Cathy and I finally got enough spare time between her uni work and my work work to go see a movie. We saw that new flick with George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones, 'Intolerable Cruelty'. I thought that there were a few clever and funny parts to the movie, but Cathy didn't like it very much. It definitely wouldn't say that it is a must see movie.

Here's the next day of the Sydney trip (I've decided to add photos from the trip; larger versions can be found on the website):

Sunday, 24/12/2000, 11:38 pm, Evans Head (Trip meter: 172 km)

I didn't sleep too badly last night, except for waking up with a 'dead' hand a couple of times. This has been happening a lot since I separated my right AC joint earlier in the year. I woke up in the middle of the night with no circulation in my hand. I suspect that because of the instability of my shoulder girdle my chest is applying more weight upon my brachial artery on the inside of my arm, closing it off.

I woke at 4 am, had breakfast, packed my gear, and was on the road by 5 am. Almost immediately, the road became hilly. I stopped at the top of the first big hill, where there was a lookout, and took at picture of the sun coming up over the rolling green hills.


Picture: A lookout at dawn

I reached Balina just before 8 am, much quicker than I had expected.

I had been stating to develop a rub-rash on the inside of my thighs from where my shorts were creeping up as I peddled. Extraordinarily, I managed to find a bike shop open at 8 am on a Sunday that had exactly the bike pants I was looking for! And they only had one pair of bike pants in the shop! They cost me $69, but they have certainly stopped the rash problems; the flannel sewn into the crotch area saw to this. A rash like that could have made the rest of my ride very uncomfortable.


Picture: The Big Prawn

Most of the day had been spent on the Pacific Highway. I turned off towards Evens Head to find myself in a large national park full of scrub dug into hot white sand. You could imagine yourself roasting in country like that. I expect that the scenery will be very similar when I head out this afternoon towards Woodburn.


Picture: Hot road to Evans Head


Picture: Beach at Evans Head

Greetings,

The last post mentioned an accident that I was involved in when I was in Scandinavia. Someone sent me an email asking me more about it. The Scandinavia incident was an unfortunate car crash that I was first on the scene to. Myself and another guy had to do CPR on the driver for about an hour, but he died anyway. It was a pretty nasty accident, and for a long time afterwards I dreaded the idea of coming across another one like it. More about that another day: I've decided that I will post all my travel journals one day at a time, so my original account of that accident will be posted here eventually.

This is a continuation of the account of the first day of the cycle trip to Sydney (from now on I will enter one day at a time, not just one entry):

12:19 pm, Cabarita, NSW. (Trip meter: 56km)


Picture: Burleigh Heads, QLD

Well, its been a great ride so far. I've done a very leisurely cycle of 56 km this morning. The roads have been pretty good most of the way and I have a nice tailwind.

I am now sitting under a shady mangrove type tree. I'll relax now until it is about 3 or 4 pm.

5:42pm, at the end of a clearing (made for roadworks), just south of Brunswick Heads


Picture: The site of the first night's camp

The road started to get a little hilly towards the end of today's ride. Today I cycled almost exactly 90 km.

As I rode into Brunswick Heads, it occurred to me that I might stay at one of the caravan parks. As I rode into one, I noticed that my front tyre was slowly going flat. Hows that, right at the end of the day!

I gave up on the idea of staying at a caravan park when I found out that it was going to cost me $20. That is why I am now sitting 150 metres east of the Pacific Highway, at the end of the clearing made by roadworks for the new Pacific Highway, waiting for the last rays of light to fade so that I can put up my tent without anyone seeing me here.


Picture: The same site once the tent was up

Karen, one of the people I sent a website update to the other day, is thinking about cycling from Brisbane to Sydney next year. She read about my Sydney trip on this site, and asked me for some advice. After telling her that I have a full journal of the trip (I always keep journals when I travel), she asked me if it was up on the site. It isn't, but I thought that I would post a day at a time for anyone who is interested to read. That way Karen can get the details for her trip, and maybe a others might find it entertaining. Like any of my entries in this blog, I won't include anything that is particularly personal (I can't remember whether I wrote anything that would be considered 'personal' in the Sydney trip journal anyway). Actually, speaking of that, this might be a good opportunity to discuss the way I envisage using this blog.

I've decided to write more in this blog than I was including previously on the website. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, I love writing, but I don't find it particularly exciting writing to myself; a potential audience is more motivating I guess. It is funny, because I spend most of my day writing, editing, and marking academic writing, but still feel the need to tap away at the keyboard when I get home. Still, I enjoy it and this is one easy outlet. Secondly, I think that it is sad that so many people go through life and all that is left of them at the end are the fading memories of a few people, curled photos, a few words in the birth, deaths and marriages records, and an almost completely uninformative stone plaque. So I guess that publishing photos and stories on the web about things that I think are important in my life is a bit of a grasp at immortality. I'm sure that good old Google or the web archive mob will trawl past my site at some stage and burn my life down amongst the thousands of others who are blogging away. And the last reason that I will discuss tonight is that I think that this is a brilliant way to keep in contact with friends, acquaintances and family who have drifted out of immediate contact. We all meet so many people during our lives, but only have the time and energy to spend quality time with a few. I find that every time I send out an email saying that I've updated my site, I get back some wonderful emails from people who may never have thought to contact me otherwise. I'll probably prattle on more about this at a latter date, because part of my purpose is to convince you, the reader, that would be a good idea to start your own blog. Chances are that you are a friend of mine, so I would love to read about what's happening to you too. With these reasons in mind, I have decided to write this blog in a way that I find interesting (if others do then that is a bonus), not to drift too far from my own circle of experience (but not make it overly revealing or introspective), and to occasionally let friends know when I make major posts (i.e., photos of social events that they may have attended or know people from).


Now on to the first installment of my cycle trip to Sydney:

Cycling Trip to Sydney

Christmas 2000

Photos from this trip are available here (a new page will pop up).

Saturday 23/12/2000, 6:45 pm, Beenleigh Railway Station

Off again, who knows to where this time! All that I have planned is that I will ride south along the coast.

I went to a very poor party on-res last night. I came home early, read a couple of emails from Karen (a friend from uni), and went to bed. I had a hard time sleeping, not nodding off until after 12:30 am. Consequently, my head feels a little tarnished from lack of sleep.

Speaking of tarnished, I shaved my head again last night; so I look like some sort of penis with ears! This will allow the wind to flow across my scalp easier, keeping me cooler in the hot summer sun.

It is a beautiful day to start my ride. There isn't a single cloud; although the horizon is 'tarnished' by a little dust/smog. We could do with some rain so as to wash the pollution into the waterways. This would suffocate the poor fish rather than us.

I can't help feeling a little nervous that I might come across an accident while I am spending so much time on the roads; like I did in Scandinavia. I have bought myself a first-aid kit but I hope that I don't need it.

When you first walk outside and look up to the sky at the start of the day and you see this - maybe it is time to go back to bed.



Cathy took me for my first experience of trampolining tonight. At first I was a little wobbly, but I gained confidence quicker than I thought I would.

At one stage, I was doing a couple of summersaults off the long trampoline. I completely stuffed up one and landed on my face. That in itself wouldn't have been a problem, except that I laughed too loud and one of the gymnastics instructors came over and gave me a lecture; well, he gave more of a lecture to the trampolining instructor for not watching me close enough to make sure I didn't do anything stupid!

Cathy, of course, was doing all sorts of tricks. She was a high-level gymnast when she was in her teens, and has done quite a lot of trampolining in the past. I've put up a few of photos of her that I took at the end of the night.

Cathy also did a week of circus school when she was about 18, but didn't end up joining. If I remember correctly, the instructor asked her to join though (she is studying at the moment, so I don't want to disturb her to ask!).

After a bit of time on the trampolines, we moved to the double mini-tramp. This felt pretty comfortable, and after a few runs I did some summersaults off this. Cathy was doing backsaults (I think that is what they are called) and all sorts of other things. I think that is what you call them; my grasp of the gymnastics lingo is lacking.

To be quite honest, I only really went to trampolining because Cathy has been asking me to go for ages, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I'm going to go with Cathy again next week. If I enjoy it as much again, I might take one day off the gym and do trampolining instead.

On a more cold-blooded note, there was a goanna at uni today that caused a bit of a stir near one of the canteens. It had found its way amongst the chairs and tables outside and was trying to get into one of the plastic bins. It managed to pull one bin over on its side and climbed into the garbage bag inside. It was quite funny to watch one of the girls trying to put the bin right with a meter and a half of hungry goanna hanging out!

Ciao for now,
David



Trampolining: Pictures of Cathy on the trampoline

Hi again,

There have been a lot of things happening over the last few months, but I hadn't had the chance to put the photos up on the web until now. Below is a list of some of the more important events (click on any to see the photos):


Ronan's Birthday: Mel (a friend from uni) and her husband Rod had a first birthday for their little boy Ronan.


Dinner with Amanda's Family: Cathy and I had dinner with Amanda's family and a few friends.


Chloe: the budgie that turned up on our doorstep


Steven and Marie's Wedding: Steven and Marie are friends I met through Cathy. They recently got married, and Cathy was a bridesmaid. I got to drive one of the cars.


Michelle's Birthday: Cathy's sister recently had a great birthday party.


Dinner at Mel's: We recently had dinner with Mel and Rob, and Amanda turned up on her way out. Amanda wanted some photos of herself; these are at the end.

Cheers,
David

Hi,

I handed in the final assignment for my degree today. The assignment (6000 words) was a report on a reasonably large study I conducted on workplace bullying over the year. I did a presentation on the study last week, which went well. It is good to be finished, and now it is time to start looking for some full-time work.

I have been working for the university as a research assistant now for a couple of years; and even though they pay me pretty well, it is time to get on with my career in HR. I've also been teaching a little over the last semester for two courses, one a first-year management course and the other a second-year organisational behaviour course. I have enjoyed that a lot. I've just spent some time marking assignments for the first-years, and decided to take a break to write on the blog.

Cheers,
David

Hi all,

As life has become even more hectic, the maintenance of the webpage (http://www.davidmanning.info) has once again fallen behind. I have been looking for an alternative, and blogging might be the way to go. Also, blogging will allow me to write updates when travelling, as I won't need any special software installed on the computer, and therefore, will be able to do it from internet cafes. Let's see how it goes!

Cheers,
David