I’ve been working fulltime since May 2021 and I’ve found it difficult to keep up with my fitness training. I decided I needed a goal and came up with climbing the fourteen highest peaks on earth via my HIIT machine, which I bought a few months ago. It took a bit of planning, but if I start on the 14th of March, I am scheduled to finish by the 20th of June.
The whole thing is 115 993 vertical metres and will take 77 hours and 16 minutes to complete. It takes around 40 minutes to do 1000 vertical metres, so I based all my measurements on that. I still have other fitness goals, like building muscles, so I will tackle some of the peaks while carrying a pack and/or strap-on weights. Another fitness goal is to attain an extreme fitness level, so I will measure my 5km running time and associated max and avg heart rates as indicators. I chose the 5km run because I have good historical data for that as I’ve been doing it regularly for 6 years now.
It’s really awesome meeting other adventurous souls, so I thought I’d write a post about a few people I’ve come across lately and also not so lately. All these people seek adventure on a narrow saddle atop two wheels, one of them using a bike to transport her family to and from town.
I met “B” a while ago…maybe six years. He rode past my house one morning and the cool guy I’m married to said, “look, there’s a bike dude with packs and stuff.”. I jumped up and ran over to B, who was now standing in his bike frame checking out the river. “Hi!” I exclaimed. “Come to my house for breakfast. I live just there. I’d love to hear about what you’re doing and where you’re going.” I could tell I’d kind of freaked him out. “it’s ok,” I added, “my husband is at home too and I just made a loaf of bread,” I said, hoping I hadn’t scared him into pedalling off as fast as he could, while also making a physical effort to stop myself from jumping up and down on the spot.
Since then, B and I have stayed in touch and we catch up whenever he’s in the area on a bike tour. He never stops having adventures by way of his bike. He’s a private and very quiet guy and I feel privileged that he let his guard down long enough to allow an over-the-top extrovert into his life. I think the fresh bread won him over.
This is B”s touring bike the last time we met up for coffee in Woodgate in 2021:
When I saw this cool mum, I just had to take a photo of her and she agreed to let me post it to my website. She had her entire gaggle of kids with her and used her bike to transport everyone from place to place. She said she had the bike custom made in Europe. It was quite expensive, but much cheaper than a car and the kids really loved it. Imagine the cool stories the kids will have to tell in the futre about how they got around when they were growing up.
This is in the Bundaberg CBD:
I don’t have a photo of “K”, so I’ll leave it up to your imagination. I met him a few weeks back in Coles in Bundaberg. I noticed him because there was no way not to: he had his touring bike inside the supermarket, using it as a trolley for his groceries as though it was what the rest of us should be doing. Of course I had to ask him what he was up to.
While the rest of the shoppers gave us an extra wide berth, I asked him all about his trip and where he was headed. He gave me a few details and we swapped phone numbers to stay in touch. He’s been texting me with updates and has made his way to Agnes Water, which is where I had planned to ride in February this year, but didn’t get my bikepacking system sorted out in time. “I’ll send you some photos of my spear fishing adventures while I’m in Agnes,” he said in his last text. I wonder if he’s still using his bike as a shopping trolley?
I came across Geoff and Gerard on their touring bikes not too far from my house. I snapped a heap of photos of them on my phone, which has since died and I lost everything stored on it. Luckily we swapped contact details and Geoff has emailed me a few times with updates and photos of he and Gerard doing awesome stuff all over the place.This is a photo they took in a place called Hampden Smelter. Geoff said it looked like Mordor. They were on a trip in the Mt Isa area and flew with their bikes to get to their starting point, which I thought was pretty cool:
Then of course, there’s me and Fatty. I love riding through the sand. It’s hard, but not quite so bad after it’s been raining. I got a new job a while back, so I haven’t had much time for doing too many outdoor adventures, I’ve had to pack my usual 200km (on bike and foot) per week into my one or two days off, which is why I picked the soft sand ride when I could’ve just gone on a more compacted and formed track. Hopefully next weekend I can take off on a longer adventure. This is Fatty on the sand track. This track is around 4.5km long and here Fattyis about a third of the way along. I love the looks I get from people in 4WDs along this track! They look at me like they can’t believe I’m riding where they are struggling to drive:
This is also a great place to ride, which is part of the loop I do when I tackle the soft sand track. This is the cool guy I’m married o on his fat bike, which is nowhere near as awesome as my Fatty:
If you are in Woodgate and want to try riding a fat bike, let me know and I can hook you up.
On my fat bike I am unstoppablE
(Image attribution unavailable, but sourced from Pinterest)
I love finding old stuff in the bush. I found this old bridge a few weeks ago after talking to a mate about putting our kayaks in above the weir on the Gregory River. He’d told me about a property that had access to the river, but I couldn’t get to it, so I thought I’d just keep driving and heading towards where I thought the river might be. I was so damn excited when I found this at the end of a road nearRedridge:
It’s the original traffic bridge across the Gregory River. It’s over 100 years old. The year of construction (1920) is stamped on one of the walls:
So, I contacted the Childers Historical Society to see if someone can help me complete a submission to the State Heritage Register. The bridge is still intact, even though the timber has decayed. It’s an awesome example of bridge construction from that era. There wouldn’t be too many of these still around.
I also found this cool old bridge in Farnesfield:
I went to check out the other side of the road (this creek runs under the road) and found this:
I looked for the swagman, but he and his ghost were not about. There was also no jumbuck. Still, it was pretty cool.
A while ago someone parked a small cart in the bush on the Melaleuca Track. They’d tried to pull it by hand to the campsite (6km), but piked out after about 2.5km. It was only that I was looking at the cart that I noticed this, which is a really old surveyors mark. You can’t see it in the photo, but there is a large metal screw in the bottom of the scar:
Then, about 3 weeks ago, I saw this, which I was really happy about. I’ve been walking past this for years, but it was only after QPWS moved a few fallen trees off the track that it became visible. I was pretty sure it was an Ingidenous scar tree, so I sent this picture to an Indigenous mate and he reckons it is a scar tree, so hopefully I can contact the local Traditional Owners to let them know they’ve got this tree in the area.
I called the tree Yggdrasil, which I learnt about from reading a book called Overstory, and pat its side whenever I go past now:
I was riding my fat bike a while ago and found this awesome specimen in the bush near Redridge. It’s an old bakery van from the days when people used to have their hot bread home delivered. Some of the sign writing is still visible on the side. It says Kellys Hot Bread:
I get to find a lot more stuff than most people do because I go to places that other people don’t. Plus, looking for old stuff gives me a rush, which probably isn’t what gives other people a rush at all! It’s an amazing feeling to round a bend in an old track that widens up to reveal a dilapidated old shack full of aging and broken furniture; the owner long since dead and gone. My heart picks up speed at the first suggestion of the glint of sun off broken glass until the butterflies arrive in my stomach and the words howcool is this, how cool is this are tumbling repeatedly from my mouth. Standing inside the old I can’t decide where to look first and I wonder about who the people were, how they came to be here and why they left and no one ever came back. Momentarily I am sad for the vacuum their departure has left, but then am once again commanded by my unwavering curiosity towards all the things I can never know.
Image: Cooloola Great Walk (from Queensland.com website)
Leaving from Rainbow Beach end
Date TBA, but from 12th April onwards
Cost is $6.75/night/person ($27 on QPWS booking site), plus any associated transfer costs
You won’t need a lot of experience, but you will definitely need to be fit and committed to completing the entire 100km. I’m not carrying anyone out!
Image: I’m not doing this! (Credit for image: click here)
This is a remote hike that requires self sufficiency and you will need to carry all of your own gear in a pack on your back. This will weigh somehwere in the vicinity of 10 – 20kg. You will be responsible for your own water, your own food and its preparation.
I am more than willing to help anyone who needs a hand with stuff, including advice and any recommendations, I just wanted to make it clear than while I am an experienced hiker with eco tourism qualifications, this is NOT a glamping experience and you will be responsible for your own health, safety and any other requirements.
There are a few companies that charge people for this hike. This company lists it as $1095 per person and all you get is your food and the camping permits. That means that the experience and the food is worth a whopping $1068!! Gees, the food would want to be bloody top shelf for that price. Not sure my indian sachets would cut it:
Image: I love these things! They are so freakin’ yummy. You can get them from supermarkets, but the best ones come from Indian shops (Gits Ready Meals). They are all around $2.50 – $4.00 each.
I have a few hiking items I can lend people, but this is a list of basic requirements:
Hiking pack (this needs to have some kind of frame. If you can bend your pack , it has no frame and isn’t any good for hiking long distances).
Tent
Sleeping pad
Sleeping bag
Mess kit (you know, stuff you use to eat. Include a stove here if you want to take one)
Snake bite kit (At least one good compression bandage)
Personal light
Toiletries
Water and water bottles (inlcude water filtration if you want to filter water. I don’t normally bother if it’s tank water)
Food
Clothing
Good shoes/boots
Image: Hiking gear. Trangia stove in foreground. Helinox chair and poles, Wilderness Equipment tent.You don’t need expensive gear like this. I only have it because sponsors gave it to me.
A cheap dome tent (not a pop-up one though) from KMart will work fine, or if you want a cheap entry-level hiking tent, check out Snowys. Wild Earth is another awesome outdoor store in Qld. There’s also heaps of good second hand stuff for sale on Gumtree and ebay.
Some stuff you can share, like water filtration, stoves and tents, so not every person needs their own personal item if you are willing to share these things. Sharing stuff also means you can carry half each to reduce each person’s load.
This kind of thing takes a fair bit of dicking around to organise logistically because you have to work out where to leave your car, how to get to the trailhead from where you did leave it, and then at the end, ummm, how do I get home?? So, what I’m saying here is that if you are interested in coming along, we’d have to sort these details out. I can fit (read: squash) 4 other people in my car.
Image: This is a tidied up version of what dicking around looks like. Of course, this doesn’t capture the ten hours I’ve invested in the whole thing or phone calls and emails I’ve made and sent to ask questions about car storage, transportation, etc, etc. It’s easy to see why a lot of people just pay the thousand bucks for a tour company to do this for them. It would save a lot of hair-pulling.
Contact me on this website or send me and email to let me know if you’re interested:
talulasweetie@gmail.com
Image: Me on the last long distance hike I did (450km).
After starting to read my umpteenth Australian memoir (Beauty by Bri Lee) I got to wondering what our real story is, and also wondering who are the keepers of that story, of that very important story, that story that not only tells of what happened, but also writes the path of the future. With this in mind, which stories are the ones that matter? Are they they stories told by Bri Lee in Beauty, Matthew Evans in On Eating Meat, Anthony Sharwood in From Snow to Ash? Are they stories told by Tim Winton in Boy Behind the Curtain, by Susan Duncan in Salvation Creek, by Kirsty Everett in Honey Blood? Are these stories the most important, are these the ones that matter the most? Who can tell, I certainly don’t know, but I do wonder…
If you care to delve into the Australian story we’re being told in books like these, you will see that these stories have been chosen, not only for their message, but because there is something particular about the writer that matters to the publisher, and this has nothing to do with the importance of the story. The writer is “connected” in some way to something or someone deemed largely important by Australian society, and definintley by the publishing industry: The Olympics, journalism, glossy magazines, literary fiction. But what is this telling us about the rest of the stories, the ones we don’t get to hear?
This is telling us that our stories aren’t important and don’t matter unless we are “somebody”. I wonder how many memoirs are rejected by publishers not because the writer is bad at the craft of writing or because the story is boring, but because they are simply an everyday person. This is telling us that only people who are important have important stories to tell and everyday people should be quiet and make way for those already in the spotlight. This is saying that suicide, cancer, loss, rape, abuse, disability, addiction, death, destruction, resurrection and success are only meaningful when that path is navigated by a journalist, an Olympic hopeful, someone “important”.
All of our lives matter. All of our stories matter and all of this makes up the collective Australian story and all of this, not just a privileged selection, should write on the wall of our futures. So, I urge you to consider the stories that aren’t being told the next time you pick up an Australian memoir. If your nextdoor neighbour had a great life story to tell, would it be their book you’d be holding in your hand at the library or bookstore? Not likely.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
It shouldn’t be this way.
But, I don’t know what to do about it. Do you? (aside from self publishing, which is an expensive and often unworkable and non-viable option).
Bri Lee has an upcoming book called Who Gets to Be Smart. I wonder if there is any transferable wisdom for consideration when we ask, who gets to be published?
Free State of Jen 