Sydney To Brisbane.

Beaches, media, good friends, flat tyres and THE BIG BANANA!! 



The journey has now taken me in Australia's most northern state; Queensland. Its been 2 weeks since my last update and it's been a fun filled ride through northern New South Wales. The first big stop was Newcastle, right on the coast with perfect blue skies and warm temperatures it was tempting to stop for a few days. I rolled in around lunch time on Tuesday the 14th of August and immediately tee'd up a photo shoot and interview with the Newcastle Herald. They were 2 young guys who came down to the esplanade to meet up and chat, I was pretty happy with how it all went and was confident the article would be pretty good. Alas they pretty much took what I said and threw it in the bin, they were alot happier trying to make me look like kids entertainment by making Stompy the focus. It was a toy elephant who was the highlight of both the photo and the first paragraph of the article. Well it may be funny to them, but the torture of Asia's elephants is not funny at all. As you can imagine I was a little annoyed that they wern't brave enough to actually report the truth of elephant tourism...

Article in The Newcastle Herald, I was annoyed with this article.

The highlight of my day in Newcastle was catching up with my himalayan trekking buddy Wade. We haven't seen each other since 2008 so it was fantastic to catch up, share memories and see how our lives had changed since hiking in Nepal together. After a coffee by the water I jumped back on the bike and Wade drove back to work, I rode another 25km out to a small town called Heatherbrae. It was pretty funny as the caravan park that advertised camping didn't have camp sites and the Van park that only advertised Caravan sites had heaps of camp sites. After sorting all this out I settled in for the night and treated myself to toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches and hot chocolates at the Maccas across the road. Nice...

The next 3 days were pretty cruisy but long days of riding away from the coast mainly on side of the highway to the seaside town of Port Macquarie. I rode 250km in these days, mainly with a headwind and also got my first flat tyre of the ride thanks to a massive sharp piece of steel. I also bought some new bike shorts in Taree as my original ones had lost their padding...

Rear flat tyre thanks to this piece of steel!

I pushed myself a little bit to try and get into Port before the weekend so I could possibly organise some media. All my efforts were for nothing though as the paper only has one reporter who was super busy. Oh well, at least I made some good time. I decided to have a day off in Port Macquarie which was really nice to just relax, walk by the beach and cafe hop. I also did some laundry (first time since Day 12 nearly 2 weeks ago!) and had my bike serviced for free by the friendly guys at TRS Cycles!

Walking along the Beach Wall at Port Macquarie (Bat Country).

So I was really refreshed after a relaxing day and made great progress on Day 23 riding 107km, I kept telling myself to try and ride a bit more efficiently, which made the day much more relaxing, the scenery is also gradually changing to rolling hills. Best of all, the caravan park gave me free camping for the night at Nambucca River Tourist Park. Woo!
Due to my 107km ride the previous day I only had about 60km to ride into Coffs Harbour. I stopped once at Uranga where the ladies at the information centre gave $15 for the elephants and as I was riding into town I bumped into a local cyclist called Bob who rode with me for about 15km, I continued through town to get some pictures of the Big Banana before heading to good friend Jo's house for the next 2 nights. I met Jo with Chantelle at Elephant Nature Park in 2010, so it was great to catch up with her for a day, not surprisingly we spoke about elephants! Jo had also arranged for the local newspaper The Coffs Advocate to meet up and do an interview/photo shoot. This ended up being a really great article (even though the elephant pic they chose is an African Elephant, Ha!!) and I was really happy. My rest day in Coffs Harbour also involved walking with Jo up to Muttonbird Island, shopping for new shorts and sending 4kg of winter clothing home. Jo and I went out for Thai and I witnessed Jo trying not to adopt a stray cat, we called him Kerry Packer. Ha! I wonder how he is loving his new home..... Can't wait to hear about it when we meet at ENP in November Jo!

Coffs Harbour Advocate Interview

The BIG BANANA. Coffs Harbour

I was back on the road the next day headed towards Grafton. There was literally 30km of roadworks that I had to ride through, the traffic wasn't bad but the noise and dust was crazy, I counted over 100 bulldozers!!! After the roadworks I stopped at a beach near Woolgoolga for lunch and I immediately forgot about the roadworks.

Woolgoolga lunch stop!

I guess one of the highlights of such an adventure is the amazing scenery I pass through along the way. I also get to meet some interesting folk too. I rode past the first touring cyclist for the trip today, his name was Michael and he had ridden from Brisbane to Port Macqaurie and was on his way back to Brisbane. I also met an Irish couple who had been in Australia for 10 months and were driving the same route as me from Melbourne to Cairns. A family in Taree had sold up their business in Sydney and are now travelling around Australia, I have been offered cups of tea on the side of the highway and been tempted with lifts into towns 30km down the road. Travelling solo is often quite lonely but everywhere I go I am met with kindness and well-wishers.

Day 26 was a short day and was the first time I rode for a whole day without using the main highway, I crisscrossed a huge river on my way to a small riverside town of Maclean. Maclean used to be a famous Scottish settlement and was quite a nice place to stop, I had only ridden 49km but decided to take it easy and stay. It was lucky that I did stop. When I was setting up the tent I noticed both of my tyres had huge cuts in them, I called up my friend Dean who gave me some advice and I set to work repairing them. First I took both the tyres off to see if the cut had penetrated deep enough to damage the tube (the back one had), then I patched up the inside of the tyre and put a $5 note in each tyre to prevent anything from getting through. I also bought some superglue to try and fill the cuts. It was a success on the front tyre which i'm still using 300km later. The back tyre needed to be replaced so I purchased a new Maxxis tyre in Ballina the next day, I also bought a spare tyre incase I come across this situation again. I'm still puzzled as to what would cause this damage...

The Cut on the back tyre went all the way through to the tube!

Suitable glue for the occasion... hehehe..

Typical dinner when there are no cooking facilities. Mash potato usually with a soup mixed in, a cup of soup and a freeze dried Channa Masala.

2 days later on August 25 I rode from Ballina to Byron Bay, needless to say the scenery was just stunning, sub-tropical jungle, crystal clear turquoise ocean and white beaches. I stopped in Lennox Head and enjoyed a coffee by the beach before rolling into Byron before lunch to meet up with another friend I met at ENP in 2010; Kodi. We went out for a beautiful lunch of Dahl and spoke about all our adventures over the last 2 years, it was great. I wandered around Byron for the afternoon and was given 30% off at the local organic grocer as well as a free and amazing salad. It had potato, pumpkin, zucchini, apricot, beetroot, spinach, orange, pineapple, coconut and heaps of other nice stuff... I headed back to Kodi's place to stay the night and it was activity central, 2 housemates were going to a party, one other was flying out to Thailand the next day and 2 others were away camping, Kodi herself had to work and everyone stumbled in around 4am. Ah, the good old days...

Myself I stayed in and read my book before getting up at 7:30am to meet up with Silvia Kramer and her daughter Gianna who run Kids For Elephants, they are doing fantastic work going from school to school teaching kids about elephants and how they can help them, but more interestingly they are teaching the younger generation about the plight of the Asian elephants. Its a noble and difficult job but I can tell that Silvia really loves doing it and does it really well. If your up in Northern NSW or southern QLD get in contact with Silvia at their Facebook page and get involved. It's a non-profit organisation which supports all of the elephant friendly sanctuaries overseas. Like their page here : Kids For Elephants

I really enjoyed chatting with Silvia and Gianna for 2 hours, we sat  on the rocks by Byron Bay beach and shared elephant stories and it was a real blast, I'm looking forward to hopefully do some volunteering with them. But first... pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal...

Looking over Lennox Head, Stompy sun baking...

Gianna, her two lovely dogs and I at Byron Bay, talking about elephants all morning with Kids For Elephants, Photo by Silvia Kramer

Over the next 2 days I rode up to Surfers Paradise. A couple of milestones were also achieved. I crossed the 2000km mark, the 100hr of pedalling mark and crossed in the state of Queensland. Lots of rolling jungle hills and gorgeous costal scenery, the ride just keeps getting better. I was given a beach chair by a departing camper at Kingscliff which was so kind and was offered a place to stay up above Cairns by a family who had travelled down to Thredbo for a ski holiday. Queensland rocks!!! I was lucky enough to attend a talk/slideshow by Peter McVeigh who is the youngest person to complete the 1700km, 6 month Great Himalayan Trek along the spine of the himalaya, it was really great to talk with Peter about Nepal and adventures, I can tell he'll be one of Australia's great adventurers in the future. All this after finishing my book about a british cyclist who rode home from Siberia (30000 miles), I am super inspired to continue riding and exploring, it's been such a challenge yet a very rewarding experience so far.

To top all that on Day 31 (August 28) I rode into Brisbane and was reunited with my Cousin Megan and her beautiful family, it's been such a long time but I'm absolutely loving catching up, it's been really special and it will be sad to leave them tomorrow. I love my family, all of my family.

Cracking 2000km

Queensland and Surfers Paradise on the horizon.

Surfers Paradise Sky scarpers.

Sunset by the sea

Sunset Paradise

 So now I'm sitting here in Brisbane after having 2 days rest ready to tackle the last 1900km to Cairns. Australia Park Zoo is only a couple of days away so the next post will be more elephant based, I'm hopeful it will be a positive experience. Until then, don't forget our T-shirts are available through our Facebook page here: Ride Bikes, Not Elephants/Elephant In The Room We have officially raised over $15000AU for The Elephant Nature Park and you can help us reach our goal of $20000AU by sponsoring my ride and donating here: www.justgiving.com/mattrousu. 

Thanks for reading, stay tuned in the next week I'll have a new post up about Australia Park Zoo.

PS: Stompy will never go hungry again...