Time has once again sped by since
last you heard from us. At the end of the last leg across Australia
I was faced with mounting debts of over $45,000 USD, incurred
mainly from crossing the Pacific in pedal boat Moksha. I just
couldn’t face another stint living in a shopping mall
in Darwin, flogging T-shirts and names on Moksha.
So there was no option but to ground
the expedition and find a real job. Yikes.
I was lucky
to be given work on the same Colorado buffalo ranch that
Stuart and I stayed at in 1995 after I was run over by
a car while rollerblading across the US. Over the years
all of us involved have come to realise that an expedition
of this magnitude necessitates wearing many different
hats other than the obvious one of ‘expeditioneer’.
So as ranch manager I found myself on a hellish steep
learning curve, assuming tasks such as buffalo wrangler,
installing a mile long pipeline and irrigation system
for 220 acres of hay meadows, and ultimately making the
hay itself. I don’t think the local ranchers every
quite knew what to make of this wannabe Limey cowboy!
Now, for the first time in many, many years,
the expedition is free of debt and with a good chunk of the
total budget needed for the next leg already in the bank.
The next leg will begin in
just a few months - March 2005. Steve is returning to pedal
with me in Moksha from Darwin, Australia, north to the island
of Timor, a distance of around 450 miles. Three other old
friends – Chris
Tipper (Moksha’s builder from the UK), Sher Dhillon
and Lourdes Arango (helpers when the expedition was in California),
and April (teacher
from Colorado and veteran of several past legs) will then
kayak and bike with me 2600 miles up the Indonesian chain
of islands to Singapore, arriving October before the monsoon
season.
Part of the next leg will involve uplinking educational resources
to the schools section of
the site via a laptop and iridium
satellite phone. If you are a student, teacher or parent
interesting in knowing more about how to get involved with
this component of the trip, email
me.
We still have around $6,000 to raise. If you’re feeling
a little heavy in the pocket and need a year-end tax write
off via our 501 c 3 Non Profit Organisation, DON'T HOLD BACK
from visiting the Wishlist
and pledging one of the items needed for the next leg to happen.
You can pledge directly via Paypal or a major credit card.
Be it a fishing lure for $1 or the satellite phone for $1500,
it all helps enormously. Many thanks to those of you who have
already pledged!
This leaves me to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous
New Year. May we all navigate our way successfully through
the coming year with the sun on our faces, a stiff breeze
at our backs, and not too many unscheduled capsizes…
