June 7, 2011  Culcairn - Henty Today we woke up to the usual morning on tour, tired, sore, and frantic trying to clean and pack our belongings before any teachers arrived to the staff lounge.  We had a slightly slower moving morning because a few members are feeling sick. We got out and headed to the cafe in the center of town. We had some coffee, pasties, and donuts as a second breakfast, and some indulged in some morning reading.  My group headed out first, and it was a nice and easy ride to Henty, which was a mere 16 km away.  Today's high temperature was 11 degrees, and we began our ride it must have been around 7 degrees. When we arrived at the Uniting Church, we were warmly greeted by Graham who gave us a great introduction to the city and the way of life in a small country town.  We ate our lunch that was prepared the night before, and huddled around a heater, watching our breath turn into fog.  We made some progress on the new scene that we want to add into the play.  We had a meeting to talk about the rest of the tour that we have left, and realized that we only have 2 weeks left until we are finished. The tensions were running a little high, and then the dance teacher came in to teach some hip hop dancing.  We moved to the kitchen and continued the meeting, till it got to very high tensions. At that moment, Graham opened the door and was ready to generously ready to take us to his house to let us take some showers. More than half the people took the offer and I decided to take a walk with Vanessa and Emily. We had a great walk and got to see a bit of the town. We found ourselves being followed by friendly little dogs all over.  It started raining so we started heading back to the church, and shortly after we entered the building it started down pouring with vertical rain. The street looked like a river. Shortly after, the amazing women of Henty started showing up bringing us wonderful gifts of food. It is incredible. They brought us apple pie, pumpkin soups, vegetarian quiches, sandwiches, juice, etc. We then found out that the refrigerator was filled and it was all for us! What an amazing gift.  They asked for nothing and barely stayed long enough to say thank you. Over the delicious egg and cheese sandwiches, a game of scrabble commenced, and smiles and laughs rang out. What started as a very tense evening with negative feelings almost exploding out, it turned into a night of sharing  and enjoying each other's company and remembering that we are a family all on a journey individually, but more importantly an adventure together. The love of the family shone through, and nights like these make me remember why I came on tour.  It makes me sad to think that the tour is nearing its end, but I know that these memories will stay in my mind as some of the best experiences of my life to date.  M X Thursday 9th June 2011 - Henty to Wagga Wagga The most important job of The Stage Manager is to not only wake people up but coax them out of their warm sleeping bags and into the chilly morning air. Given the reluctance of parting with sleeping bags this has become quite a creative activity. My technique of turn on the lights and 'it's time to get up' bark of the morning before was in stark contrast to this morning's strategy of hand delivered hot tea in bed by Alison. The cup of steaming sweet tea was gleefully and gratefully accepted by every snoozer and earned Alison best 'waking up and getting out of bed' strategy to date. Post gear pack up (some always much quicker than others, another area I'm in need of improvement) we gobbled down Inca's incredible barley porridge adding milk, honey, apples and LSA to the delicious concoction. Eating time transforms us into seagulls, swarming, squawking and smothering each other to get to the food, lucky for us every town has been so generous with food donations no one's gone without. In fact, to take the animal analogy a little further, we're like Labs that just don't know when to stop eating. Lucky for us we had a 65km ride ahead of us. Grabbing our lunch boxes overflowing with our baked sweet potato, spicy dhal, raw broccoli and coconut cake, Nyssa and I set off to find some chooks to donate our food scraps to. Graham had pointed out some willing chooks the night before, so convinced I knew the way, I took Nyssa on somewhat of a wild goose chase - getting lost in one street town is a special talent of mine. Not finding the said chooks we went next door where our scraps were gratefully accepted. And so, chooks and cyclists fed, church hall cleaned, Nyssa, Michael (with trailer in tow) and I set off into a spectacular day. Clear skies, a tail wind and magnificent sunshine - we were in heaven. We coasted off settling on 30km an hour, a luxury we don't normally have when travelling in larger groups. Inquisitive cows trotted along beside us, making their way to the fence to gaze at these strange things rolling down the road covered in bright colors and whooping away. The sheep, freaked out by the sight of us, took to the fields, their little white lambs bounding after them. Nyssa and I cooed and ahhed and Nyssa declared that she would never eat lamb again. Watch this space for updates on that one!   We reached The Rock in record time; a place of mystery that had fascinated the tour planners. In the months leading up to our trip Michael, Nyssa, Emily, Kate and I frequently concocted stories about The Rock. The stand out, crafted by Nyssa and Emily, involved 'my future husband' hang gliding down from the top of The Rock into town and sweeping me off my bike. We took photos at the sign welcoming us to the town and cast our eyes to the skies for the hang glider. A single eagle soared by, it seemed the girls were a little off with their prophecy. So instead of being whisked away we enjoyed our delicious lunch in the sun in the middle of the single street town and, without a school to perform to,  headed back out to the highway to continue our ride to Wagga Wagga. And what a stunning ride it was. Unfortunately not far down the road my gears failed. Placing chain back on we were lucky that it was mostly flat with some awesome down hills coming into Wagga Wagga. I certainly would not recommend riding single speed on an Otesha tour! But with legs flailing on the down hills, and a smile spread across my face we flew along in the sunshine. Randomly, a white car stopped ahead of us, and a man with a camera and massive lens hopped out and started snapping us as we rode by. We gave an Otesha wave and continued on, agreeing that it must be a photographer from the local paper. Two kilometers later there was our friend, waiting for us half way down the hill. We stopped and he said that he was from The Daily Telegraph. After answering a few questions we departed with the promise a journalist would call the next day and we'd be in the paper on Saturday. Yay! (And yes there was Nyssa on Saturday, waving out to readers with an article attached. Michael and I made it into Monday's paper, smiling, rolling down the hill.) Coasting into Wagga Wagga in record time we headed straight to the local bike shop, Morgan St Cycles, and were greeted by friendly Rob. For the next three hours Rob donated his time to fix not only my bike, but Josh's too, who cycled in a couple of hours later after catching the train into town with broken spokes. What a generous guy! At the end of the day we'd made an awesome new friend; and a true community minded person. This is something that we keep experiencing time after time. People who donate time and goods to help us out, not wanting anything in return but to power us on to continue work that they believe is valuable, not just for their community but for young people all over Australia. A huge thank you goes out to Rob. So if you're in Wagga Wagga and need a bike or a repair job Rob's your guy! Next stop, more amazingly generous people! Kate, Michael, Josh and I headed out from Morgan St Cycles to seek food donations. Coasting down the footpath (it's legal to ride on the footpath in NSW, yay!) Kate shrieked us to a stop, having spotted a sign declaring The Red Pomegranate Organic Food Store. Lucky for us Peter and his partner, were just about to shut up shop. Turns out they knew the kind people we were staying with for the next few nights. After explaining what we were all about the Lonsdale's gave us a huge box of vegies and fruit to make dinner with and snack on. So with food distributed amongst our packed panniers we headed off to meet Steve and Bernadette. Thanks to Michael for tracking down two wonderful, genuine, amazing people. Steve and Bernadette, not knowing too much about us, opened their house and their hearts to eleven Oteshaites. Steve and Bernadette have two adorable boys who we spent lots of time drawing and playing with. We shared dinner and listened to Steve and Bernadette tell us about how they had made their house sustainable. In small ways they have saved energy, water, and as inspiring people, were invited to open their house to the public during Sustainable House week. What a lovely family! After a big ride, scrumptious soup cooked by Nyssa, Rahkel, Michael and Em, and a quick standing meeting about our performance the next day we fell into our sleeping bags and mats exhausted. Vanessa Friday 10th June, 2011, Wagga Wagga Most performances during our Otesha journey are somewhat predictable, yet our visit to Mount Austin Secondary was a wonderful surprise. We were warned that students from this school might have some 'behavioral problems', however the individuals we spoke to were articulate intelligent  youth doing amazing things within their schools and communities. After the performance question time ran well into recess, which is always a good sign! By then it was time for Michael and I (and students Matika and Elizabeth) to step up and do our first television interview for channel 7 news! So exciting. Alana (head of the schools Indigenous group) led us into the upstairs cultural office for morning tea of cakes and rolls and entertained us with her lively persona. Alana then showed us into the Indigenous Studies space which had beautiful murals of serpents and animals painted over the walls. Josh impressed everyone with his didgeridoo skills, a talent he has kept hidden until now! And we got to work on scripting our new E-Waste scene. I can safely say that we now have the makings of a wonderful new scene. Hurrah! In the evening 11 eager Oteshans and our lovely hosts sat around the TV waiting for our elusive prime time TV appearance. Squeals of delight rang in the living room as we watched ourselves on the big screen. Although we are now all seasoned Media stars, it certainly hasn't grown old! Later on we feasted on a delicious soup and salad. And settled in for a movie marathon with Gabrielle and Oliver, with Oliver's delicious coconut popcorn. What a wonderful day! Sun 12 - Wagga to Junee Oteshans are very good at spreading the contents of their panniers everywhere. In each space we go to we create a pig sty. Waking up to an otesha explosion of possessions is hard enough on any given day. Its is, however, a lot harder when the Oteshans have been out all night dancing and getting up to mischief the night before! Our new friends Andy and Damo who were joining us for a leg of the tour looked on in awe at the chaos we had created and were trying to fix. I dont think either of them thought they would ever make the ride from Wagga to Junee. I remember one of them commenting that we probably should have been better at this after 6 weeks of practice together! Eventually we did hit the road and had a glorious sunny ride along the beautiful countryside. I did regret the number of beverages I consumed the night before when I was half way up one of the longest hills of the tour towing the trailer behind me. But all was forgotten when we got to the church hall and lay with our sleeping bags in the sunshine on the lawn. Glorious We entertained Damo, Andy and Rob, the friend that Josh picked up at IGA at a big communal dinner party. We came to the realisation that we are sometimes pretty weird as a group and resemble  a family of home schooled kids who do not quite get the outside world. A wonderful evening was had by all, but none more so than Vanessa.....I might leave her to explain that one. Nyssa x Mon 13 - Junee to Cootamundra (Liz) or 'the curse of the French monkey and Hercules  cements the legend' This day we ate a delicious "beefed up" brekkie of spinach, mushroom, eggs and bean, to prepare us for our 70ish K ride. Rahkel, Alison and I teamed up with Kate on trailer duties. We had a bit of a stop-start kind of morning but we came to quite an abrupt halt when  the French monkey wielded it mischievous hand some 15 K out of Junee. The "French monkey", a plushed monkey with a moustache that Kate had found on the side of the road in like the first week of tour, had recently been promoted from the inside of Alison's pannier to her front rack, where it was perched at the front of the bike like a mermaid at the head of a ship, proudly overseeing the unfolding journey. Perhaps, this cheekymonkey had decided to exact its revenge for having spent some 5 weeks inside a pannier for Alison's front rack snapped and got caught in her wheel,  which bought her to a stop and I, riding her tail pretty closely, ran up her backside letting out a squeal as I ran into her. With front panniers sprawling and no foreseeable way to fix the rack  - Alison's response said it all when she exclaimed - I zinc dis is very shit' After repacking front panniers to the trailer, yet more weight for Kate to "beef" and scalding the monkey we were back on the road. It was steady progress from then on until lunch, Rahkel bought my attention to all the lines - all the lines, the railway that we rode alongside, the telegraph line, the lines of the fence paddock, the line of the freshly ploughed fields., line vertical and horizontal in all directions. We stopped for lunch and made friends with the local bethungra Rahkel did an absolutely amazing job and powered over hill after hill consistently, proving again that she really is Hercules in the body of a 20 year old woman. Tues 14 - Cootamundra to Harden (Kate) We awoke bright and early with the specific plan to fully rehearse the E-Waste scene first thing in the morn! Especially as we only had  one school bookings to go and really wanted to incorporate the scene into the play!  All was going according to plan, with packing and breakfasting right on schedule. But we had not considered that people would also want to use the space we were in bright and early!! So we vacated and started our rehearsal outside in the frost covered back garden of the lovely little church. This worked for about 5 minutes, until people started complaining about not being able to feel their toes! So we decided to reconvene in the local library following a warming cup of coffee at the local cafe. We intensely rehearsed in the back of the cafe our bit of the scene, much to the confusion of the other cafe patrons! (They must have really wondered why we were talking so much about elephant pooh!) The ladies at the Cootamundra library were so generous in allowing us all to use the internet for minimal cost and actually donated $20 to us to use for the cost of the internet. Thanks ladies. We all went about our separate planning tasks for the next stage of the trip, goggling, phoning and emailing as much as we could in the small amount of time we had allocated. Midday was suddenly upon us without warning (where did the morning go?!) and it was once again time to go on our merry way. Onward and upward it was to be, as the journey was mostly uphill for the entire 50 kms. And they were big almost never ending hills. I spent most of the time repeating ' I think I can I think I can' especially when the strong head wind decided to stick around for a few hours. We stopped for lunch at the halfway point in a lovely rotunda and managed to eat all our food within 5 minutes and possibly without taking a breath! The second group caught up to us and we all chatted and then left at around the same time. Hoping that the increase in numbers would increase group moral and see us safely to Harden. Well, the first 30 seconds of the second half of the journey consisted of riding out of the rest area to the foot of what looked like the biggest and longest hill so far. It had to be 45 degrees and about 1 km long - at least! And with a belly full of lunch and a head wind in our faces - we managed to somehow make our way to the top, to come upon yet - another one! Joy! :-( Let's just say, I don't like hills very much, or head winds, or the cold and with a triple combo deal on this ride it was in my mind the hardest one so far.  I was so fortunate to have the support from some amazing hill loving crew members, who took them on twice sometimes to make sure we all made it safely to Harden. Arriving at close to sunset in Harden I saw the sign for Devonshire Tea at the Which Craft Cafe and made a bee-line to warm food and drinks, without even thinking about it. The ride had been so intense, cold, windy, and hilly and the longest so far - only scones with layers and layers of jam and cream would be able to fix me! Luckily we had the support of the wonderful and generous Zita, The Principal from the local Primary School, and were given access to warm showers, extra padding for sleeping on and a room full of hand painted animal themed giant xylophones to play with. What a perfect combination! Kate     Thursday 16th June 2011 - Harden to Yass I woke up on Thursday morning, like I do most mornings, cocooned in my sleeping bag next to some of my favourite people in the world.  After getting dressed within my sleeping bag and packing my panniers I was off to the kitchen to stir the barley porridge which I had cooked the night before and Nyssa had put on the stove to heat up. By the time we'd all eaten (a lot) and gotten our things together, school was starting and the kids were keen to check out our bikes - I showed off my dynamo lighting system and we demonstrated how we carry everything we need for 2 months on our bike before a student brought our attention to his two flat tires. Not wanted to see anybody without a rideable bicycle, the Otesha crew jumped to the rescue and Alex and Nyssa took both the wheels of and went over them, patching the tubes just like we would to our own bikes. Alex, Michael and I rode together and despite the fact that it was the longest and hilliest ride of the tour I will probably remember it as my favourite. The hills kept coming, they didn't stop. Once you'd beefed* up one in one of your easiest gears, you'd fly down it in one of your hardest gears just to make up some kilometres before beefing it up another hill. The part of the ride that stands out the most for me would be Cootamundra road, a 12km stretch of road that took us from the Burley Griffin Way to the Hume. The area around the road was lush and alive with birds and farm animals and, most importantly, the road was downhill! The three of us laughed and sang and reflected our way down, reaching great speeds while feeling utterly safe on the road and in each other's company. After a quick break at a service station to consume chocolate, hydrate ourselves and de-bug our eyes we arrived in Yass, right in time to collect food donations from a lovely lady at Tanks Bakery (who I'll definitely be re-visiting next time I'm in Yass). After we spent way too long in the supermarket and had a comfy, rejuvenating evening, Em, Vanessa and I made a delicious salad dinner / lunch for the next day. Seriously, you can't believe how sick I am of lentil-vege-mush. Sure it's tasty and cheap, but it'll be a while before I feel like cooking with lentils again. On a final note, some of us read to each from one of our favourite books before falling fast asleep. *I would like to thank Michael for introducing the term "beef" to this long term vegetarian. Fri 17  Yass to Hall (Em) This year's Otesha group is made up of some awesome people. And with some awesome people comes awesome skills. One thing that makes this group so wonderful is the accumulation of a diverse range of skills   that makes this awesome group even more awesome! One skill that we all seem to possess is the ability to 'faff', especially in the morning. From the first week of the ride we derived an estimated time of departure, and nearly every morning we have failed to depart on time. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for these late departure times, for example a flat tyre, lost items and sheer exhaustion from nonstop riding followed by performing followed by riding again and eating and then a little bit of sleep. But this morning we were simply faffing because we are SO good at it. And our lavish family breakfast did not help speed up the process! Nor did I when I decided I wanted to line my tyres with an extra tube! (But I didn't get a flat!!!) So finally, we were all on the way. 40 km which compared to our previous riding days was a piece of cake. Yum cake! The day began still and cool with a slight ray of sunshine, shinning through the clouds, which promptly disappeared 5kms down the road. Thus turning the ride into a bitter cold chilly one. And with the gradual decline in gradient it was difficult to keep warm. 

  Sat 18 Hall to Canberra (Alex) I awoke in a large tin shed. I jumped into one of the tents we had set up to find a pile of my Otesha family slowly stirring. There was much to go over from the night before ( you see, we went out for a pub meal and all-round good time at the Wooden Duck Inn to celebrate our arrival in the ACT). We had a good evening and met some of the local villagers (there were quite a few characters!) Anyway, most of the group took the morning off to slowly recover, moseying on down for a drawn out breakfast-turned-into-lunch meal at the local cafe. Meanwhile, Inca, Rahkel, Kate and I were eager to get on our bikes and pedal out the last leg of this journey. It was a mere 15km to Canberra. We all decided to ride on into town in our Sunday best, dresses and all. The ride was a breeze and a myriad of bike paths swiftly carried us into town. Canberra is a dream to ride around in! It is even legal to ride on the footpath here which just goes to show how accommodating the town is of human-powered transport. So we were finally in Canberra. First order of business: coffee. We quickly sought it out. Ah! Amongst a very trendy crowd of people we drank our liquid gold and read the morning paper (N.B. Congratulations to those at the Ethical Consumer Group whose 'Ethical Shopping' iphone ap was lsited in the top 100 phone aps in the paper!) Generally it was a lovely morning, reflecting on how strange it was to finally be where we set out to be...Time sure has flown! I rode around town a bit with Inca (pannier and trailer free!) taking in the sights, visiting the national library as well as catching up with an old friend. At the end of the day we were all reunited back at our home for the evening (Thank you Tonya for letting us stay with you and your family - we are so happy here in your lovely garden and cottage) We spent the evening huddled up in sleeping bags watching a movie on the couch. Simply perfect! A good day off before our final few days began...   Monday 20 'Hands Up For Change' Event  - Canberra (Josh) Today we completed blocking our letters after a massive day of glueing the hands on yesterday with homemade glue. What fun that was! After rehearsing e-waste scenes again because we haven't worked on it since Harden, we rode into the parliament lawns for the culmination of all our effort our date with government. The ride in was great, I felt like I was on a broad street in Beijing and found myself being much more impressed by Canberra as a capital city than I had expected or remembered from childhood visits. After some deliberation with the police (who were fittingly on bicycles) we were given clearance to take photos and video footage of the performance. It turned out that we had requested permission but they had not gotten back to us and the decision was rushed through at the last moment with a green light "hurrah!" we exclaimed as one. However, we weren't permitted to put the signs on the metal railing in front of the lawns, instead we leant the bikes against each other with a pannier as a buffer to make the bikes stand together to spell out the name of our event "Hands up for Change". This was not very stable but we held it together with our octopus straps long enough to hold off the wind. As promised the Greens Senator Scott Ludlam then came out of "the Big House" to speak with us and we sang "We're not Down with Climate Change" specially for him. The senator said that was the nicest thing that would happen to him all day. That made us all feel good and the song had never sounded so wonderful - perhaps it was just singing outside but I like to think we all put in an extra effort because it was our last chance to make it shine.  Scott as I'm casually calling him sat with us in a circle which was great but soon had to leave to return to "the Big House" and his associated duties.  Not before he impressed us with how down to earth and approachable he was. And I should add; he encouraged us to go into parliament and 'run amuck', seek out our local representative and let them know exactly what we were all about. He also assured us that while we may have missed a lot of news and by living in our Otesha bubble, he could completely relate saying "this place is a  bubble as well".  Then we performed the play in the open air to the assembled friends and family who were a small but very supportive audience. We didn't get any media today but we were all very happy to reach the finale of our amazing tour. We also celebrated by giving each hearty pats on the back and rib crouching hugs, for we had succeeded in all our tour goals. We had finally ridden over 1500 KM and performed to thousands  of  kids from 21 schools across regional and rural Victoria and NSW!!!!! WOOOOHHHOOOO!!! What more we virtually rewrote the play into something we feel is more relevant, topical and empowering; and that in itself is an achievement let alone cycling half way across the country as well!  It was great to perform e-waste for the second time and be well received once more, especially from our family, friends and former Otesha crew. After the formal proceedings (that were actually quite informal) were over, we went to the senate and watched Ron Bosnon abuse the government for acting on climate change before the rest of the world (ho hum). The House of Representative saw Bob Katter yelling at the government about an Australian owned company needing exports permitted into Indonesia. Anthony Albanese then managed to stop the motion when all his buddies that had not been listening to the debate miraculously appeared for the vote. They didn't say much but I saw JG (Julia Gillard) sitting with her good friend Greg Combet, K-Rudd ( who was looking very 0 7), and of course the tall gangly bald one (aka, Pete Gaz). What a day, everything's winding up now and there is some sadness and some joy but we're riding on to Sydney after the debrief on Tuesday and Wednesday, sadly minus Kate though (whose off to be reunited with her beautiful fiancé.) I'd say 'until next time' but I guess this is it. So, so long suckers.   Wednesday 22ndJune Last - Day! The road reaches out towards the next town in the violet layers of the setting sun Flocks of black birds, dart in and out of the silhouetted trees, devoid of their leaves by the onset of autumn the mountains crouch like old men on a verandah at the end of the day, content with how life has panned out wise in knowing that what has been done is done, that the future is still, after all these years, unknown. Etched with the beauty of time they observe the sinking sun, the fading light in its technicolour brillance, with the same awe that they might have done sixty years earlier, had they had the time. On the road when the only distraction is the slow descent of the sun and the activity it brings to the air, the future seems a strange place to dwelll, for the present moment, illuminated so brilliantly, with such humbleness, is mesmerising. Vanessa