Blog — Getting Out There

Wildlife rescue

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 16:32:14 +1000

Content warning:

Please note the following post contains descriptions and images of wildlife that have died, and may be distressing.

Whilst riding around the east coast of Tasmania in 2023, Danielle and I were shocked by how bad the roadkill situation is in Tasmania. One of the inexorable truths of bicycle touring in a country such as Australia — lots of crepuscular [crepuscular, adj.
occurring or active during twilight] wildlife in a heavily-automobile-reliant society — meant that we’re quite used to the sight (and smell!) of roadkill as we cycle past, but nothing could have prepared us for the sheer scale of the carnage on Tasmanian roadsides.

We stopped where we could to move the poor little pademelons and wallabies off the road — attempting to provide some shred of dignity of death by preventing the carcass being spread across the tarmac like a grisly condiment — sometimes with logging trucks bearing down on us and no safe place to get off the road we had to grit our teeth and ride on by.

Then one day soon after when driving up the hill to the in-laws’ in Hobart Sandy Bay [Danielle’s parents live in Sandy Bay, a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.] we came across a little cuckoo on the nature strip, obviously in some distress. We got the little guy into a warm safe cardboard box, and took him to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary 30 minutes north of Hobart for care.

A little fire was started in our hearts that day, and when we got back home to Victoria we signed up as volunteers for Wildlife Victoria, a not-for-profit charity working to help wildlife in distress. It took a little while to get a training session¹, but we finally did our Basic Rescue and Transport training in August 2024 with a wonderful fellow volunteer named Grant.

Since that day, we have helped out on countless wildlife calls, for everything from kangaroos, echidnas, magpies, kookaburras, coots, rosellas, ibis, wallabies, possums, green tree frogs, cockatoos, galahs, ravens, lorikeets, swans, blue-tongued lizards, seagulls and ducks.

An Eastern Grey kangaroo joey named Alexander, who we rescued when Mum had to be euthanased.

Alexander, an Eastern Grey kangaroo joey now in care.

A displaced echidna roaming the suburban streets of Ballarat.

An echidna hit by a vehicle south-east of Ballarat. He was taken to Werribee Animal Hospital.

A ringtail possum joey we named Francis.

Another ringtail possum joey that sadly couldn’t survive without Mum.

A seagull chick rescued from the Ballarat Arts Precinct.

A tawny frogmouth hit by a vehicle and found in the front yard of a local property.

A pregnant blue-tongued lizard who was safely returned to habitat.

As we clocked up hours and cases, we’ve been given more advanced training and now we’re able to help macropods, raptors, and reptiles (but not snakes²).

Euthanasia

One of the sad realities of wildlife rescue work, especially with macropods, is the poor survival outcomes of kangaroos and wallabies that are hit by vehicles. If their legs are injured/broken, it is extremely difficult to successfully treat and rehabilitate a grown³ kangaroo. Kangaroos rely on their incredibly powerful lower limbs for everything. Life without them is painful at best, and the most humane course of action in these circumstances is euthanasia. We’ve trained to quickly and humanely end the suffering of these poor creatures — and death is instantaneous — but it is absolutely heart-wrenching each and every time. There is sometimes backlash from uneducated members of the public who might witness it, but I can tell you as someone who loves these creatures and is most times the guy who has to end their pain and feel the pumping of their heart wane with their death: nobody in wildlife rescue would do this unless there was no other option.

Wildlife Victoria is like any charity and can only support so many training sessions a year, and many have a waitlist. ↩︎
Australia has some very dangerous snakes, and although it’s a myth that Australia has the world’s deadliest snakes, one would not want to mess with our local serpentine friends. ↩︎
Grown, as in: not a joey. Even joeys are very difficult to treat for this kind of injury. ↩︎

Dont ever use in HTML... err... Wrong!

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 17:59:06 +1000

If you’ve ever Google’d the humble HTML  tag, and read more than three of the results returned, you’ll have inevitably come across the hordes of self-righteous knobs on StackExchange berating people (especially those new to HTML/CSS) for using the tag. Their reason? It’s semantically-invalid HTML. They. Are. Wrong!

The key to the  tag, or even the  for that matter (but that’s a different post for another day) is that the usage is different than what you might expect…

b is the ~~Boldface~~ Bring Attention To element¹

The  HTML element is used to draw the reader’s attention to the element’s contents, which are not otherwise granted special importance. This was formerly known as the Boldface element, and most browsers still draw the text in boldface. However, you should not use  for styling text or granting importance. If you wish to create boldface text, you should use the CSS font-weight property. If you wish to indicate an element is of special importance, you should use the  element.

That does not necessitate being bold. That is a design decision separate to the semantic one. In days of yore, b meant Boldface. This is where the angst arises, because it is automatically assumed that you’re using  because you’re ignorant of .

I use this tag liberally across my site to mark up any text where I use a brand name, e.g. Google signifies that Google is a brand name, and then I do style it subtly differently (I switch out the serif font for the sans-serif and italicise) but importantly: that does not mean I am using it for that function. All I am doing by adding it to my HTML is saying that this text may need to be marked up as standing somewhat different to its surrounding context. What I do in the stylesheet afterwards is not a determinant of its validity as HTML markup.

My stylesheet declaring that

b.brand { font-family: sans-serif; font-style: italic; }
is purely decorative and has no semantic meaning to the original markup. I might decide one day to not treat brand names any different from the surrounding text, and if I was to remove that stylesheet, my markup would remain perfectly valid. Or I could just remove the font-style: italic style:

b.brand { font-family: sans-serif; font-style: italic; }
Some browsers still render  as bold,  as italicised, but that’s easily solved with a reset style in the root of your stylesheet, and it’s the browser’s fault and problem, not yours.

So the next time you get berated (or find yourself about to do the berating) take a moment to first discern the reason that page is marked up the way it is. Maybe drawing some attention to that element is correct, and you’re merely arguing about the stylistic choices of your fellows.

Definition from mdn web docs ↩︎

Rant:
Why the rant? I use all over the site and some goose had at me about it.

Why caravans are “The Enemy”

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 19:46:09 +1100

Caravans are The Enemy. Let me tell you why…

When my partner Danielle and I are out riding our bikes, we have a few shorthand ways to alert each other to various dangers, some of them obvious — like “truck!” or “dog!” — some of them little in-jokes known only to us:

Roo Fuckers

Massive utes on their way to a B&S Ball (or so they’d have us think!) fitted out with huge curving bullbars, spotlights, and bumper stickers that sport lovely slogans like My other ride is your daughter. The call “Roo Fucker!” alerts us to the presence of a 19-year-old twit on his way back from inhaling nangs after footy training, likely not paying attention (or caring if he does) to cyclists on the road.

Real Estate Agent

Massive utes, all shiny late-model Ford F150s or Raptors driven by R.M. Williams-wearing real estate agents and property developers. See: Roo Fuckers, but with money.

But my favourite, and the one we call out the most, because they are by far the most dangerous:

The Enemy

The Enemy is a bloke [Let’s face it: they’re always blokes!] pulling a huge house-deposit-on-wheels, fitted out with more appliances and creature comforts than his actual fucking house.

Because he either…

Tows this monstrosity to the nearest beach once a year, or

Doesn’t even own the thing but hired it on Camplify

…he has no earthly idea how wide the caravan is in relation to his SUV. So even if he’s a nicer sorta fella and gives the cyclist in front of him 1–1.5 metres of overtaking space, the nimrod has forgotten that the big box behind him can be just over half a metre wider [The maximum width in Australia for a caravan is 2.5m. A large SUV/ute is normally about 1.9m]. He isn’t used to the forces exerted by the 2–4 tonnes he’s towing as he rounds bends, et cetera so he is wobbling all over the place. The kids are screaming in the back seat because the movie screens in the chair headrests have blacked out and little Kayden and Brittanee are now bored shitless at having to engage with the real world without Bluey.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been buzzed very closely by a caravan that didn’t even bother to give me the metre, and I can just about smell the cheap paint as it breezes by.

When the call of “The Enemy” rings out, we pull off the road altogether as we would a logging truck in north Tasmania.

I’d much rather share the road with a 26-metre-long B-Double semi-trailer, because they are driven by somebody who is

trained in how/licensed to drive them

(normally) focused on the road because they’re working

accountable and constantly checked for fatigue, safe load limits, etc.

in the case of an interstater, unwilling to lose their logbook and be forced off the road for weeks, maybe months on end, when a cyclist goes under their wheels, fault or not

but most importantly, they usually know how wide their fucking truck is.

It seems counter-intuitive, and yes trucks are just inherently dangerous and shouldn’t be in the same space as bicycles, but I’ve found the drivers themselves to be as accommodating as they can be. [Perhaps not the Tassie logging trucks, although even then there were many that did their best with a shit road infrastructure.]

“But not all caravanners!”

It’s true, there are some grey nomads who’ve been towing for years and can handle their van better than I handle my loaded bike. Some are Boomers who won’t give the space to a cyclist regardless, but many are just your decent Aussie retiree, not in a hurry so not driving aggressively, just getting around this beautiful country and loving their post-work life. These guys aren’t the target of this rant.

If you’re a proud caravan owner reading this and thinking I’m a flog, that’s OK: Go prove me wrong and be nice to your fellow road warriors, albeit the ones with less wheels.

Caravan “share” services/apps

This absolutely terrifies me and should be heavily regulated. These drivers are even less suitable for towing a caravan than someone who has actually invested some time and money and thus has skin in the game. Nope. Just open the app, a few hundred bucks later, you’re towing four tonnes! I’ve always thought caravans should require a special license like a truck does (it’s mind-boggling that they don’t) but these new services just cement that opinion.

If you want an idea of just how idiotic Australian rules are, just read this passage celebrating our lax regulations over on a caravan sales site:

What that means is that a person in Australia with a car licence can tow anything from a light camper behind a small SUV, to a big braked caravan weighing up to 7000kg, hitched up to a light truck with a GVM of 4495kg, without any special training or qualifications.

Yay! They even go on to tell you that…

Can I enjoy a bevvy while touring around? Yes, although it’s not advisable. Towing a caravan requires more skill and concentration than single-vehicle driving so you want to keep your wits about you at all times. Best wait until you’re all set up for the night before you crack a cold one.

Yes Trevor, that would not be advisable.

Transitioning from Wordpress to Hugo

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 09:52:00 +1100

I have, for the past few years, run a little personal blog on Wordpress called “Getting Out There”. Over the years I’ve hosted it at different hosts and domains, and added to it much the same as one might build extra rooms to a renovated house. I’ve run a little WooCommerce, added GravityForms and custom post types and photos and before you know it, the bloat is very, very real. With that bloat comes more hosting costs, which for a little personal blog that I am certain nobody reads, is unsustainable.

Here’s the catch: I love Wordpress. I’ve developed Wordpress themes from scratch, have built, maintained and then long-forgotten plugins, and have adored how close I was able to blend my loves of back- and front-end web design and development. Some years ago I moved from my own custom theme to one called Impreza, by US Themes. If you need a professional, highly capable and customisable Wordpress theme that just does everything you could possibly need, then Impreza is for you. I have held dozens of licenses for this theme. Adore.

So whilst I recognised the dire need to Marie Kondo my blog [I actually really detest the commercial drive behind the craze that is ~~KonMari~~ ruthlessly throwing things away, just to buy some Scandinavian shit to replace it and make your home look like the ones on Instagram. Maybe another blog post for another day… In the meantime, I’m referring to: https://konmari.com/], I still wanted to keep some flash. Additionally, or perhaps most critically, I love the front- and back-end maintenance of my blog as a pleasure in and of itself: whilst in one way I love that you’re reading this — thank you for honouring me with your presence, Esteemed Guest 🙏 🙇‍♂️ — I truly do not care if anybody reads my blog at all. I like having somewhere to drop my thoughts, collect my adventures, post some photos, and provide a web geek’s playground.

So I started to look at a static site generator (SSG). If you don’t know what a SSG [SSG: static site generator] is, I have two suppositions to make:

You should go Google that.

You may not actually be that interested in this post. You’ve been warned. 😆

I have yet to delve professionally into static site “JAM [JAM: Javascript, API and markup]stacks”, the tech I use at work utilises them but I’ve never configured or set it up myself. I decided to have a crack at Hugo after reading a few subreddits and declaring myself familiar with what Hugo has to offer. I also took a look at a few different frameworks for the CSS [CSS: cascading style sheets], as I decided at the outset not to use a theme. I’m doin’ this meself.

The key criteria I have for the technologies I’ve considered are:

It must be open source.

No cookies or invasions of my readers’ privacy. You’re welcome.

No over-reliance on one particular platform.

For example, I do not want to maintain huge package.json files due to every framework’s answer being:

npm install this-small-two-lines-of-code-plugin

No, I won’t just npm it. First tell me: “Why?!”

Of course, building something “on Hugo and TailwindCSS” means the platform is a key integrated component, but I want to be able to move my content elsewhere when I inevitably bore of Hugo and move to the next thing. I am a fickle bastard.

That said above, no stupid abstractions or religious adherence to DRY [DRY: don't repeat yourself] principles.

Some things in my site are hard-coded and definitely not content-agnostic. Why? It’s easier. I can always re-do the copyright notice in the next site I build.

The answer to every question is not always a huge YAML [YAML: Yet Another Markup Language] file and another layer of the stack.

DRY has kept food on many a developer’s table, much as lawyers adore complainants fighting a case on “the principle of the thing”.

In the end, I decided upon the following:

Hugo to generate the site.

TailwindCSS to generate the CSS.

Gulp to handle the Javascript, SVG [SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics] and any SCSS [SCSS: SASSy cascading style sheets] that isn’t Tailwind.

Git for version control.

One main repository for the site code and logic.

Another repository as a git submodule for the content.

~~Gitea for hosting my git repository.~~ Self-hosting my git repository on an instance of Charm’s Soft Serve.

~~DroneCI for building “production Hugo”.~~ I built a little Raspberry Pi-powered single board computer to build my Hugo site when not at my desk (i.e. on the bike, at work, travelling, etc…).

A DigitalOcean droplet for hosting the files. I’m aware I can use cheaper GitHub Pages et al. but I both don’t mind paying for the occasional bit of hosting and importantly: I may want to add some dynamic elements (such as PHP [PHP: PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor] forms, et cetera) at a later date. No stupid abstractions, remember?

A nice relaxing birthday fishing session

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 20:43:00 +1100

I’m in Brisbane, Queensland for the Matildas vs Nigeria football match on Thursday night, as part of the FIFA [FIFA: Fédération internationale de football association] Women’s World Cup. As today is my birthday I decided to take the day off work and spend it fishing and relaxing in the sunshine. So I packed my light gear and travel rod and hitched a train out to Sandgate, and fished the beach around Shorncliffe and the river inlet into Cabbage Tree Creek.

The sun was shining and I was so warm, even though the locals were all packing the puffer jackets and looking like they were north of the wall 🤣! There was a decent 20 knot wind in my face and the surf was choppy, but I hit up a little rock wall next to the Shorncliffe Pier thinking with the shelter from the wind and the shallow beach it looked like a prime flattie spot, and I was right: caught a nice little 32cm flathead on a soft plastic.

From there I walked around the point and fished along the way, between rocks and surf until fishing from Baxters Jetty where I caught a decent little tailor. I kept walking into the inlet, following around a few yacht clubs until ending at a boat ramp where I had a chat with some locals who hadn’t had any luck for a few weeks.

I called it quits about 15:30 and headed off on the train to Nudgee Cemetery to go visit the grave of my grandmother and uncle and take Nan some flowers.

I then caught up with an old mate from Ballarat who’s living up here now, and we went for a nice birthday dinner at The Plough in Brisbane’s riverside dining district.

All up a nice day fishing and roaming around a new part of the world I hadn’t yet fished = a good way to spend my birthday!

A little flathead caught on the rockwall near Shorncliffe Pier

Walking around the point at Shorncliffe

Walking around the point to Cabbage Tree Creek

A tailor caught at Baxters Jetty

Selfie on Shorncliffe Beach

Rock wall next to Shorncliffe Pier

FIshing the rock wall at Shorncliffe

Melbourne to Brisbane by train for the Matildas

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 15:11:00 +1100

The FIFA [FIFA: Fédération internationale de football association] Women’s World Cup is in full swing and this lucky little bugger has tickets to the Australia vs. Nigeria match in Brisbane on 27 July. To make a real journey out of it, I decided to opt for the overnight express passenger train (XPT) from Melbourne, via Sydney, to Brisbane instead of flying.

I’ve never travelled in a sleeper carriage on the train before. I took the train home from Adelaide in 2019 but that was a day trip. I really wanted to try it and this was the perfect occasion. I had the time to get to Queensland (2 day journey) and I was able to secure a sleeper berth on both services (Melbourne to Sydney; Sydney to Brisbane). I shared the sleeper cabin last night with a young uni student named Damian, who was travelling home having caught the train down to Melbourne a few days earlier. His reason for taking the train was because he really loves trains, and public transport but had never ridden the XPT [XPT: express passenger train] before. He was a nice guy, but quite talkative, especially about his passionate interest in trains 🤣 so considering this week’s trip is partly a bit of respite from caregiving I found it slightly challenging to keep up the chit-chat for the whole journey.

Otherwise the journey was pleasant, relaxing and I really enjoyed it. I watched some Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and read my book [Currently Flawed Hero by Chris Masters, about the Ben Roberts-Smith war crimes defamation case against Masters and Nick McKenzie, who wrote a similar and thrilling-to-read book about the case called Crossing The Line, which I recently finished]. There was a canteen in the middle carriage which served hot drinks and snacks, the staff were all friendly and helpful, and I really felt like my little working holiday had already started before I even get to Queensland.

I’m writing this now sitting at Central Station in Sydney. We left last night at about 20:00, and arrived this morning at 08:00. I had about 6.5 hours to kill before catching the 14:45 to Brisbane, which should get there about 05:00 tomorrow morning.

I left my heavy suitcase at Central in the baggage storage area and roamed down towards Haymarket, and then to the Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre to have a sneaky shower. There are showers in the sleeper carriage of the train, but I wasn’t game last night so opted for the aquatic centre instead, which only cost me $4 entry. It’s a nice little trick Danielle and I often utilise when travelling through towns where we don’t have accommodation, as leisure centres offer a nice hot shower and somewhere to shave for a tiny fraction of the price of a motel room.

Walking out of the aquatic centre a fresh, new man I wandered down towards Darling Harbour and had some breakfast at Adria Bar, which was absolutely awful. The coffee managed to be both bland and burnt, whilst the bacon and eggs weren’t thoroughly cooked but the toast they were sitting on was burnt solid. I wasn’t going to say anything but the bill came to $44, and then the man asked me, so I gave him the brutally honest truth 😂.

From Darling Harbour I walked around to Circular Quay/The Rocks, checked out the George Street markets and then took the train back to Central. I bought myself a birthday cigar at Market City in Haymarket and checked out Paddy’s Market, then headed back to Central Station again and checked my luggage in, sat on the platform for a few hours and just basked in the warm sunshine.

It’s been a fun trip so far. I have a sleeper cabin on both legs of the trip, and although I shared last night I have this leg all to myself (so far: fingers crossed for no late bookings! 🤞).

Arriving in Brisbane, Sunday 23 July

Last night’s journey was far more comfortable. I enjoyed my sleeper cabin all to myself, got some good shuteye, and feel thoroughly relaxed. Of course the extra time in the journey is always going to be a factor, but I would elect to travel that way again over a flight in a heartbeat! Being able to stretch my legs, walk around, lay down and sleep, and just have some time to myself was pure bliss!

I arrived into Brisbane’s Roma Street Station this morning at 05:00! I headed to the hotel only to find they didn’t open until 09:00. How was I going to occupy 4 hours? By going fishing of course! 🤣

I walked down to the Brisbane River and climbed down from the bicycle pathway to some rocks, and hid my suitcase and bags under the pathway out of sight. [I wasn’t leaving them, but with my back turned I’m always a little nervous about theft.] I set up my travel rod and gear and cast some plastics, and some metal spoons. I caught a whopping dusky flathead, my personal best (PB) by a large margin: he would have gone 70–80 centimetres at least. I had left my landing net in the suitcase though, so after fighting him a fair bit I tried dragging him up on to the rocks to let him go, but he snapped off and took off before I could get the lure out of his mouth or get a photo. A very nice welcome to Brisbane, anyway…

I packed up after a few hours and visited a farmers’ market just up the road, got some nice produce for cooking during the week and took a taxi back to the hotel, where I’ve left my bags and come to a café called Coco Cozy to while away some time waiting for check-in. An old friend is going to take me to a nice Japanese garden nearby, so I’ll go do that before checking in later today.

Sneaking away mid-week for an Eildon fishing session

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 16:38:11 +1000

With everything in my life being so busy lately, I managed to get away for a sneaky mid-week overnight fishing trip on Tuesday afternoon, returning last night.

I didn’t catch any fish, but it was wonderful to get away and get my lines wet, hanging with some mates. They booked a cabin for their Easter family holiday, so I grabbed an unpowered site at the same park and pitched my swag for the night. We fished all day at our various favourite spots, saw plenty of fish, but they just weren’t having anything we put before them.

Some young guys were catching small browns by drifting worms in the Goulburn, but for the most part the fishermen around us were striking out as well. Luckily for my mates they got onto some fish the day after I left, which is nice (for them! 🤣).

Despite the lack of a fresh catch to eat for dinner, I had the most wonderfully relaxing day. I packed a pipe and sat by the Pondage when my phone buzzed to tell me it was 13:00, and time for a daily routine at Starlight where the Melbourne office gets together to have a go at The Age Quiz. I logged in over Microsoft Teams to the group chat, got a few groans that I was out fishing, and that was worth the trip just for the giggles!

Fishing at Gilmore’s Bridge at Thornton

Fishing under Gilmore’s Bridge at Thornton

Fishing at the Eildon Pondage

Panorama of Eildon Pondage in April 2022

2022: What a year so far! 😮‍💨

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 16:51:39 +1000

Since starting the year working for the Starlight Children’s Foundation, I’ve been very happy, and very busy in equal measure. We might only be in mid-April but it feels like a very long time.

I suppose part of that feeling stems from how well I’ve seemingly fit into the team at Starlight. When I say these guys are welcoming, it’s no joke. We had a big project to start the year off: transitioning the marketing systems from Salesforce to Microsoft, which although it has given me a wonderful opportunity to utilise my background and skills, it’s also been a busy and sometimes stressful period of time, and has contributed to less time on the bike, and less time for fishing, camping, and all the other nice outdoorsy things I like to do. Apart from my commute I haven’t had much time to just ride Serena recreationally.

And that’s OK: now that I’m working, our end-of-year Tasmania tour is becoming more realistic to achieve, if we can sort out the kids for a few weeks.

Danielle has been just as busy, with the justice system trying to clear the COVID-19 backlogs, she’s been working so many trials she sometimes is running multiple trials on the same day! Again, good news for us and our bank account, but the shift from a slower and more home-bound 2021 to the frantic 2022 has seen us struggle to keep up.

I’m hoping to get a trip to Eildon tomorrow night and Wednesday to fish some trout before the closing of the season in June. I’m also hoping to get some longer rides in on the coming weekends to make the most of the nicer weather before winter returns!

My Melbourne commute to work

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:37:08 +1100

One of the great benefits of my new job at the Starlight Children’s Foundation is the location of the Melbourne office: right on the Yarra River where Church Street becomes Chapel Street, in a commercial hub of the city known as Cremorne in Richmond.

At the moment I’m working two days a week in the office, and the remaining three from home in Ballarat. Whilst some might bemoan a long 120km+ commute, for me it’s been very enjoyable.

I get up early, pack the panniers on Serena and ride to Ballarat Train Station, barely a kilometre from my house. From there, I take the train to Southern Cross Station¹ and ride along the Capital City and Yarra River Trails from the Docklands, past Jeff’s Shed (the Melbourne Exhibition Centre), the Crown Casino and Southbank, then along the south bank of the Yarra to Church Street.

It’s a very nice, easy going 6.5 kilometre (approx. 4 miles) journey. There are a fair amount of pedestrians, and some of my fellow cyclists ride incredibly dangerously and far too fast for the crowds, but apart from that the scenery is wonderful and despite not being the world’s cleanest river, this is a nice section of the city.

Otherwise known as Spencer Street Station to those of us who grew up in Melbourne pre-2005. ↩︎

I got the job! Working at Starlight Children’s Foundation

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:53:34 +1100

Remember that job interview I sat in December in Wodonga? No? Well, I did, and I got the gig! I’ve started working at the Starlight Children’s Foundation as a digital marketing producer.

I’m delighted to be heading back to full-time employment — it’s been a good few years of freelancing, not-for-profit work, some surgery thrown in for variety’s sake and, of course, plenty of fishing and cycling. However, as no Instagram ~~influencer~~ effluencer will ever tell you, some lifestyles and hobbies are pretty darned expensive and unsustainable, and occasionally we have to trade in the flannelette and lycra for a business shirt to pay for it all.

In that regard I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot: earning a living without selling the soul. The team here is wonderfully friendly and accepting. It’s a great cause — helping put some happiness in the lives of seriously sick kids — and welcoming? Well! Let me tell you… Starlight nails the welcome. My role is filling in for a period of maternity leave, and the woman going on leave (Vanessa) was such a wonderful help! She collated pages upon pages of handover documents going into comprehensive detail on every aspect of the job she could think of. She’s been with Starlight for a long time and this was a massive help as I feel like I’ve some big shoes to fill.

With COVID-19 Omicron rampaging through Australia, a face-to-face first day wasn’t possible. So my laptop was couriered to me, in a big bright purple and yellow box with Welcome Ryan printed all over it. Inside was my laptop (of course) as well as some Starlight collateral, a magic wand and plenty of glitter. [The lovely colleague who prepared this sparkly welcome put the glitter inside the laptop, all over the keyboard! It was simultaneously the nicest welcome I’ve received, and the meanest! (As a tech geek I can already foresee all the skipped characters and problems getting it out of the keys!)]

But the welcome didn’t stop there: the entire Marketing Communications team made up Welcome Ryan backgrounds on Microsoft Teams, and everybody scheduled in one-on-one meetings to properly introduce themselves and make sure I felt right at home. It was awesome, and I can tell this is going to be a nice place to work…

Update: 21 February

My first day in the office was just as nice, and of course, just as glittery. The office manager, Samantha, came in on her off day just to make sure I was all sorted for passes, my teammate Gareth came in to meet me (in-person) and I got to know my way around the building a little. Feels weird but awesome being back in the office properly, and the commute is pretty sweet too! Another post coming soon on that one…

My desk upon arrival

Roaming around Wodonga/Albury

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 18:21:48 +1100

My partner is a criminal barrister, and a few times a year she undertakes circuits, where she travels to a regional court and works there for 3–4 weeks. Sometimes she’ll come home on the weekends, sometimes not, depending on the distance from home. This year her Wodonga circuit has run for the past four weeks, and I’ve joined her for this last week to spend some time together riding around the area, both with her and on my own.

I arrived about noon on Monday and headed home this morning. We spent each day riding a bit, but also exploring Wodonga and eating at a few different nice places around town. Each day we had lunch at a salad bar called Greenstreat. This place was the duck’s nuts. They have different salad options, all super fresh with heaps of great tasty ingredients and a very healthy local following to boot.

A yummy salad from Greenstreat

On Tuesday I rode down to the Hume Weir, where the mighty Murray River starts at the base of the dam wall. I haven’t fished this far up the Murray before so I packed my bike fishing rig and hit the road. I rode along the High Country Rail Trail to Bonegilla, nearly at the lake, then turned off the trail and took the road past the Latchford Army Barracks to the dam wall. Looping around and over the river, just past the trout farm is a little 4WD track heading down below the weir.

I cast some bait lines for a while at the yellow boat markers that designate the off-limits section of the river (for boating). I then headed up to the fence to the weir and there is an area set up for fishermen. My mate had warned me about how strong the current is here but nothing can really prep you for it — it’s ferociously strong. I cast some shiny Tassie Devil spoons up into the current and just drifted them down, which given the fast flow of the river almost meant an aggressive retrieve even without winding! I was fishing with my little Daiwa ultralight travel rod, with 6lb mono and a 12lb leader, so I took about 3–5 minutes just setting my drag correctly. A big brown trout hit the lure just about perpendicular to where I was standing, and OH MY FUCKING GOD what a fight! She took off like a freight train, and I still can’t believe I didn’t snap her off. It’s nearly a Christmas miracle!

A great day’s bike fishing finished with a great fish

I wound her in, let her run, wound her in, let her run. I had no illusions about even trying to get her in the net, as it took all of my strength just to reel her in, and have her piss right off again. When she jumped — quite a few glorious displays of aerial defiance — my heart stopped. But still, no snap off! Despite a valiant effort, she finally gave up the fight and rolled over, but even then I couldn’t reel her in, just from the sheer force of her body weight in the current. After about 45 minutes, I got her close enough to swing my net over the top of her in a fashion I would never employ to net a fish in normal circumstances, but my back was killing me and I was desperate.

Of course there was no to be no catch and release — she was so thoroughly played out that the only fair thing to do was to thank her, snap her neck immediately, put the poor girl out of her misery and claim dinner. Due to my bike not having an esky, it being over 30°C (86°F), and being an hour or so from home — this also meant that my fishing for the day was over.

I called Danielle to meet me on the way and pick the fish up, all the better to get her into ice quicker, and set about cleaning her. It was when gutting her I found seven hooks in her belly. This beautiful old warrior had beaten at least seven fellow fishos. I’ve never seen anything like it in years of fishing, but looking at the current I’m not all that surprised.

I met Danielle on the road out and then rode into Albury, and crossed back into Wodonga to make a nice little 40km loop.

Crossing the Murray at Wodonga/Albury

We rode again each day for the rest of the week, clocking up 40km, 30km and 16km rides as we explored Wodonga, the High Country Rail Trail, Albury and the Murray River. On the Rail Trail, I was riding along and we decided to stop in a quiet bushy area near the Kiewa River for a toilet break, but in the confusion about where I was going to brake, Danielle rode right into the back of me and ripped up her knee in a bad case of gravel rash. I very sheepishly apologised and patched her up as best as I could at the lake with my first aid kit. In Albury, we visited the Botanic Gardens, had lunch at a nice pub and did a pretty good job of hiding how terrified we were about COVID-19 and the NSW Omicron threat.

Danielle’s gravel rash

We cooked up our fish on the outdoor barbeque at the hotel, sampled all the local wine, beer and food we could, and just enjoyed our little week off without the kids. And then, as if the week couldn’t get any better, I scored a job interview with the Starlight Children’s Foundation and — I believe — performed quite strongly, so fingers crossed!

My bike at the Kiewa River

The Kiewa River

Stopping for a photo with this beautiful hairy coo

Hey there big fella!

On the way past Latchford Barracks

Riding around the Hume Dam

Stopping at the historic old Bonegilla Train Platform on the High Country Rail Trail

The Hume Dam from below the weir

Lazing around

A beautiful day

A nice little setup for local fishermen

Fishing at the Hume Weir

The strong current coming out of the weir

The strong current coming out of the weir

A beautiful wild brown trout

Stopped at the Hume Dam historic marker

The road back to Albury

Cooking the fish on the barbeque

Cooking the fish on the barbeque

Albury Botanic Gardens with Danielle

Lake Hume

A very stupid, dangerous and scary mergin of bike path and country highway

Danielle and my bikes on the Murray River

Danielle near the Kiewa River

Danielle stopped at the Kiewa River

Danielle with Lake Hume behind

Creek near the Kiewa River

Danielle crossing a creek

Danielle at Ebden Train Platform on the High Country Rail Trail

Danielle at Ebden Train Platform on the High Country Rail Trail

Danielle riding along the Wodonga bike paths

Danielle picking up her bags

Danielle at Lake Hume

Danielle on the High Country Rail Trail

Danielle riding along the Wodonga bike paths

So where the hell ya been?!

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 21:23:41 +1100

The last time I wrote, I was just tentatively getting back on the bike and out on the road. Wow, what a whirlwind few months it has been!!

So, all excuses aside, I’ve been flat out between caring for my kids, looking for work now that I’m feeling better, applying to undertake further study, and riding, fishing, walking my little arse off. Basically, I’ve been enjoying Getting Out There. I got so Out There I’ve neglected things like this blog. But, I’m happy to say, I have a lot of new things happening over the next few months and will soon be back to regular posts, pronto!

Some things I am looking forward to telling you about:

I have applied to undertake a Masters in Business Administration, part-time whilst working.

I am involved again with the Ballarat Cycle Classic, and training to ride the 100km event.

I have put a lot more kilometres under my belt and slowly getting back to my long distance cycling.

I am heading up to Wodonga in a week to fish and cycle around the Murray River and Lake Hume.

I’m also planning to take the boy camping in January, probably to The River.

Long term, I’m planning a Tasmanian tour for next summer and a Grampians trip somewhere in between.

Lots on!

Pure joy in getting back on the road again!

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 15:09:04 +1000

Finally got back on my bike today for the first time in 2021, after seven months recovering from spinal surgery. The shitty weather and blowing cold Ballarat wind couldn’t take away from my sheer joy in being back on the road, with the wind in my face, fighting back real tears of relief.

When I hurt myself again last year, I didn’t know whether or not I’d get back to riding again, as my last tour exacerbated my back problems and I spent quite a few months worried about ever getting back.

The original plan was to wait until September, but a combination of watching the Olympics, eating copious amounts of food for my birthday yesterday, stacking on nearly ten kilos, and overwhelming boredom has gotten me back out there sooner, and I’m very glad I did so. I only did one lap of the lake, 8km and nice and easy (which isn’t to say I wasn’t exhausted!) but a good first ride.

Planning a tour of the Apple Isle: Tasmania 2022

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 12:38:39 +1000

With international borders closed (for Australians, anyway) until god-only-knows-when, and a nice local trip looking very attractive as an introduction to touring for my partner Danielle, we’ve been planning a Tasmanian East Coast cycling trip for a few months now.

We’re hoping to take the trip next year. Danielle is a native Tasmanian, so we’ll finish the tour by staying with/near her parents in Sandy Bay, a suburb of Hobart. The Spirit of Tasmania ferry berths in Devonport, so with our start and finish points decided, it was simply a matter of working out the route. I found a good PDF guide on the Discover Tasmania website, but the link has since disappeared into 404 heaven. Using the outline detailed in this guide, along with a Hema map of Tassie, we’ve outlined a nice 15-leg route that will take us 13–14 days in total riding, across perhaps three weeks (given rests and sightseeing).
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Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. I don’t much care where — Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.
Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland

Update: We’re going! We’re finally doing it!

We have booked the ferry, and some of the accommodation, and we’re gearing up to do our tour this December!

I wavered between just updating this post or creating a new one, and decided upon the latter.

Tell me about the new adventure!

Bored and hunting some local stockies

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 21:42:09 +1000

My mate Stephen and I hit the local lakes around Ballarat today, hunting some little trout that have been recently stocked for the school holidays.

We were really just bored and looking to have a wee flick. We tried Wendouree and Vic Park, and got onto some rainbows at Lake Esmond.

“Tell ‘im he’s dreamin’!” Dealing with lockdown boredom by prepping for Europe

Sun, 30 May 2021 17:14:38 +1000

Victoria is currently in our fourth COVID-19 lockdown, and I find myself sitting inside, on a chill but sunny Sunday afternoon in late autumn, preparing for a European bike tour that might never eventuate, but even if it does, certainly won’t for quite a few years.

Setbacks galore

Let me list just a few of the barriers between Europe and ourselves:

We (my partner and I) live in Australia, where international borders are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Europe is still in the grip of COVID-19 itself and it’s unknown how safe it will be to book any flights or accommodation. It means we have to plan for varying seasons and times of year and then play it by ear.

I injured my back in December 2020 and am not even out on the road yet, with a due date to return to cycling outdoors set as 17 September this year, and fully-loaded touring set as 17 March next year (12 months post-operation, due to the need to handle a bike weighing as much as 20–30kgs).

I started planning for this tour a few years ago, before I had two kids living with me. We now likely have to wait until they are old enough to move out to be able to take a few months and do the trip right.

So why bother planning it at all? Well, primarily the answer to that question at the moment is: I’m bored shitless. But I also need something to look forward to.
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Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually.
E.M. Forster, A Passage To India

A brief outline of the trip

Vienna, Austria

Starting in Austria, and after taking a few days in Vienna to see the sights, heading west and following the Danube River along EuroVelo 6.

Regensberg, Germany

Continuing along the Danube via Ybbs, Enns and Linz, crossing the Austrian-German border at Jochenstein, then resting at Passau. From there, continuing through Deggendorf and Straubing and resting for a day or so at Regensberg.

Ulm, Germany

From Regensberg, still on the Danube through Bavaria until Ulm. There are lots of little villages along the way, and we’ll just stop wherever we think looks suitable.

Lake Konstanz, Germany

Still on the Danube, we switch back and forth across the river through to Tuttlingen, where we leave the Danube and head south to Lake Konstanz and the Rhine River.

Basel, Switzerland

Following the Rhine, still on EuroVelo 6, we ride across the German/Switzerland border a few times through Schaffhausen, Waldshut-Tiengen and Bad Sāckingen until Basel in Switzerland, where we’ll probably spend a day or so.

Besançon, France

Leaving the Rhine and turning through Mulhouse into France, we follow the Canal du Rhône-au-Rhin until we join Le Doubs River at Etouvans near Montbéliard. We then follow Le Doubs River until Besançon.

Orleans, France

Riding across Central-Eastern France, we leave Le Doubs River at Dole and join the Saône River, then the La Dheune at Chagny and finally the Loire River near Montceau-les-Mines. We then follow the Loire all the way to Orleans, passing through Digoin, Nevers and Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire.

Paris, France

Leaving the EuroVelo 6 route at Ouzouer-sur-Loire, we either join EuroVelo 3 for the last part of our journey, or if we’re out of time we take the train to Paris. The EV3 cycle route takes us through Montargis, Nemours and Fontainebleau, approaching Paris from the south.

2,100.0 route distance (km)
(approx.)

16,000m elevation to climb
(approx.)

80 days' riding
(approx.)

Preparations

Bike and gear

To prepare for this trip (and others), I purchased a Surly Disc Trucker touring bike in June of 2020. We still have to procure a touring bike for Danielle — I’m looking primarily at mainstream touring bikes such as the Surly Disc Trucker in the small frame (Danielle is very short) or the Kona Sutra.

I already have a lot of lightweight camping gear we can use along the way, but we’re very uncertain of what camping provisions there will be in Europe, so we may end up taking some light gear as a just-in-case and relying on accommodation along the way.

Language

I’ve also taken up French lessons during my mandatory stay in bed at the start of this year — I figure having some basic language skills will allow us to get along better with the locals. I’ve also enjoyed learning French a lot, so this has been a nice bonus.

Interesting resources used so far in planning

I’ve found quite a lot of good stuff on and offline, including:

The EuroVelo bicycle network website: https://en.eurovelo.com/. We will follow the EV3 and EV6 routes.

Some Marco Polo 1:800,000-scale country maps for France and Germany. This has been great for getting an idea of terrain and nearby towns, etc.

The Crazy Guy On A Bike website. Although there’s been a lot of controversy around the owner/producer of this popular cycling forum being a bit of a right-wing nutter, there remains a great deal of fantastic information for cycle tourists of all countries and persuasions.

Google searches of local towns and sights to see along the way.

The BicycleTouring subreddit. Lots of up-to-date and friendly information is to be found if you dig deep enough.

Listening to and thinking about Kris Kristofferson, and other country legends I hope to see live one day, before it’s too late 🎸🎵💬🎨

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

No matter what mood I’m in on a particular day, or in a particular period of my life — happiness, sadness, anxiety, contentment, fury, passion, indifference, love, hate, quiet reflection or a need for a pick-me-up — Kris Kristofferson has written something for me. The master songwriter is my all-time favourite, and I love his music, I love the poetry of his lyrics and how he takes the most profound of life’s loves, challenges and turmoils and makes them simple; he takes simple motifs and makes them profound. You can listen to his songs and hear a simple story and a simple tune. Or you can hear something deep, something perhaps not even intended but you see it there anyway and that’s why his work is true art. For he is that: a true artist. A Kristofferson song can mean whatever you want it to mean to you; a slow, hung-over retelling of a drunken Sunday morning for an addict can reflect your own struggles with depression (sans the addiction), the monotony of life and the world itself — its funny little ways that make it both wonderful and irritating at the same time. Or, again, just a bloke bemoaning a hang-over and the life he lost to addiction. We’ve all felt that same loss of something, whatever the cause. I appreciated Merle in the same way.
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Casey's Last Ride
Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors Of silent desperation, never speakin’ to a soul

The poison air he’s breathin’ has the dirty smell of dyin' ‘Cause it’s never seen the sunshine and it’s never felt the rain But Casey minds the arrows and ignores the fatal echoes Of the clickin’ of the turnstiles and the rattle of his chains

Oh, she said, Casey it’s been so long since I’ve seen you Here, she said, just a kiss to make a body smile See, she said, I’ve put on new stockings just to please you Lord, she said, Casey can you only stay a while?

Casey leaves the underground and stops inside the Golden Crown For something wet to wipe away the chill that’s on his bone Seeing his reflection in the lives of all the lonely men Who reach for anything they can to keep from goin’ home

Standin’ in the corner, Casey drinks his pint of bitter Never glancing in the mirror at the people passing by Then he stumbles as he’s leaving and he wonders if the reason Is the beer that’s in his belly or the tear that’s in his eye

Oh, she said, I suppose you seldom think about me Now, she said, Now that you’ve a family of your own Still, she said, it’s so blessed good to feel your body Lord, she said, Casey, it’s a shame to be alone

Kris Kristofferson

I was lucky enough to see Kristofferson perform in Ballarat one night in September 2019. Coincidentally, it was a one-night-only kinda gig and I was on my first day of a solo long distance charity bike ride from Melbourne to Adelaide. I had just ridden 120 gruelling kilometres, only to quickly throw off the school dress — read the story to answer your sudden WTF? — to change into my western shirt, jeans and cowboy boots and head down to the Ballarat Civic Hall.

I was enraptured. Some in the audience bemoaned his diminishing performance compared to shows of yesteryear: his vocals struggled and he lost the words to a song at one point (he has Lyme disease which causes memory loss). But not me. I quietly raged inside at their judgment: He’s in his 80s you bastards, with Lyme disease, and just revelled in seeing him live, in listening to him sing his beautiful lyrics and marvel in the true artistry of his work¹. It was one of those days I’ll remember forever, and it ticked off one of my Bucket List Artists, those I want to see live before I, or they, leave this world. I was lucky enough to see Bowie in 2003. Alice Cooper not long after. Pat Benatar in 2010, opened by The Bangles, a nice little two-for-one.

I guess the reason I’m thinking of all this now, tonight, it has struck me that with COVID-19 still raging and international travel still a long way off, especially for us Australians, I stand in great danger of missing my other Bucket List Country Legend.

You hang in there Willie!

Update, 29 September 2024: Vale Kris 😭

Kris Kristofferson died today (28th in the US). He was 88 — a good innings that most of us would be happy with — but still sad to know the world has one less artist like Kris in it. It makes me all the more glad I got to see him. If you have never listened to Kris, now is the time.

He did ultimately retire later that year. ↩︎

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:00:00 +1000

So I’m a huge fan of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Il bruno, il brutto, il cattivo in Italian). I love most spaghetti westerns but this one masterpiece, this perfect movie, I’ve seen it now 1,300 times. That’s right, tonight I watched my 1,300th replay. I swear on my life, I’ve counted all these years since my father showed me the movie as a kid. I’ve even watched it in both Italian and French. It plays when I work, it plays when I’m down and need a morale boost. It plays simply when it’s been a few weeks and I want to watch it again. A little weird and sad maybe, but it’s one of my life’s great loves.

If you have to shoot, shoot; don’t talk!

I remember seeing the movie a few years ago at The Astor Theatre in St. Kilda one night when they had a showing. By that time I’d seen it just shy of 1,000 times but never on the big screen, as I was only born in ’82. So I walk into the Astor, and I’m excited. Like, birth-of-my-kids, Bulldogs-winning-the-flag, EXCITED! I hear Ennio Morricone’s L’estasi dell’oro, The Ecstasy Of Gold, playing in the lobby and the emotion of finally seeing this movie in the theatre just overwhelmed me and I quietly, but still quite publicly, wept. So yeah. Big fan.

My wife and kids groan, and ask when I’ll stop watching it. My answer is always: When I get sick of it.

I’m hoping to one day travel (maybe a bike tour post-COVID) on a pilgrimage to Burgos in northern Spain, where the climax in the graveyard was filmed.

First half-century in the bag!

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 22:06:17 +1100

I achieved my first half-century today, logging 50 kilometres on my way out to Creswick and back to Ballarat. The ride was very scenic, and the smell of eucalypts made for a strenuous but altogether very enjoyable day out.

This wasn’t just the longest bike ride I’ve ever undertaken (so far) in terms of distance, but also time in the saddle, hitting almost three hours’ riding time.

Although I’m really quite sore tonight, I’m also rapt to have hit that milestone so early in the month, and hopefully I can push it out to 60 by the end of April.

50.5 route distance (km)

629m elevation climbed

1 days' riding