The adventures begin

Hello friends! This is where you can follow my adventures as I travel around various bits of Australia on my trusty two-wheeled companion, Wren. But before we get into the adventures themselves, I suppose a bit more about this whole venture is in order.

Who? Just me and a bike and the many friends we will no doubt make along the way.

Doing what? Cycling, wwoofing, learning, sitting, eating, sleeping, playing, singing, exchanging, exploring...

Where? Well I'm starting in Sydney and headed north. Then following my nose- who knows what delicious places I will stumble upon.

How? Slowly. While this is certainly a relative thing, it is more about a frame of mind. I'm not interested in setting any records, or having an impressive average km per day. I want to go my own pace, zig-zag and back track and loop the loop. I want to have the freedom to stay a while in places I like and be open to opportunities as they arise. I want to go down tempting side-roads so often rushed past in the obsession with Getting There. Or to put it another way, I want to go fast enough to get places and slowly enough to see the birds.

Why? In a flurry of night-before preparations and anticipation, tiny nervous voices are asking the same question. And so the much louder excited voices remind me of the many reasons:

• Because I've been telling too many people my plans to 'cycle for a year' for too long and am too proud to back out now!
• Because I believe there has to be a more satisfying way of travelling than whizzing around on huge jets and waiting for your soul and body-clock to catch up. Not to mention a less carbon-intense way.
• Because cycling makes me happy!
• Because Australia is amazing and diverse and heart-achingly beautiful, and has so much to teach me.
• Birds!
• Because after cycling Melbourne to Sydney with the Otesha Project, cycling for sustainability (www.otesha.org.au), I've well and truly caught the cycle touring bug.

There are many more,but I'll leave it at that for now, I'll save my words for the actual adventure.

Oh but one final word to whoever may happen to be reading this. If you know someone I should meet, or are someone I should meet, or have a favourite part of the world or any other little tips about where I am going (eg. for now the coast from Sydney to Brisbane)- get in touch!

And for anyone interested in using the postal system (another slow and wonderful thing) to send me news, love and poems, each time I'll post I'll list a couple of towns on my itinerary for the next couple of weeks.

Thanks to all who came to my farewell picnic this evening (on a hill in Sydney park, with a view of the city lights, sunset and huge smoke plume from a bushfire, it was quite a location), and to the moblong crew for giving me a home for the past month. There is so much happening in this city, and so many wonderful friends, it is a bit hard to tear myself away. But the open road calls, and I look forward to leaving the honking peak-hour traffic a mere memory.