Signing off…

Martin - Our home-sickness saviour!

So where were we?
Oh yeah.. getting whisked away to Bellingen by Martin Hogan.

Well, Bellingen has cast it’s love spell on us yet again. We originally moved here from spending a weekend here at a music festival and realising that we don’t want to go somewhere this beautiful just to holiday – we wanted to LIVE on the holiday! So off we went home, quit our jobs and moved on up!

The morning view from the house we have been renting!

And here we are this time, half way through a holiday that we had planned and prepped for so long for, and have been hypnotised by Bello yet again. Ahh the bliss of it all!

So we’ve been in Bello just three weeks now and have already found a bit of work and have just moved into a house! Doors just seem to appear when things are right I think..

The Never Never River in The Promised Land

So this is us signing off Earthboundriding. We’re off on a stationary adventure for a year or so and then will be back on the road I am sure.

We may use this blog and URL for something else so pop back and visit sometime if you wish! We have so enjoyed sharing our adventures with you. It has helped motivate us to tell the stories of this adventure and what we have learnt along the way – thank you.

Until next time..

Nic & Amy

The random beauty of it all..

So after the blog post this morning, we get offered to go kayaking on the Brunswick River, the beautiful clear waters and frolicking fish darting beside the boats. Then after a DIVINE breakky (yes, ginger and mushies are a match in heaven Myla), we ride off to Byron Bay and ten ks into it, get picked up by Martin Hogan of all people!!

On his way to Bello..

With room in his truck..

I told you those random possibilities are all around!!

So Bellingen here we come!

The long road home…

There are so many stories to tell since we last wrote it’s hard to know where to start… I guess I’ll start from the here and now.

Myla and her bird Pipsi in Brunswick Heads

Right now, I am sitting in Anna’s lounge room in the dark (it’s 5am). Anna and her daughter Myla met us in the park at Brunswick Heads a few months back and offered for us to stay at her place that night and a friendship blossomed, so we’re back here again on our way back down south.

Nic as we arrived at the Hermitage in Gympie

My and Nic’s mild homesickness was heightened twenty-fold during our last wwoofing post, at the Hermitage
in Gympie. When wwoofing, we are usually working on gardening and harvesting, which we both find really exciting and get all inspired and impatient to get back home and start growing food and eating it – both in our garden and at the Northbank Community Garden. We had hoped to stay at the Hermitage for two weeks but after a week, were so homesick that we gave in and decided to head home for a time and visit our beautiful Bellingen family, planning to hit the road again after we’ve had our “Bello fix”!

In Brisbane, we stayed with Nic’s friend Emma, where we spent an entire day on Google SketchUp (an awesome free 3D modelling program) dreaming and designing extensions to our house to turn it from a standard family home into a larger co-housing urban-community that will house three families with some communal kitchen and living spaces. We did this instead of visiting Northey Street City Farm, which I had been looking forward to for some time! We caught a coreographed lazer show at Southbank as part of the Brisbane Festival before heading off with our Countrylink seats booked, ready to be in Urunga train station in a matter of hours.

As with most of our trip, we try to take the open and shut doors that present themselves as sign of what we are supposed to do next… our way of staying open to being guided along a path, alike driftwood in a stream. And as it happened, Countrylink did not have two bike boxes, just one, and so we cancelled our tickets and decided to ride home; Nic feeling that maybe it was for the best and that staying in this uncomfortable place is how we can allow ourselves to grow. Me, on the other hand, who has never felt this kind of homesickness before (I have never travelled for this long before); was feeling quite lost and fragile. I found myself desperately yearning the things I do when I am physically sick (not just homesick) – to be tucked away in bed at my Mum’s house and her taking care of me and making me hot soup! But on we went..

Nic answering questions at the Gold Coast

We caught the suburban train to the Goldcoast and started the ride home, and when drying our tent out, were bombarded by friendly people wanting to know the what-why-how of our crazy bike set-up, which was way too much for me in this melancholy state, so Nic answered questions while I pretended to sleep! We get this alot, mostly keen cyclists, other travellers or people that think we are riding for a charity or cause of some sort.

Amy, Nic and Barry on a morning ride

From there we rode south and where we might usually search for bits of bush to camp in, we didn’t have the energy for this, which helped incentivise us to utilise warmshowers, an awesome website that help tourers find places to stay with other tourers. This is how we met Barry, a new friend who shared inspiring touring and yachting travel stories and whose overall message to us was to stay on the road and ride through the homesickness – literally!

Which brings us up to date and me to sitting in this loungeroom at Brunswick Heads, trying to gee myself up for the long ride ahead today – it’s a 55km day with predicted headwinds. We were supposed to leave yesterday but didn’t quite make it – spent lots of time uploading new photos, content and reviews to our website – check it out at Earthboundriding.

As I read back over what I have written, I realise that by being open to the possibilities, our journey seems to always take us to exactly where we need to be. Without this low energy section, we may have just kept doing what we’re doing, and not stepped out and tried new things, found comfort in new places, or met the people we did at the times we did. I know this is where we’re meant to be, and I look forward to this day and the possibilities that each and every kilometre has in it!

WWOOFing at Dharmananda

We just recently spent a week WWOOFing at Dharmananda which is an intentional community at The Channon, in the hinterland of Byron Bay.  Here we learnt cheese and yoghurt making, how to keep the happiest cows in the world and some of the systems used to

support a community of 15 or so adults  living together over 30 years.

The community eats together 5 nights a week in a communal house and grows the majority of their food.  What they dont grow, they buy in bulk from a group kittyand then anyone can collect from the bulk food at the main house for their individual larders.  We helped prepare the group meal on two of the nights there and it reminded us of the joy and connection we feel at picking food from the garden and taking it through the various stages of preparation.   My favourite thing we made (not including the banana spilt made from cream skimmed off the mornings milk) was a salad made from Daikon radd

ish and tatsoi, bok choi and mizuna with a soy sauce and tahini dressing and tamari fried sunflower and sesame seeds.  The food felt vibrant, like you could taste the sun

light in it.  I also loved the humbling feeling of using the composting toilet and completing the nutrient cycle without the burden of pollution or mass energy use associated with conventional sewereage, on my conscience.

Amy making cheese

 

Probably the most beautiful thing I remember from the farm was Li’s relationship with the cows.  Li takes the main responsibility for looking after the cows, which provide milk for the community. He knew all the cows  (about 30 of them) by name, how old they where and which were related to which.  The cows glistened with health and actually seemed to seek out Li’s company, coming over for a scratch or to nuzzle his leg with a wet nose.  Li showed us how he bonds with the new calves by bending his head down to their nose level.  When their curiosity overcomes their fear, they give his head a licky investigation and realise he’s not as scary as once thought.  Apparently it’s best to do after a bit of manual labour as they like the salt in your sweat when they lick you.   When Li wanted to gather the cows to move them to a new paddock, he would stand at the gate and call out to them.  It seemed fanciful to see the cows emerge from the trees and assemble in single file to follow Li where ever he wanted them to go.

Li with his other diesel powered love

It seems everywhere we go is new opportunity and a challenge to the way we live our lives, which is so humbling.  One of my main objectives of this trip was to get to know myself better, and that is definitely happening.  I have become much more aware of my ego and how it physically shapes my world and the lense through which  I see the world.  I’m not sure if I can or want to turn it off, because it is so interesting to observe it’s function.  It appears that the things I see arn’t as they appear, but as I interpret them based on the lense I see them through created in no small part by my ego.  Once I am aware of and can observe my ego, I am able to see things with a much more open mind.

With the amount I have learnt about myself and the world in our short time away, it’s hard to imagine where I will be geographically, emotionally and spiritually after another 8 months of travelling.

Markets aplenty

We are sitting at Lismore carboot market eating avocado and tomato sandwiches. Far from being abused for occupying cafe space with our home made food, we have just finished our third conversation with an inquiring and admiring local who came across our bikes. Looking at our bikes now, they do tell a bit of a story in their own right. I feel like a gypsy and am living up to my self view with ever growing facial hair and more and more things hanging off our bikes.

We are sinking in to the gypsy life well and feeling comfortable on the road. Somehow we feel like we are discovering an underground scene everywhere we go. For example last night we went to a vegan restaurant called 20,000 cows which had,I think, the most delicious food I have ever eaten. So much so that I bought a cookbook written by the head chef. The highlight was probably the globe artichoke entree which wasnt overly complex, but delicious in it’s simplicity. It was boiled, buttered and served with a tahini dipping sauce. The restaurant name is symbolic of the number of cows saved through serving vegan meals. The carboot market has heaps of home made stuff and second hand clothes and books a feels like a practical example of relocalisation. We are so happy to part of this shift that we are seeing!

We are heading to Byron today to meet with Amy’s mum who will ride with us for the next week. We are heading north on our way eventually to Rockhampton.

Byron Bay through new eyes

After hating on Byron Bay after hectic festival experiences of past years, it has surprised both of us to find that we have fallen in love with this place – so much so, it has made it to #2 on our ‘places we would love to live’ list (after Bellingen of course!). It is truly blissful here – walks along the beach with crazy sunsets of oranges, purples and pinks, random acts of kindness from strangers on a daily basis – some highlights: a guy drew us a picture and came and gave it to us in the park and another morning we awoke to a huge spirally trippy artwork being scraped into the beach with a garden rake. (we don’t have our computer with us right now but will upload photos when we have it next).

The lighthouse walk is what finalized it for me. SO stunning!! I look around and think it’s no wonder everyone looks so beautiful here – with a walk like that at your doorstep it would be hard NOT to exercise here!

At the moment, we are clocking up some tent time (It’s a bit rainy out) and are camping at the arts factory (very cool little gypsy tent-art-restaurant-cinema setup in the back streets of Byron – Nick Warfield, you would love it here!). Were seeing Salmonella Dub (one of our favourite bands) tomorrow night here which were really looking forward to and then are heading back to The Channon to wwoof at Dharmananda, a successful community where they have lots of dairy cows and make their own cheese and yoghurt – yum!

Then were planning to get back on the bike (finally!!) and head north up to Rockhampton. Will be great to get some bike time again, it’s definitely been fun playing farmers for the last two months but were craving the wind in our hair and the deep burn in our thighs!!

Passing forward this loving Byron vibe to you all,

Ames

Inspired musings

Life is spinning for me at the moment. It’s like in the space, the space I have created by exiting from “normal” life for a while, a window has opened for me. And a whirlwind of big and beautiful ideas is upon me!

It’s such an inspiring place here (at Zatuna Farm / Permaculture Research Institute). There are people on such interesting journeys, and embarking on exciting projects. There is a commonality of care for Earth, but that’s about all! Many ages, backgrounds, nationalities and a melting pot of ideas makes for very interesting coffee break chats. Many seem to be at a point of great change, where

a new project has just begun or is in the pipeline. Living with so many people brimming with courage and passion makes the world feels so alive.

Wwoofing here has been really confidence building for me and (from my experience thus far) I highly recommend it. It’s just a really nice way to be able to experience how other people live and a form of travel that is real. Real people, real stories.  And it feels really rewarding to be able to give to place as it is giving to you.

We have our new camera and it has been so much fun seeing the world through a lens again. I haven’t had an SLR camera for about five years and remember how

much I love trying to capture the world and it’s immense beauty in this way. I will leave you with some of my favourite shots so far..

Ames x