16 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Have a nice Christmas and stay safe during the holidays!
Write down what you got for Christmas or talk to your friends through the blog!

1 Mr Ahmed's Basic Skills Set - Week 8

Please learn these spellings during the Christmas Holidays.

59 Announcement of Digital Leaders

Due to the huge number of interest from children wanting to become Digital Leaders I will announce members over the weekend.

Remember if you do not take the job seriously and misuse my trust you will be removed from the group.

Commitment
Trustworthy
Dedicated


First member to be announed a Digital leader is:

1. Aleena!!!

Congratulations

2. Numa!!!

Congratulations!!

3. Zukaika!!!

4. Husna

5. Mahek

6. Zara H

7. Amaan

8.  Selma

9. Femi

10. Tasneem

11. Amna

12. Sumeyya

13. Lavanan

14. Amber

15. Hana - sorry wanted to make you sweat a little! Evil me!



Please note if you are not an active blogger you will lose your job as a digital leader!

19 Hello Children!

Hi Eiger!

Glad to see Mr Ahmed has been teaching you so well in your writing (Joke that was me who did!)

From Mrs Miah

0 Literacy Homework ( 13/12/12 )

Please bring homework in by Tuesday.

19 Digital Leaders!!!

Digital Leaders  They help promote and inspire ICT in our school by running staff meetings, teaching groups of children, implementing e-safeguarding, reviewing technologies and encourage others to use ICT more effectively.

 

Digital Leaders will have the following responsibilities:

Website/Blogs/Online

• Uploading new photographs into each year group area of the website
• Editing/adding to some areas of the website
• Converting documents into Flash and embedding them within the website
• Write blog posts for your class and comment on other blogs across the school
• Helping staff to upload pictures/videos to their blog

ICT Clubs

• Plan and lead ICT club at lunchtimes for 3/4 and 5/6 (1 day each)
• Possibly lead an after-school ICT club

iPads

• Attend clubs lunch time to trial new Apps. Feedback what is good and what is not so great!
• Look after the iPads and put them away safely everyday.
• Think about what lessons we can use the iPads in.
• At times, and with your class teacher’s permission, support teachers across the school when they teach ICT and use new hardware or software
• Model to children how to use Apps.
• Possibly attend events and other schools to share ICT learning

Mr Ahmed will:

• Make sure you have enough training and accounts with a suitable level of responsibility to manage the tasks above
• Provide you with software to trial so that you can use it as part of the ICT club.

Please write me a letter explaining why you should be chosen by the 14th December!

Goodluck! Only 10 places!!!

16 Do you want to be a Digital learner?

Do you want to me a  Digital Learner?

Do you understand what the job involves?

Are you dedicated and committed?

Are you able to sacrifice lunch times to learn?

 

If you are serious!!! and would like to be considered for the post of a Digital Learner please write to me!

 

We will be trialing the latest apps and technology.

You must be able to tell me and other teachers what apps are good for the school. What we can use it to improve learning.

 

Are you brave enough to show others how to use the iPads and apps?

 

Remember this is not just about iPads. It is all ICT related!

If you are passionate write a letter to me and persuade me why you are the right person for the job!

2 Mr Ahmed's Basic Skills Set ( Week 7 )

7 Writing activities 27.11.12

1 Literacy Homework

4 Christmas Lunch Menu

Please hand in this slip by 30th November.

3 Writing activities 22.11.12

0 Miss Lines' And Miss Collins' Basic Skills Set ( Week 6 )

1. spectacle - spectator

2. compete - competitor

3. operate - operator

4. investigate - investigator

5. interview - interviewer

6. compose - composer

7. control - controller

8. fertilise - fertiliser

9. laugh - laughter

10. photocopy - photocopier

0 Miss Farmah's Basic Skills Set ( Week 6 )

1. unbelievable

2. unemployed

3. unfortunate

4. unsuitable

5. reinstate

6. reinvent

7. recycle

8. enable

9. enrich

10. endear

1 Mr Ahmed's Basic Skills Set ( Week 6 )

1. contributory

2. obligatory

3. territory

4. labortory

5. lavatory

6. theory

7. unnecessary

8. vocabulary

9. mortuary

10. sanctuary

1 Class Poem

The snowflakes fall like a clumsy ballerina,
Crunching snow falling gently glistening like crystal diamonds and chains of silver.
Masquerading like a white mask,
As snow showers down on to earth it covers up everything.
As they reach the ground they accomplish little children, uncompleted wishes.

( Selma, Vinay, Bilaal, Isma )

Under winter's piercing glare,
Blankets of trees are ever so bare,
Glistening diamonds drift from the sky,
Choosing an option of where to lie.
Sheets of snow cover the ground,
From tree to tree squirrels bound.
All the children happily play,
Forgetting about their old grey days.

( Amber, Femi, Kajaani, Zara H )

Slowly, the ice cold snow drifting down like a crystal blanket,
Covering the earth.
Children jumping up and down around the freezing snow like ballerina's.

( Awais, Kabir, Haroon, Ibrahim, Zara K )

Waking up to a world of glistening light,
Gentle snow diving from the placid sky,
As a crisp sheet of soft snow drifting down from the blue sky,
Furtively flake by flake it arrives.
Snow, as gentle as tissue,
Touching every single thing in his way,
As soft as foam,
And as placid as the sea,
Like a velvet white carpet,
The snow hanging on trees.

( Mustafa, Priyen, Hareez, Anisah, Kirandeep, Illaha )

Frozen diamons flittering down,
A blanket of white, she covers the ground,
She falls like an angel everywhere,
Gleaming away, leaving soft sparkles here and there.
As she falls down people come out to watch this amazing sight,
Invading the grass day and night,
Gently stepping down she glitters with silver and gold,
She comes only once a year so embrace the cold.

( Amna, Inaya, Ali, Sumeyya, Hazna, Ismail, Aleena )

Soaring throughout daybreak,
Glistening through night,
Summer was destroyed,
And so was light!
Like a mask covering the land,
All the children play hand in hand.
The sun gazing from vacation,
The sun is proud and so's the nation.

( Yameen, Lavanan, Hasnaat, Hana )

2 Anti-Bullying Week

This is week is Anti-bullying week!

6 Latest news on Mr Turner's journey!

Mission Outback: Successfully Completed

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Kat

We postponed our departure from Alice Springs to coincide with two days of strong tailwinds. We were rather pleased we did as that first day back on the road we absolutely flew through the Outback, passing the highest point on the Stuart Highway, cycling through the Tropic of Capricorn and doing a personal best of 196 kilometres. We arrived at a grotty little caravan park in a place called Ti Tree completely exhausted but seriously chuffed with ourselves.

The highest point on the Stuart Highway - although no where near as high as roads in New Zealand!

Preparing to go 'tropo'

After turning in for an early night to rest our over-used leg muscles, I woke at 10pm to go to the bathroom. Just as I neared the toilet block I suddenly heard something creeping up towards me from behind. Before I registered the growl, a massive dog had sunk its teeth deep into my outer thigh, below my bum.  It seemed not anymore and I could see the outline of the second dog’s head moving and was terrified that I was going to be attacked by both at once. I froze with fear not knowing what to do. I was scared that by running away I would encourage them to chase me so I just screamed into the still night air, ‘SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME’. A few moments passed and nothing happened so I quickly ran into a toilet cubicle. In a matter of minutes, I heard the terror in Steve’s voice as he asked if everything was ok. As I stood there with blood pouring down my leg, Steve tried not to panic and cleaned out the deep puncture wounds whilst the guy who owned the dogs turned up.
He was a shifty sort of character with a bandaged leg. He said that his dogs were used to being out in the open and they were just protecting him after he was beaten up recently. He sort of apologised although it looked like he was more sorry for himself at the possibility that his dog could be destroyed and told me that he warned people on the campsite about his dogs. I couldn’t believe what he was saying and I kept asking what I was meant to have done differently – I had just walked to the toilet block and his dog wasn’t tied up on a leash. He said that if it made me feel better, the dog knew it shouldn’t have bitten me as if it had really meant to it would have ripped my leg off. Unsurprisingly that didn’t make me feel any better but it did make me angrier that if his dogs were so dangerous they shouldn’t be at a campsite.
Luckily Ti Tree had a small medical centre which served the local indigenous community. I was picked up in a 4×4 ambulance by a lovely nurse who had worked in London many years ago and whose son currently lives in Ilford. Chatting to her soon put us at ease and took our minds off the incident. At first we were the only people at the medical centre but it soon started to get busier as the police brought in two aboriginal ladies who had been the victims of domestic violence. One of the perpetrators was left outside in the police car after being injured when one of the ladies had fought back. We really could have done without being at the medical centre but we tried to recognise that we were seeing a different side of the work done in the Outback that we may not have done otherwise.
After being bandaged up and issued with antibiotics the nurse recommended that we stay at least a couple of days so that they could keep an eye on the wound. The first thing I said to Steve was ‘Oh no! That means we are going to lose our tailwind!’ The caravan park agreed to give us a cabin free of charge but it wasn’t an atmosphere conducive to recuperation with bed sheets stinking of old cigarettes and car fresheners hung on the air conditioner. To be honest I would much rather have been in our tent. In the early morning hours we could hear the guy with the dogs sneaking off to avoid any potential trouble. It did make me think how easy it must be for people to simply disappear in the vast emptiness of the Outback, although the police told us that they had his car registration and they would be contacting him.
We went back to the medical centre the next day to have the wound checked which seemed to be ok. For my own sanity, there was no way I could stay another night at Ti Tree so I insisted that I wanted to push on. Very kindly the medical centre gave us plenty of advice and a whole bag of medical supplies for free to keep my wound in tip top condition. We did laugh that this would be added to my already substantial sum of lotions and potions for various ailments from hayfever to prickly heat and I’d probably need my own pannier for it all. Steve really excelled at being my personal nurse as he tended and bandaged my wounds for the next few days. Thank you also to our friend back home, Dr Joe, for reassuring us.

What a way to freshen up one's home!

Now that's what I call a first aid kit and please notice the luxurious surroundings.

The next day I was glad to put Ti Tree behind us and was looking forward to our next stop. I shouldn’t have got my hopes up. Although the views were amazing, we arrived at Barrow Creek which purported to have a caravan park but turned out to be a way-overpriced piece of dusty land littered with rubbish which dogs scavenged through for most of the day. I wasn’t happy. I was even more unhappy when in reply to my polite question about whether there was a plug we could use to charge our GPS, one of the guys who ran the place said that my request was a rude one. He told us the extortionate fee of $15 that they charged us didn’t cover anything even though they had their massive flood lights on all night wasting masses of electricity. On top of this the other guy who ran the place refused to give us any drinking water and told us we could drink the bore water but it was contaminated with uranium. Luckily we were carrying spare water to get us to the next rest area where we could top up but those guys sure lacked any customer service skills and it didn’t surprise me that they found themselves in the middle of nowhere.

View from Barrow Creek

The start of millions and millions of termite mounds

How can they call that a caravan park?

The past few days had taken its toll and we were feeling a bit worn out with cycling through the Outback but it didn’t take long before its beauty won us over again. Out of the flat barren land arose massive boulders strewn across the landscape, some very precariously balanced on top of each other. These are known as the Devil’s Marbles which have great spiritual significance to many aboriginal groups. There are apparently many ‘dreaming’ stories (creation stories which pass on important knowledge, cultural values and belief systems to younger generations) about this place but only a handful can be shared with the uninitiated tourist. It is said that the boulders are the fossilised eggs of the mythical Rainbow Serpent, a common character in aboriginal mythology.
We were able to camp at the Devil’s Marbles so we could witness how the setting sun changed and deepened the colours of the rocks. It felt like a very special place and it was easy to see why this spot is so sacred to the aboriginal people. That night whilst we made our dinner we also saw a wild dingo saunter past – he looked much healthier and happier than Dinky the Singing Dingo.

The Devil's Marbles

This one must have hatched

Sunset at the Devil's Marbles

Now that's what I call a good camp spot

In order to beat the heat, we started to get up earlier and earlier. Eventually we were in the routine of waking up at 3.30am to get a few hours of night cycling under our belts. Despite knowing I was being silly, it did take me a while to convince myself not to get creeped out about the darkness and what lay beyond it. However, this wasn’t helped one very early morning when we were deep in the bush and an aboriginal guy started shouting at us in his own tongue from the pitch black. We looked but we couldn’t see him. We are sure we both surprised each other but in case he was grumpy due to us interupting his sleep, we didn’t want to stick around.
We also had to be aware of kangaroos as they are are most active around dawn and dusk. I would be on kangaroo watch and would have to shout alerts if any looked like they were going to collide with us as they hopped across the road. Despite knowing that Steve was secretly wishing we had a collision with a kangaroo as it would ‘be great for the blog’ a collision could have serious consequences. One morning we met a guy who was having to hitch hike as the front of his ute was completely smashed in following a collision with a kangaroo.
Another morning we saw an eerie glow in the distance. We thought it might have been the headlights of a road train but as we got closer we realised it was a series of bush fires along the side of the road. We could feel the heat from them but we hoped they were controlled fires.

Bush fires

Whilst I was always slightly relieved when the sun would come up, it was always magical to be cycling through a night sky of shooting stars and to feel like you were the only person to be watching the huge red sun rise, quickly warming up the earth.

An early morning start

A brand new day

Getting up so early, most days we would be at our destination by lunchtime so we could spend the rest of the day chilling out, even sometimes having what we felt was a well-deserved beer. Other days we would find a spot to rest between 11am and 3pm before cycling through the late afternoon.

I've found something that I can do but Steve can't - float on water

 

Catching up on sleep during the hottest part of the day. I can sleep anywhere!

Filling up with water at a rest area

Being so grubby and sweaty was something I was finding difficult to get used to. Any girl wants to ensure she looks her best but in the Outback there really was no chance of being able to do that. Sometimes when we would camp in the bush with no promise of a shower, I would sneak into the tent just to have a sniff of my travel-size Pantene bottle to remember how it felt to be clean. When I would wonder why some people gave me strange looks, Steve would remind me it was because I looked so feral and that they probably wanted to poke me with a stick to see if I would bite.

Steve thinks I'm taking in the view. Really I am imagining my next shower.

No leading brand of wash-powder will restore the whiteness to this shirt

We cycled past the turn off to the cattle station that Steve worked on more than 12 years ago. I can’t say his tales of his miserable existence there -stuck in the middle of nowhere with only one tape cassette between them (Sting and the Police), no books, a man with half a face missing, meals made up of cattle tongue and drinking rotten bore water – inspire me to want to be a cow-girl.

Steve's old cattle station - we weren't tempted to drop-by to say hello

The further north we went the humidity started to increase and the landscape became more lush with forests and the far away horizons were no longer. We also began to meet different wildlife including lots of frogs, meaty cane toads, pigeon-sized bats and SNAKES! Steve had gone to do the washing up one night and saw a snake beside the sink. He informed the guy at the road house just in case it was a dangerous one and when Steve described it, he just said ‘Oh that’s harmless. It’s just a kid’s python’. I guess it was rather apt that it had wrapped itself round a child’s water gun.

I thought these were toy frogs at first; they just looked too frog-like to be real

A well-dressed termite mound. His sunglasses were much better than Steve's broken ones so the termite bloke kindly agreed to a swap

An old favourite - the wedge-tailed eagle

I thought this lizard was enjoying having his picture taken. On reflection I think he might have been dead!

Cane toads - the Aussies hate them but we enjoyed finding dead bugs and seeing how far their tongues could go to get them. Perfect evening entertainment!

A 'harmless' kid's python apparently

A fruit bat feasting on mangoes

A very hungry barra nearly having Steve's hand off

We saw lots of headlines but thankfully none in real-life

At one campsite a guy shared his secret that he and his vet friend were caring for an orphaned baby possum.

Taking a dip in some natural springs

A very different kind of politician

Huge road trains transporting equipment for the booming mining industry. Getting encouraging honks from roadtrains always excited us!

We spent a fun evening in Daly Waters – a place where everybody told us we had to go and it certainly didn’t disappoint. It is a historic pub with a good sense of humour. It is also renowned for its Beef’n’Barra which we decided to indulge ourselves in after eating dried pasta with powdered sauce and two-minute noodles for weeks and weeks. In the past Steve would always avoid salad in order to get maximum meat on his plate but this time we were both so over excited about the salad bar that we were up and down like yo-yos. Salad has never tasted so good.

Steve trying to look excited at yet another night of dried pasta, powdered sauce and noodles

Arriving at Daly Waters

Scenic helicopter tours

The remotest set of traffic lights

Daly Water's famous Beef'n'Barra plus piles of salad

That's where we started

There's alot to take in at Daly Waters - if you should ever go there, see if you can spot our Tandem Turners business card

Next big stop before our final destination was Katherine. Here we spent a lovely couple of days at a campsite which had the most amazing pool which we virtually had to ourselves. It was most welcome after the humidity was becoming nearly unbearable, especially at night. Both of us would be just sweating away in our tent, unable to sleep and getting grumpier and grumpier.

Katherine arrives in Katherine

Our own private pool. Now which lounger should I choose.

Then suddenly we were arriving in Darwin. Before I knew it we could see the sea after six weeks of dust. I turned my back for a second and Steve was diving into a croc-free spot.

The sea at last! Steve described the water as hot soup.

It all took a little while to sink in that we had actually cycled from the south to the north of Australia but even more so we couldn’t believe our luck when friends of friends offered us a bed in Darwin which turned out to be our own granny annex. Thank you so much Pauline and Peter – you cannot believe what a treat it has been for us to play house. Last night Rosie, Pauline and Peter’s daughter, got us free tickets to the Deckchair Cinema where we watched a documentary about Bob Marley under the stairs. Tonight we are off out with Pauline and Peter to watch a band called the Swamp Jockeys; we are sure a great end to our time in Australia. Tomorrow we head off to Bali, the start of a new continent and the beginning of a whole new set of challenges and adventures.
Australia, thank you for having us and taking care of us. We’ve had a blast (and the scars to prove it!).

Sweaty, smelly, grubby, knackered but very happy to have got to Darwin

Posted in Uncategorized|15 Comments

Riding to the red centre

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Steve

Port Augusta, last minute nerves

Like a couple of inexperienced backpackers, straight off the boat, we fumble to put up our new tent; it was ‘a bargain’ and to our horror looks like a small silver spacecraft. The red sand covers the concrete soil below and for the first time in the last five months I can’t simply push the pegs in – so I tie the four flimsy guy ropes to a couple of rocks. We have a good six weeks ahead in the outback so we decide to take one more day to prepare in Port Augusta, wondering to myself ‘Steve, is this really wise?’. Alice Springs is a long way yet

Long road ahead...

And we are off…

To my relief my stomach is not rusting, a trickle of sweat is just carving a channel through the dust. My heart has been pounding all day. Ahead long straight roads draw us into an unknown abyss. In the hazy distance, on each side, huge ochre monoliths rising from the bush move slowly by the hour. It is only when we break to drink that I look behind. I could be looking forward except the afternoon sun is on my right. We are in it now, the outback, we suddenly feel so small in an ocean of dry land.

The long but not so winding road.

Camping bush

The distances are so great out here (sometimes up to 250km between road houses) that we often have to camp in the bush. It is a strange feeling to cycle all day and then pitch your tent in the dirt, knowing that the next community (population 15?) is still another eight hours cycling away. It should be terrifying. I imagine seeing ourselves on Google Earth and then in one bowel-dropping moment zooming out to reveal our remoteness. It should haunt us and tease out deep insecurities and fears fuelled by a mental library of Hollywood horror scenes. We expect to feel the sudden terror, but it doesn’t come. In fact, with all the freedom and space all is calm and uncomplicated. Plants, rocks, dirt, creatures big and small including ourselves all have room to exist out here – and are quite happy doing so.

Kat sets up home in the bush

Sun sets on another day in the outback

It was one of my day dreams before we left London to be camping out in the bush, sun setting, cooking up dinner on our stove, exotic sounds in the evening air. The reality, although hard and painful to earn, doesn’t disappoint. Night camping in the bush this time of year is often warm. We leave all the doors and windows open but netted. I wake up at about 3am from a deep sleep, the balmy air passing over us in the tent. I see stars through the door, the silhouette of a gnarled tree still and ancient against the window. As I roll over I glimpse the rear wheel of the tandem sunk slightly in the red sand. What an adventure!

Body hurts - but living the dream with a grin

A moment of reflection

Our little silver spacecraft lands on a distant planet

The moon rises and peace decends after a hot day on the road

MTV eat your heart out

‘Darwin? You guys are going to have to cycle through a whole heap of nothing to get there!’ is the regular cry of many we meet on the road. We were a little worried about this – the boredom, the possibility that we may ‘go tropo’, six weeks of blistering heat and nothing. That’s a whole school summer holiday of nothing. So it was decided that although up to now we hadn’t really used our i-Pod or felt the need for music while cycling, we would invest in a little speaker so we could listen to some tunes together while riding through the monotony of the bush.
Well, we haven’t been bored so far. The views change constantly in their own subtle way. We notice a new tree or plant species that appears for a few hundred kilometres and then suddenly it goes again. The earth changes colours from deep reds to creamy caramel. Sometimes you have the feeling you are high above the world, other times you feel like you are slowly sinking down into it. An endless straight road suddenly has a bend in it – no apparent reason for it. Pausing to pee behind a bush, always a new strange little critter will run off for shelter (a new experience for us both I’m sure!). We are not bored, but we have started to cycle to music for parts of our day anyway. Our surroundings have brought a new dimension to some of our favourite tunes. David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac or Guns’n'Roses blasting out with the endless outback laid out before you – just EPIC!

AC/DC - Highway to hell

Ground Control to Major Tom

Any solo by Slash - full blast

Anything from Claptons earlier work

Sting - message in a bottle

Pink Floyd

On a bike you see the small things, like this delicate life in searing desert sand.

Piece of wood

Coober Pedy – Outback Town

Many Australians describe the splendour of the glorious outback as traveling through ‘The Guts’ of the continent. While we find it hard to follow this analogy, when we arrived in Coober Pedy it was agreed this must be the dusty arse crack of not just Australia, but possibly the world. But we really liked it! Appearing out of a wide barren landscape, small piles of dust and rock appear. Little molehills popping up sporadically, often in groups, others just on their own. Little scars on the moonscape – each one a punt, a gamble, a man’s dream of finding precious opal. Kat and I had both felt upset when witnessing damage caused by huge gold mining operations in New Zealand – the environmental cost had seemed too high. Here though it felt different. Small, not particularly lucrative operations, venturing into the wilderness. A person down on their luck could come out here, make a claim to a piece of dirt and start digging, like a kid in the garden with a bucket and spade searching out buried treasure.

Coober Pedy - you wouldn't call it glitzy

Exploring the highstreet - Painting the town orange

We consider getting the first spaceship home

Coober Pedy is a town of characters and in such harsh conditions I suspect only those with a true Aussie pioneering spirit and a sense of humour can stick it. Half the population live underground – it’s much cooler in the summer heat (no need for air con) and warm when it gets cold. The locals, of course, are experts at digging holes and as for living underground being a bit windowless and claustrophobic, I don’t think you would find any estate agent in Coober Pedy selling a surface property on its views! It just makes sense in this environment to live underground, but often people don’t do what makes sense. We could learn a lot from the Coober Pedy miners, who have realised a house doesn’t need to be a box with a lawn and a white picket fence to be a home and the money they save on energy to cool their homes will buy a few more stubbies for the weekend. They’ve got it sorted I reckon.

It's getting hot, time to head underground

Meeting a local - Martin who runs the underground backpackers

Happy Birthday Kat!

It was always going to be tough making Kat’s birthday a special occasion. While we had had the good fortune to be in Wellington, New Zealand for my birthday, we had known for a while that Kat’s would be somewhere in the centre of Australia. The day before ‘B day’ we planned what food to carry and where to store the 12L of water we would need for the next leg of our trip in 37C of unrelenting heat. I was also trying to come up with some kind of resemblance to a surprise party for Kat. It was hard. Luckily, we had been held up by one day in Coober Pedy with strong headwinds and soaring temperatures. I booked us into an underground youth hostel for the night, at least the day before Kat’s birthday would be pleasantly cool and possibly romantic? We went out for pizza too, a big treat for us, it was lovely – John’s in Coober Pedy, its won awards!

Eating at John's - but it ain't quite Mama's

We were glad we spent the night 6.5m underground. It was cool and we had a great sleep. Kat’s Australian birthday wouldn’t start as she might have dreamed with a champagne breakfast in a hot air balloon over Uluru or a lie-in at a boutique hotel. All I could manage was a Happy Birthday banner duct-taped to the wall of our underground room, a single pink balloon and a Kit-Kat chunky. Before all the women in my family gasp with horror – this picture was taken at 4:30am, and the whole ‘party’ arranged while Kat nipped to the bathroom. It was so pathetic, for all the secret planning it took. I promise a proper celebration another time my darling – you certainly deserve it!

Surprise!

Banner swiftly taken down, bags packed and bike loaded by dawn, we leave Coober Pedy, balloon strapped to the trailer. I have a musical candle, a couple of sparklers and a packet of party hats and a bag of sweets hidden in my bag. It is my hope that when we camp in the bush I can put on another sad little party. But by 11am we have already reached 75km and the rest area where we can get our water to camp. We have a couple of cookies and look at each other – we might not have to camp in the bush. If we push it we could make it to Cadney Homestead, the next roadhouse. I like roadhouses but love the bush, Kat likes the bush, but loves roadhouses! With a nod we set off straight away – a roadhouse birthday – we cycled our little hearts out.
We arrived faces beaming, 155km on your birthday isn’t bad! Happy Hour just started! We lean the bike up covered in dust and grime, worn out and thirsty. We walk past a group of blokes, who look at us oddly, but we have little time for small talk – ‘two cold ones thanks’. Perhaps enamoured by our single-mindedness to get a beer, Buddha, Darren, Clinton and Rod welcome us to their group. They are coarse, brash and wonderfully entertaining – but then that’s what you get from a group of guys who travel to a backwater roadhouse to spend their weekend! Beers and a birthday cake too – thank you boys, you really helped make my wife’s day!

Buddha and the Boys

Missing home and putting on a brave face. A year older, but lighting up the room more than ever. x

More Wildlife

One of the treats of riding a bicycle through this land is getting up close to the wildlife. While we have seen fewer kangaroos recently our new favourite spots are emus and wedge tail eagles. These birds are both huge. The eagle’s wings can be over 2m across as they soar above us or take flight as we disturb them eating some unfortunate road kill; the emus really do look like you could ride them – if only I could catch one!

Eagle circles - hoping we may not make it to the next roadhouse

Creeping up on some emus

Come here you pesky bush chook! Where's Rod when you need him.

Meeting some baby emus - it's their dads who bring them up apparently

Roadhouses

A roadhouse in the outback is a strange place – on the face of it little more than a petrol station in the middle of nowhere that serves food, beer and a few random groceries at a highly inflated price. But they have a magic. Run by characters who often have legendry status on the road – Woody’s Road House, Spud’s or Stuarts Well – home of Jim’s singing Dingo. And of course they are legends. They have created a tiny oasis at spots on an endless road, given a piece of dirt a personality, created communities out of places that happen to be where petrol tanks are running low. Truck drivers (the seen-it-all-before regulars), the tourists (wondering where the hell they are), the locals (where do they come from?), the staff (only a certain type of person chooses to work 500km from the nearest town) and the two grubby pommie idiots arriving on a bloody bicycle – there is always a hubbub of activity at a roadhouse day and night. We both like people watching and haven’t we seen a few we won’t forget!

Civilisation after a few days bush...

Spud's - not quite the oasis I had led Kat to believe was at the end of our first leg into the outback.

It's the care and pride that goes into these roadhouse stops that touches us. 'I wonder if they will have freshly cut flowers in the toilets?'

Birthday Roadhouse!

Jim with Dinky the singing Dingo at Stuarts Well - We can say no more...

Alice Springs and the Northern Territory

Our final Australian state - the final frontier?

The Alice! - calm down, only the middle Steve.

Well, we have made it to Alice Springs, not quite the rest stop we were expecting – what a town, with a lot for the anthropologist in us to digest. I will leave tales of The Alice for another day. The long road still stretches on ahead of us. Darwin feels like it must be around the corner, but there are 1500km to go! We have never felt so far from the sea. It is warming up too. 38c again today, sometimes we wonder if there may be an easier way to travel the world…

Kat with a food parcel we have sent to ourselves at a roadhouse

A shoe tree - they're a different sort of folk out here

The highway

Kat pauses to take it all in

Kat is more frequently giving me the ‘where the hell are we?!’ look – I don’t have an answer, but we somehow got here on our little green bike.

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The sun is finally out!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Steve

The first big town we cycled into after the Great Ocean Road was Warrnambool. As we rode in we kept our eyes peeled for migrating whales but unfortunately we didn’t spot one. We did however spot a broken spoke. A broken spoke is not so much of a problem in itself but as we had only been riding on the new wheel for less than a week we were concerned that just replacing it would not address a possible underlying problem with how the wheel had been built. As it was a Saturday we had just missed the bicycle shop before it closed but as we were anxious not to put the new rim under any undue pressure in case the wheel wasn’t quite right we decided to stop there until the shop reopened on the Monday.
We found a brilliant campsite, Figtree Holiday Village, run by Diane and Hugh who gave us a much appreciated discount when we explained what we were doing. We enjoyed whiling away our time in their indoor swimming pool and eased our aching cycling muscles in the spa pool but despite all this, Steve and I felt a little lost as we just wanted to keep on cycling and felt frustrated at having to have unplanned days off. On the Monday we took the bike to the shop to ask their opinion. They were of the view that the spokes had not been laced properly or tightly enough and in order to remedy that they would have to rebuild the wheel again. They talked of their years of experience and said they were confident that we shouldn’t have any more problems once they were done with it. We felt we had little choice but to get the wheel rebuilt for the fifth time. Despite it eating into our already tight budget, we felt it was worth the investment to prevent causing damage to our wheel components. We also felt reassured by the bike shops confidence so we agreed to yet another wheel rebuild.
On the morning we left Warrnambool Diane slipped me a little package. The previous night we had been chatting with her about whilst we might be more mature now than if doing this when in our late teens/early twenties, we had grown accustomed to a certain way of living. We said that for example it had been hard to get used to not just popping into a café for a coffee when in our normal lives we would never have given it a second thought. In this little package Diane had generously given us some coffee money. Well, at the first opportunity we could we had a coffee. But to maximise value for money we went to a place where you could get a refillable coffee which included cappuccinos. Steve and I couldn’t believe our luck and as the rain was pouring outside we spent a couple of hours over not one, not two but three delicious cappuccinos each. Boy, I can tell you we were absolutely buzzing with all that caffeine running around our bodies. Thank you Diane!

High as kites on caffeine

As we cycled on towards the border of Victoria and South Australia, we smelt something rotten in the air and then saw the macabre sight of a fence strung up with about 30 dead foxes. We weren’t sure what that was all about. Maybe it was to warn off other foxes but we weren’t going to hang around to find out. Then about one kilometre further down the road there was a fence strung up with hundreds of pairs of shoes. Maybe this was to warn off trespassers but again we weren’t going to hang around to find out!

Fox-proof fence

Human-proof fence?

As we got even closer to the border we saw a much more pleasant sight of emus venturing out of the pine forests that enveloped both sides of the road. As soon as they spotted us they made a dash back into the woods with their tail feathers swishing even more flamboyantly than Rod Hull’s emu.

Entertaining emus

Another state crossing

South Australia is apparently Australia’s driest state but it seems not when the Tandem Turners are in town. Due to gales, which of course weren’t tailwinds, and heavy rain we were forced to have another day off in Mount Gambier as there seemed little point in wasting energy and depleting morale but not getting very far. Again we were frustrated that despite feeling strong and wanting to get on we were forced to stop. However once we got going and began to cycle along the Limestone Coast the sun eventually began to shine. At last we could get our legs and arms out and cycling felt a whole lot more comfortable. The Limestone Coast also happened to be pleasantly flat so we cruised along in style, although we did have to keep out of the way of giant lobsters.

A tasty looking lobster

Steve enjoying having his legs out

A quiet lunch spot at a disused railway station

One evening we arrived at a sleepy place called Kingston SE. It seemed the sort of place you could leave your door unlocked and everybody gave us a cheery ‘G,day’. At the campsite we interrupted the manager chatting to another guy. He said they were just talking about the local gossip and Steve laughed when he said ‘I can’t imagine there being a lot to gossip about here.’ That evening we got chatting to a lady who lived in a caravan on the site and it turns out that there is a lot to gossip about in Kingston SE. She told us the night before some contractor workers who were renting the cabins got into a fight with some local guys at the pub. At about two in the morning these local lads came to the campsite and began jumping on the roof of the caravan next to hers. She said she could hear the roof crunching under their feet and she sat terrified in her caravan as she saw them go past her window wearing white sheets over their heads. She was nervous they would come back that night. When we saw the contractor workers were still there we got a bit nervous too that the locals would come back for round two. Steve said he would just have to go out and reason with them if they did. I was extremely glad it turned out to be a quiet night as I am not sure you could reason with those sort of people!
Whilst we cooked our dinner we overheard the contractor workers talking about the events of the previous evening. There must have been about 15 of them and they kept to themselves as they cooked on the barbeque next to ours. Steve and I were curious about their conversations and the dynamics between them. One of the older guys, who must have been the boss, was explaining to one of the younger guys in a very serious manner about the values of working in the team. He called themselves a gang and he said that they were exactly like the army. Steve and I chuckled to ourselves about the boss’ self-importance and how really their job is nothing like being in the army! There was one lady with the group. After a few beers she obviously wanted to get a bit fruity with the boss man as I overheard her explaining to him that tomato ketchup was an aphrodisiac as she squirted a considerable amount onto his burger. Now there is a chat up line if ever I’ve heard one!
After a fun evening at the expense of the contractor workers we hit the road and we began to cycle alongside the Coorong National Park. This is a huge lagoon and a breeding ground for lots of wild birds. It was a beautiful day and we saw huge flocks of smiley pelicans gliding surprisingly gracefully in the blue skies above us. With not another town for about 155 kilometres, apart from a roadhouse halfway, we were using this as an opportunity to train for when we reach the Outback. The roads were long and flat and we were loving it. We also enjoyed the amusing signs, although I couldn’t understand why Steve laughed so much when I said I didn’t think the third one was as good as the others – Don’t drive like a rooster?!

A road that goes on as far as the eye can see

 

After about 90 kilometres we reached a roadhouse at a place called Salt Creek where you could camp. For the fees they were charging, the facilities were very poor – just extremely tired looking showers and toilets and no kitchen or shelter to cook and wash-up in. As we were having such a great day’s cycling, we decided to push on for another ten kilometres to where we heard there was a campsite that had closed down so we could probably camp for free. It wasn’t to be as three kilometres on we heard a dreaded noise. We looked at the back wheel and three spokes had broken at once. Bearing in mind we had not even been on the road for a week since having the wheel rebuilt and we had been on the flattest, best sealed roads we had ever been on we were annoyed. So very annoyed. We only had four spare spokes and we couldn’t risk cycling on with three broken spokes so we had to walk the bike back to the grimy Salt Creek camp spot.
That night, as Steve fixed the spokes, morale was the lowest it had been. I thought I would get a shower to wash away my frustration but when on first glance the showers had just looked tired, when I looked more closely there were huge chunks of hair all over the floor. I looked in the bin and somebody had obviously given themselves a haircut as there was a pile of long brown hair. It was like one of those movies where a person on the run cuts and dyes their hair to outsmart the cops. Salt Creek began to take on an eerie aura. I poked my head into the men’s shower and toilet block but the smell made me quickly retreat. I thought better of having a shower that night.
The next morning Steve rang the bike shop to explain that we weren’t happy that not even a week had gone past before the spokes had broken and to ask if as a gesture of goodwill they would refund the labour. Their answer was no and that it wasn’t possible to complete the trip we had planned on the bike that we had. We know for sure it can be done on this bike as we have read lots of accounts of people cycling thousands of kilometres on it and whilst the bike shop was entitled to its opinion it was funny that they didn’t say that when they convinced us we needed the wheel rebuilt and took our money. This was on top of the experience we had after we had had our wheel rebuilt for the third time with a brand new rim. It had not even lasted a week before the rim failed. When we called that bike shop they agreed it shouldn’t have only lasted a week and blamed it on a defect in the rim. We talked to the rim manufacturer and they also agreed that the rim should not have lasted only a week but they blamed it on the way the bike mechanic had built the wheel. As each side was blaming the other we didn’t get anywhere or any money back. Despite it not being our fault we were the ones out of pocket.

Salt Creek and a frustrating call to the bike shop

Steve and I spent a long time discussing what to do about the bike and whether we should just end our adventure. We didn’t want to as physically we know we can do this but we saw little reason to continue to throw good money after bad if the bike was just not going to make it. If we were going to be spending huge sums of money on something I wanted it to be lavish meals at swanky restaurants and partying, not handing it to bike mechanic after bike mechanic whilst we ate more and more basic food. I felt like we just kept taking huge wads of dollar bills from the cash machine and then flushing them down the toilet.
The first four months of this trip have been so hard as we have cycled through gallons of rain and waves of gales. My feet felt like they were constantly soaked and at times I wanted to give up so much so that I could enjoy a beer and good company with friends or the warmth of a fire or a Sunday roast at mum’s or a belly-aching laugh with my brother or a family knees up in Plymouth and dare I say it, even working in a dry office felt appealing. If we were ever going to give up it would of been then. But we didn’t, we kept on going in spite of it all. ‘Steve’, I declared ‘there is no way that I am bleeding well giving up now after going through all of that just when we are getting closer to better weather and cheaper countries where we can finally live like kings.’ And that was that; no more talk of giving up just because we were having a few problems with the bike. We want to do this for ourselves but also for Practical Action and the people who have donated to their work, and everybody we have met en route who have been so kind to us and everybody back at home who have given us all sorts of support. We were, and are, more determined than ever to cycle back to the UK with our heads held high rather than arriving in Gatwick by plane crestfallen.
So having decided that, we asked Steve’s dad to ring us when he could. He did so late that night. We explained our frustrations and how alone we felt being in the middle of nowhere with nobody to guide us as to what was the right thing to do and who to trust the bike with to get it in good working order. An hour later our mobile rang. It was the people at Thorn who had built our bike. What a difference that conversation made. Thorn took charge of the situation and explained what the problem was, how to get it fixed and that they would be sending us all the components for a brand new back wheel, free of charge, to Adelaide straight away. On reflection we can see now that we should have called Thorn much earlier and had confidence in the craft of their bike rather than listening to bike mechanics who have little experience in touring tandems and the very specific problems that can occur with them. We guess that is all part of the experience and to know that Thorn are there with us every pedal of the way and are experts in this field has been a huge relief.
En route to Adelaide we felt better about things and could once again enjoy the scenery with beautiful sunsets on Lake Albert at Meningie.

Sunset over Lake Albert

A scene that made us forget about bike troubles

In Strathalbyn we had a lovely evening enjoying the company of three guys who were staying on the campsite whilst they worked on the power lines around the area. They had us laughing the whole evening and they could not give us enough delicious food for the next day. Everything they had they kept saying we could have that, we could have that. They were very generous and we even accepted an enormous bag full of oranges that must have weighed in excess of five kilos. When cycling the unavoidable hills to Adelaide we did think maybe we should have drawn the line there as we dragged this orange juice up higher and higher. We haven’t had a cold though!
We made it to Adelaide; another milestone. We spent six nights there whilst we waited for our back wheel to be rebuilt for what we hope will be the final time and planned our trip up through ‘the guts’ of Australia. Steve also perfected his Turner Burger.

The artist at work

And his masterpiece. What a gut-buster!

The bike shop there did a thorough service to the bike but unfortunately they did drop the bike which caused a dent to the frame. The mechanics were clearly mortified by their mistake and accidents do happen. They said they pride themselves on good customer service and so gave us our service for free which we were grateful for. Once again Steve had another chat with Thorn to seek advice about the dent in the frame and the possible problems that may arise due to it. Once again we felt relieved having Thorn to support and advise us.
Since leaving Adelaide the bike has been running well. We have taken the inland route towards Port Augusta and have cycled through some beautiful old pioneer towns where it seems that time has stopped since the late 1800s. The old general stores have a thick film of dust and you can imagine the hustle and bustle of these towns when they were first established.

The general store in Georgetown

A world record to inspire us

At the places we have stopped we have been lucky to meet some very generous people. Gary in Gawler lit up our faces when he gave us two huge tasty steaks to cook for our dinner. Mark and his wife in Clare gave us a bottle of red wine which went down very nicely. The campsite in Clare donated the campsite fees to Practical Action. The Manns, Cartwrights and Schultzes we met in a rest area near Gulnare gave us some money to donate to Practical Action and a couple at the campsite in Laura lent us their phone so we could phone around previous camp spots to find out where we had left our mobile behind.
We have been getting more and more excited as we can see that we are heading towards Outback country. We have cycled through the beautiful Flinders Ranges where all the spring flowers are blossoming and the earth is beginning to turn to red dust. Having reached the top of the Flinders Ranges at Horrocks Pass we were rewarded with a spectacular view for miles and miles, all of which we will be cycling shortly.

Spring has sprung

The other side of the Flinders Range

We have arrived in Port Augusta and we are going to spend a day here just getting our final bits until we head into the unknown of the Outback. This includes getting a new tent as we have fixed the poles so many times on the one we have that it is barely standing up. We are so excited about the Outback and just to reassure our mums we know exactly where we can get water, we will be carrying plenty with us for emergencies, we’ve got plenty of dried food, we are going to stick to the main road and as it is spring it won’t be as hot. In addition to this, we are at a campsite in Port Augusta which is packed full of campers and caravans who are all going to be heading in the same direction as us. We are making lots of friends so that if they pass us they can top up our water supplies. If you don’t hear from us for a while it is because we’ve gone bush but we are sure we’ll have plenty of tales to tell.
Finally, we just have to say that the hardest thing about being on the road is missing so many wonderful events in our friends’ lives. We miss you so much and think of you all the time. We wish we could say these things in person and we will when we get back.