CAN3 hits the road at last

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On Monday morning, nine CANC cyclists gathered without much fanfare in the light drizzle at Central Park in Rockhampton. We received a blessing from Father John Grace and with much trepidation and excitement we road off into the thickening rain. The first two days cycling were not as glorious as we had hoped but it was exciting to be together and finally on the road. We road through almost constant rain down the busy, wet, narrow (but thankfully mostly flat) Bruce Highway from Rockhampton to Mount Larcom.
(I would like to make a special thank you to the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and in particular to Steph Lloyd who organised our accommodation in Rocky on Sunday night.)

On Wednesday we woke to patchy blue sky and headed away from the highway, towards sunshine and Gladstone (a town that could host a nuclear power plant if we don't stop it) for our first proper town event: a stall outside the big Woolworths in the middle of town. We talked to passing locals about the ride, our bikes and the prospect of having the nuclear power plant or uranium enrichment plant in their area.

Despite Gladstone's heavy industry, no one we talked to was very happy about the idea of having any form of nuclear industry in their area. And despite our best efforts we were unable to get any media coverage.

While in Gladstone we also visited the office of the local federal MP to ask him about how he felt about having the nuclear industry in is electorate. He was out of town and his secretary was less than helpful and would only say that no decision on the issue would be made until after the next federal election.

Our only significant mishap so far has been when we road out of Gladstone: four of us on the Calliope road (pronounced cal-I-oh-pee) and the others on the others on the Benaraby Road. Luckily Bob, a veteran long distance cyclist, now working in Gladstone stopped to offer assistance and ended up ferrying Cassie and June to the camp site on the Calliope road while Georgina and I cycled there.
A VERY special thank you to Bob for taking an hour out of his day to ferry stranded cyclists.(Note: the communication issues that lead to that mixup have now been resolved.)

By Thursday morning, the CANC3 team consisted of seven riders, having farewelled Chrissie and Anne, who headed back to their normal lives. We are now Cassie, Evan, Georgina, June, Moz, Robyn and Valerie & Hope.

We headed south on a full day's ride (65km) ride to Mirriam Vale and the luxury of Pete (Robyn's dad) and Jill's house and a full day to work on CANC stuff (like this e-bulletin).
(A very special thank you to Pete and Jill for putting up with our boring work talk and letting the seven of us take over their house for 40 hours.)

As we've been travelling the group has started to get to know one another and learn how to work together. Managing the daily grind of cycling and camping while organising the campaign work along the way has been a challenge, but also a positive learning experience for many.

The two of us (Moz and I) who expected to be the speed demons of the group and expected to be able to cruise along have discovered that we are human after all. We are carrying some of the extra load that would normally go in a support vehicle which has given us a handicap that we, at best, can match the pace of the average cyclists in the group in the group but mostly we can just keep up with the slowest.