’s delightful principal, whole-heartedly agreed and offered us use of the staff’s bathroom and shower. Blessed warm water and a quiet place (after hours) to lay our heads. Thanks Sam!

For all the interrupting death we witnessed the day before on the Bruce, we instead found abundant life living among the sugarcane wastelands the next day, riding towards Proserpine.

Magpie geese eggs are certainly something we’d like to try, but will have to seek permission from local Indigenous elders before we do.

We spotted the magpie geese at Deadman Creek, just south of Proserpine, on the way to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays,

another painfully beautiful area on the east coast of Australia done over by rampant corporate-bogan tourism,

with absolutely no evidence or recognition of the original culture, the Ngaro people, to be seen anywhere.

It was in Airlie Beach that we met up with community friends from Daylesford, and shared a camping ground site with them. We had four lovely days with Fiona, Tim and their kids Max and Rose, sharing meals, walks into town and along the beach,

and conversations about our respective research. Tim is currently working on the Healing Ground project, a work combining photography and oral history, recording Indigenous massacre sites and stories from around Australia from the descendants of those who suffered. Please support Tim’s project if you have a spare $20 or $50, or whatever you can.

Myall Creek Gallery Piece from Tim Burder on Vimeo.

We enjoyed our time with Tim and Fiona’s happy tribe, unclipping our heavy panniers to explore the coastline,

went fishing (Well done Max! Catching your first haul of fish, feeding your family and friends at age 9 is no small feat),

and generally took in the sea.

Thanks for reading this little leg. We’ll see you in Townsville…

Crashes, kills, stacks and new edibles (Rockhampton to Mackay)

Jul 27, 2014 | Ber fruit, bush cucumber, bush lemon, coal, coconuts, emu, fleabane, macadamia, Mackay, magpie geese, mangrove snail, mud whelk, pandanus, roadkill, sugar cane, Warm Showers, water, waterlily | 6 comments

On leaving Rockhampton we discovered this strange scene:

The local council had laid fake grass beside the Bruce Highway, then an alive grass had penetrated the fake grass and remarkably grew until the council then sprayed it with glysophate (a poison Monsanto tells us is safe, as they did with Agent Orange and DDT). Someone then stubbed out their cigarette butt and threw it into the mix. The logic of the city is beyond us. Time to reconnect with the intelligence of autonomous, uncivil things.

Not far north of Rocky on the Ridgelands Road we came across bush cucumbers (Cucumis spp.),

which weren’t quite ripe,

although we did find one almost formed and ready.

And not far on again we came across our first Ber fruit (Ziziphus mauritiana), otherwise known as Chinee Apple, Jujube, Indian plum and Masau.

These small trees from south-east Asia have naturalised in northern Australia. We look forward to trying them next time now we know what they are.

We had decided on the Ridgelands – Glenroy Station route to avoid the Road of Death, but our rather paltry map didn’t warn us that most of the way to Marlborough would be gravel.

After 70 kms or so of riding we made camp beside the road, bloody exhausted.

Being on gravel certainly slowed us down, which was only a problem of water. We filled up two bottles at the Glenroy Crossing of the Fitzroy River, just in case we needed them. Zero’s iron constitution surely wouldn’t have a problem drinking this water.

This was cattle station country, and we got a view into this altered ecology firstpedal.

We also got a view of our own vulnerability without water. We banged on this farmer’s door to ask for a tap.

No one was home, so we took his water upon ourselves. Thanks unknown farmer!

Relief!! We passed water-savvy emus,

and motorised ones.

Aching, dust-covered and sorely parched we arrived in the little town of Marlborough, pulled up outside the pub and were immediately greeted by Jeff and Linda, who invited us home for an impromptu party.

After a bonfire and rowdy dancing sesh with several locals and a Swede, we passed out in their backyard caravan and awoke rested,

ate a delicious home-cooked breakfast then farewelled our new friends (hi Digs!),

and ventured back onto the Bruce.

Over the 31 kms that we rode that day from Marlborough to Tooloobah Creek we counted 212 individual road-killed animals on the left lane, shoulder and verge alone. Assuming the other side would produce a similar number (it certainly looked like it), we concluded that on this stretch of the Bruce Highway there was one roadkill every 75 metres of bitumen. Staggering!

This number exceeds tenfold the bodies we encounted along a 60km stretch of the Hume Highway last December. We stopped to rest at Tooloobah Creek Roadhouse and after only a few minutes of sitting in the shade witnessed this:

We were only moments from being roadkill ourselves. No one was hurt, the owners were even fairly jokey about it, praising insurance and airbags. We walked away from the amounting spectacle, set up our tents,

and went in search of some tucker.

The next day, as we were packing up to leave Tooloobah we were greeted briefly by a southbound Frenchman, Stephane, who was on a solo mission to cycle around the world.

It was a long hot day in the saddle. Temperatures are again starting to climb in this region known as the dry tropics. But Bruce was fairly good to us, only once, and for just a short time, turning his shoulder away so we had but a few hundred millimetres of safe path to balance on.

We’re getting fairly hardy to such travel. Failing a capsizing caravan or some such unavoidable situation coming crashing down on us, riding defensively makes touring dead-safe in Australia, even on the Road of Death. A road that can throw up delightful pastoral vistas,

bush lemons (Citrus limon),

and crazy pandanus sunsets.

We arrived on dusk at delightful Clairview where the Great Dividing Range pushed the Bruce to the Pacific’s edge. Apart from the short leg from Marlborough to Tooloobah Creek we had been covering around 70 kms each day and were fairly sore. We pitched our tents at a free camping ground for an extended rest.

We spent the following day drifting along the mangrove shoreline, playing in rock pools,

and learning more about shellfish,

such as these mud whelks (Terebralia sp.), found around the hightide line on mangrove mud in north and eastern Australia.

We collected several, broke into their shells and cooked them on a public BBQ.

Delish! We followed the same procedure with mangrove snails (Nerita spp.),

which were also delicious, just more rubbery in texture.

There were no shops in Clairview, but on most days this little charity store on the beach opened to the public selling all manner of things including home-grown produce. Bless. Thanks ladies!

We bought a pinapple ($2), a dozen eggs ($3) and a whole pumpkin ($3.50) and feasted with our foraged shellfish,

and other bush tucker including panadus leaves,

and a bag of goodies Meg gleaned on a walk around the little town.

After a day of rest we left Clairview recharged with a morning’s bowl of oats, chia seeds, ginger, raisins and honey under our lycra,

ready for another morning’s ride and day of discovery.

Accessible waterlilies (Nymphaea spp.), and no possibiliy of crocs in this roadside dam about 20 kms north of Clairview!

We’d been wanting to taste the bulbous roots of this plant for some time, and we weren’t disappointed.

So many discoveries on this long leg from Rockhampton and I guess we were getting fatigued, a day’s rest probably wasn’t long enough at Claireview and after eight and a half months on the road we had our first accident. We ran into eachother trying to converse on the noisey Bruce and Woody, sadly, came off worst.

Meg was also brusied and battered and hurt her wrist.

We hobbled into Koumala and set up camp,

treated Zero to a dose of fleabane (Conyza spp.) that we found growing nearby,

and treated ourselves to another early night. We were, alas, repeatedly woken by trucks and cane trains operating all hours.

Macadamia nuts,

coconuts,

and even the promise of magpie goose (Anseranas semipalmata) eggs,

all mildly interrupted the dominant culture’s war on peoples’ health and the land as we rode into Sarina the next day,

and on to Mackay,

where the delightful Warm Showers host Jeanie met us and led us back to her home where we will rest and recover before returning once again to our home on the road.

Thank you Jeanie and Peppe for your über hospitality. It was so so lovely to meet you and two of your boys. Thank you for taking in our bedraggled selves and opening your peaceful, loving home to us,

especially when you where also hosting the delightful Igor and Luka, fellow cycle tourists from Switzerland and Italy.

We hope your life is filled with peace, too, dear reader. Much love from us in Mackay until our next update somewhere further north in a week or so.

Aaf xx

Our medicine is free and found in both our food and physicality (from Bundaberg to Gladstone)

Jul 9, 2014 | brushturkey, Bundaberg, bush tucker, chickweed, citrus, cycle touring, free camping, free food, free shower, Gladstone, guava, Indigenous Australians, Kalki, op-shopping, passion fruit, rabbits, sugar cane | 2 comments

The days here in Queensland have been sunny and warm but the nights very cool. Before we left Bundaberg we went op-shoping for some warmer clothes. Woody scored this great vest.

Outside an opshop we met Clint, a local Kalki man. We got talking about bush food and he noticed Woody’s amber teething necklace. He told us that witchetty grubs (Endoxyla leucomochla) are a natural anaesthetic and that teething babies were traditionally fed the grubs to numb the gums. Clint also told us he is a kind of pastor but that he didn’t need to preach to us because we already knew our path. That path, for now, continues north on some quieter roads.

Building knowledge on the life forms around us that provide food fit for human consumption free of monetary interference and ecological damage is another path we’re simultaneously following. Finding ripe passion fruits fallen onto public land on the outskirts of Bundy may not seem like much,

but first sights can be deceiving.

We had a quiet ride to Avondale passing more of Queensland’s great obesity fields,

but we skipped on the pesticidal cane, picking roadside citrus instead.

When we arrived in the one-pub locality of Avondale we had Zero’s basket half-filled with autonomous medicine,

and we were greeted with the prospect of a free camping spot and shower.

Not only is Avondale generous to travellers, it is also good to itself, recognising that community protection from greed and ecological intransigence is sound, long-term thinking.

We found a kitchen bench and got on with preparing dinner with some store-bought produce.

We woke with the sun after our first night’s sleep in our new tents. After many years of camping, the old ones had become irreparable. We donated them to a Bundy opshop as they would be great as children’s cubbies.

We started the day by collecting onions that had fallen off the back of a truck. No, really! Out of all the conventionally-grown vegies and fruits, according to the US Environmental Working Group, onions are the least contaminated with pesticide residue. For dumpster divers and others who rely on conventionally-grown foods this list is probably as good a guide as any.

Various autonomous species have accompanied us along the roads from central Victoria such as the scavenger ravens and crows. But this mushroom, Pisolithus sp. is one of the hardiest of them all. The preferred medium on which it builds its life is bitumen and its spores are carried by motorists, trucks and more than likely the humble treadlie.

We arrived in Rosedale a few days too early for Friday night bingo,

pitched our tents at the Ivan Sbresni Oval,

and while we brewed a billy, Zero got to work flushing out some local rabbits.

While he continued to hunt we processed his game, these non-industrial gifts of the land, as both food and textile.

We skinned and salted the pelts and poached the meat briefly,

before removing the bones and tossing the tender meat through a pasta dish of raw chopped garlic, olive oil, salt, kale and zucchini.

The next morning Woody had a lesson on herbivore dung recognition, an education in craps, scats and animal fats,

before we hitched up our gear, set a drying rack for the pelts,

and again drank the sun north. Another autonomous species which has become a favourite free food since Kempsey is the cut-and-come-again guava, which never seems to stop fruiting.

Just when we thought the season had ended, along comes another tree laden. This harvest was made just south of the micro town of Lowmead.

In this area the land was no longer flat and caney, but undulating and scrubby.

These country roads have been a pleasure to ride, and even though the townships themselves offer little cultural nourishment,

generosity always sticks its head out. The hotel staff kindly let us recharge our batteries while we had a beer and got talking to some of the locals. Brett, a retired army man, took us across the road to a friend’s house so as we could collect mandarins from her garden, and the pub was giving away grapefruit from another local’s tree.

We were going to camp at Lowmead but Brett told us about a free campsite 17 kms away on the Bruce Highway and we still had the afternoon to play. He warned us that the road to the highway was partly unsealed but not too rough. The complete lack of traffic was wonderful.

We arrived at the highway campsite to this laden orange tree to complete our three-day catch of free and preventative medicines.

But just to be sure we had enough vitamin C we gathered and hoed down a handful of chickweed that was growing at the rest area.

After little sleep (how have we made the same mistake twice to camp beside the Bruce?) we returned to the intense highway,

and rode to Miriam Vale where we discovered a little knowledge regarding some of the bush tuckers we’ll likely see more of as we continue north.

While exploring the public gardens Woody asked for his favourite bush tucker to chew on – the starchy base of lomandra leaves.

A little on the nose we booked a cheap room in the Miriam Vale Hotel, which came with a gorgeous view.

We had a 50 km ride to Tannum Sands, with little on the way to hold our attention, or time,

except of course for the inevitable memorials, which kept coming at phenomenal rates.

We arrived in the late afternoon. Patrick went for a spearfish, returning fishless and blue from the cold ocean. Near where we were to camp at Canoe Point we spotted this fine creature,

the Australian brushturkey (Alectura lathami), which according to another Indigenous man, Barry Miller, who we also met back in Bundaberg, is really good tucker. Woody took his afternoon nap while the rest of us went about our business.

We cooked dinner and waited for dark before we set up camp.

Having earlier seen a council warning sign we went to bed a little nervous about crocodiles, but after some cursory phone research we discovered attacks by crocs in Australia have only occurred in or on the edge of water, never through a tent and never this far south. We awoke to a beautiful, unlawful camp ground,

and conceptually snubbed our noses at all the rip-off caravan park operators in the country wanting to charge us $40 a night for a patch of dead ground near a toilet block surrounded by caravans and motor homes.

From Tannum Sands we looked across the water to the Boyne Smelters, one of the industries that has made the small city of Gladstone momentarily affluent and no doubt permanently toxic.

For the next two nights we stayed with couchsurfing host Mike Koens. Mike lives just outside Gladstone with his housemate Paul, dog Rocko and three cats Girlfriend, Boyfriend and Thor. Mike works for Boyne Smelters as an air-conditioning and refrigeration man.

He told us that Gladstone’s mining boom is well and truly over, the housing market has slumped and he has begun his own transition to a more environmental life, collecting solar radiation and water from his roof, growing his own wood to heat his house and starting to grow his own food.

While we stayed with Mike we helped him turn his soil, removing couch grass from where his crops will soon thrive. We also helped him chop wood and we cooked for him. It’s no accident that synthetic medicine goes hand in hand with industrial food and energy. The pharmaceutical industry thrives on an unwell population that eats empty and lifeless food and uses cars for all travel.

“Is there anything you might do today,” the writer Padgett Powell timely asks of us, “that would distinguish you from being just a vessel of consumption and pollution with a proper presence in the herd?” Yes there is Padgett, thanks for asking.

Bentley to Mullumbimby – locavore feasts, bicycle hitchhiking and permaculture travel

May 14, 2014 | Bentley blockade, bike hitchhiking, biochar, Bundjalung, Byron Shire, cycle touring, letter to elders, Mullumbimby Community Garden, papaya, PDC, permaculture, star fruit, sugar cane, winged beans | 2 comments

Our ten days of recuperation from Bentley has proved just the medicine. We farewelled Gate A,

and rode east with an invitation to stay with a fellow Bentley protector, Dr Phil, in Ewingsdale.

After riding 50ks or so we broke the trip in Bangalow, a pretty town that has been recently infected by a boutiquey city snobbery. Before nightfall we raised our tents behind the toilet block in a local park to create this rather bourgeois accommodation,

before heading to Phil and his partner Natalia’s the next morning. On the road to Ewingsdale we spotted Australia’s most eastern point, Cape Byron. What pastoral splendour!

We have come to understand the wondrous luxury of a warm shower, and at Phil and Natalia’s we certainly experienced this warmth, alongside others. We were treated to a locavore feast, with much of the ingredients coming directly from their family’s produce garden.

Meet (from left) Casuarina, Pandanus, Natalia, baby Melaleuca and Xanthorrhoea, with Zero, Meg and Blackwood. We found we shared many common things, such as a love of music, permaculture, eating local, eating weeds and giving our children Indigenous tree names. On a wet and stormy day Phil and Natalia kindly loaned us their car and we shuttled down the hill to nearby Byron Bay to visit the markets,

discover fruit and vegetables we just don’t see back home, such as these winged beans,

and visit an old friend, Bridget, in her studio before she cooked us a delicious meal.

We can see why this beach town is a significant destination on the tourist map,

but brand Byron seems to us a victim of its own success. We were pleased to get out of this high consumption rat race and find the road to Mullumbimby, where 10ks out we picked up Dee, our very first hitchhiker, needing a lift into town.

We came to Mullum to stay with our friends Chris and Vanessa and their boy Willem and pooch, Bella.

It was in Mullumbimby that we were treated to more delicious and nutritious local food. We rode straight to the weekly produce market, bought some produce for the week and ate starfruit on the main drag, outside the organic and GM-free food shop, Santos.

We devoured red papaya at the Mullum Community Garden (MCG),

and chewed on red sugarcane at Chris and Vanessa’s family plot there.

Back at Bentley a few weeks earlier, Artist as Family participated in a biochar workshop with a guy called Don, who explained the fundamentals (and indeed imperatives) of turning woody biomass into biochar.

Don and his co-conspirator, Wadsie, run a demonstration biochar site out of MCG, and it was great to see the set up on a larger scale.

Assembled and used correctly this rather humble looking array of drum furnaces can burn woody material considerably cleanly and can, according to Don, produce a by-product (charcoal) that can put carbon back into soil for millennia. And while it’s true around 50% of carbon is given off into the atmosphere at the charring stage, the remainder becomes more or less permanently sequestered producing an ecological soil product that can house beneficial microbes, help retain water and enable aeration. When ordinary biomass decomposes (or composts down) virtually 100% of the material is quickly given off as methane gas with little benefit to soil composition after a few years.

Another thing raised in discussions at Bentley that came to fruition for us in Mullum was a letter to elders. When we walked to Melbourne a few years ago we wrote to the elders of the three nations we were to pass through to seek their permission. This time on bikes, we thought we’d stop at Indigenous cooperatives along the way to seek permission as we didn’t have a predetermined route worked out. But it hasn’t really worked out that way, so now we think it time again to start sending a letter ahead of our arrival, and this is what we penned:

Roman law only got established in Australia because of that convenient Latin term terra nullius, but our letter to elders recognises Indigenous law as the ‘primary law of the land’ and is modelled on what Jaara elder Uncle Brien Nelson (back in our home country) tells us is called the tanderrum or ‘freedom of the bush’. A tanderrum agreement occurs when land holders give foreigners temporary access to their country and resources. The only reason Roman law remains in Australia lies with the pointy bit of the law – the shooty bit. The gun remains the final line of authority in a morally impoverished legal system and a morally corrupt political system that has never properly defended Indigenous culture, the land, its creatures and its people (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) from the terrorism of greed that masquerades as economics. Without guns and greed to threaten us, the enormous effort it has taken to protect Bentley would not be necessary.

Our host, Chris, teaches permaculture design in Mullum and asked us to give a talk to his PDC students on ‘permaculture travel’ and on applying permaculture principles to all aspects of life. We spoke about our reasons for living car-free and the importance of understanding the impacts of fossil fuels and their subsequent wars, from 1914 onwards – the Berlin to Baghdad railway to the present day Bentley blockade – and what we are doing to work against this culture of violence and damage and perform non-damaging life ways.

We’re getting ready to leave Mullumbimby and ride back to Bentley. It looks like a large force of police will soon attempt to dismantle the blockades set up there, and with the pointy bit of an illegitimate legal system aid the negligent company Metgasco to build its Northern Rivers gasfield. We will defy this violence with large numbers of good folk and clear-eyed song:

hey there officer!
protect the protectors
our water, land and air

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