Sunday 14 February 2010 Kelly

Happy Valentines Day! On this day
traditionally set aside for chocolates and flowers we woke up bright and early
for our first group bike ride. It was exciting to ride all together but within
the first 30mins I got my first flat and then a few minutes later I got my
second puncture so I wasn’t off to the best start. Once we sorted out a new
tube we were back on our way to our day time rehearsal space which we
discovered was at “Kilbride Centre” a beautiful location across from the beach.
We played energizer games and then got down to business discussing how we are
going to function as group for the next 8 weeks. We are allocated rotating
roles for the day such as facilitator, stretch guru, composting ninja, vibe
watcher and blog writer – that’s me. So we all get a chance to experience
different tasks. We also talked about living as a democratic community and how
to make consensus decisions. With this working model we worked out our food
mandate to reflect our sustainable consumption ideals which includes eating
vegetarian, local, organic, free range, fair trade and bulk foods. I’m learning
so much about sustainability and putting it into practice. 

Monday 15 February 2010- Alice

Day two of our Otesha adventure and we were
happily (or not quite so happily for those unaccustomed to early rises) awoken
at 6am by Tim the human rooster (aka ‘alarm cock’). We enjoyed a morning ride
through Melbourne’s amazing bike-path network, riding most of the way to Albert
Park on off-road paths, through parks and along canals. Despite getting stuck
in some spots, most of us non-Melbournites are loving riding in such a
bike-friendly city and seeing so many happy cyclists around. For the first
session of the morning we jumped into bike ergonomics and maintenance, with the
lovely Bill from Human Powered cycles and past Otesha tour-member Dylan.  With our seats and handlebars adjusted, our
chains lubed and our tyres pumped up, we are all now much more prepared for
some smooth and comfortable riding. The rest of the day involved learning how
to ride with trailers (which is how we ride with no support vehicle, yay!),
developing our workshops and rehearsing our skit.  And of course the sweet ride back home, and
delicious dinner cooked by wonderful volunteers.  So many people are giving their time to equip
us with the knowledge and skills we need to have a successful journey, and we
are gobbling every bit up!

Thursday 18 February 2010 – Matt

The moment this day begun I was facing a
decision; Should I be the change I want to see, or should I succumb to the
habits of old and withdraw to the comforts of convenience (and inevitable
inconvenience)? It  was 12:01 and I was
standing next to my bike at Mordialloc station, my destination Thornbury. A
seed of doubt had been planted in my mind upon learning that I had missed the
last train to the city, a circumstance brought on by seemingly accidental
behavior. I had been celebrating with excess, cheered by my friends of old in
Aspendale and I had missed the train. But this doubt of not returning to a
journey of movement towards the horizons of new friendships was a weed quickly
devoured by the hope of proving this young Oteshian is a cyclist capable of
overcoming a daunting distance… and mapless navigation. After a harrowing
zig-zag from the southeast suburbs,  over
three train lines, to finally reach Thornbury in the north of Melbourne at 3am
I was home again… or atleast where I felt I was meant to be.  Three hours later I was up again and with the
2010 Otesha team wondering if I had the ability to sustain myself through the
day. I sit here now at 10:45pm completing my duties as blogmaster after another
inspiring day building our knowledge and confidence to present ourselves as
proud Otesha members. mmmMMM I FEEL SO ALIVE!

Friday 19^th February

Big day at the Sustainable Living Festival.
First show, first workshop (which was conveniently the least prepared), first
time being thrown to the wolves that are a class of teenagers. Result: hit the
ground running in the skit/show thingy, smashed the workshop (a mixture of a
couple, saved!) and generally tamed those wolves like they was puddy cats.
Reebah eh a reebah.

Relieved, or even glowing after making it
through the performances, the afternoon was beautifully relaxed, making
important last minute purchases, like a soccer ball (bias?) and soaking up the
positive vibes at the festival. Bikes, check, gear, check, trailers, check, wikki
wikki pow!

Saturday 20^th February (Name needed)

After a week of intense training, finally the
day of departure! The morning started with a beautiful goodbye breakfast at the
Northcote United Church. Thanks to Oteshians from the Victorian 2009 tour, Tash
& Pip, for making us pancakes, and to the church for hosting us! Big thanks
to all who came to support and say goodbye. From Northcote we rode to Richmond
Train Station, and said goodbye to beloved Safety Dylan who passed on great
bike love wisdom. We caught the train to outer Melbourne (specifically,
Lilydale) and began the 40 kilometre ride along the Lilydale to Warburton rail
trail in pleasantly warm weather. Our first stop along the trail was at the COG
Bike Shop, which coincidentally was being filmed by a few documentary-makers
who were covering a story about the Warburton trail. Watch out for us in
high-vis gear if you ever see a doco on the Warbie trail! Along the trail we
also came across a bundle of fresh grapes wrapped up in bark off a tree; delicious!
Arriving at Yarra Junction (6 kms before Warburton) we scouted around for food
donations then headed to Camp Eureka where we shared the kitchen with Friends
of the Earth (who were there for their annual national meeting), and thus
shared amazing food together!

Monday 22^nd February

After a beautiful relaxing day off swimming
in the river at Warburton we visited our first school-Upper Yarra. Skit
rehearsals had us on a big high, little bit unfortunate that the students
didn’t share our enthusiasm. However that didn’t stop us…our next school for
the day was a Stiener school just up the road, what a turn around! We had so
much fun presenting to the kids and they had fun watching us. Tim even inspired
one kid to ride his bike again after a five year break, excellent!!!

I think that we did an amazing job for our
first day at school, and looking forward to all the rest along the way,
especially the more challenging ones J.

Tuesday 23^rd February – Tony

BRRRRRRR!!!!!!  was the first word  uttered by most of us as we woke at the
historic Eureka Camp near Yarra Junction. 
A chilly start, but we soon warmed up as we rode towards Neerim South,
55 km away.

It was quite a challenging ride with lots
of long uphill sections. However, some beautiful mountain ash and treefern
country, plus support from the team, helped us all to successfully negotiate
the 6  & 1/2 hour journey.  We managed to do some more foraging along the
way – this time blackberries. Marieke showed particular dedication here – you
only had to look at the scratches on her legs to realize this.

Once again we rode in teams of 5. At one
stop our group met an interesting guy called Bill who has been traveling  around our amazing country for 3 years in his
Winebago with his dog, an Alsatian called Venus. She spent time dropping sticks
of all sizes at all of our feet.

We found the businesses we approached for
food in Neerim South to be very supportive. Greg from the deli & Ken, the
butcher  were particularly supportive.

The cooking crew excelled again, this time
via the caravan park’s barby. We are eating so well

We had a heart circle after tea – lots of
sharing & caring. We had a moving farewell to Kate & Ange who are
returning to Melbourne in the morning. They gave each of us a lovely written
“warm fuzzy” followed by many, many hugs, plus tears.

We weren’t in our converted tram, which is
going to be our accommodation for the next 2 nights, very long, before we were
all sound asleep. What a day!!!!!!

Wednesday 24^th February – Kelly

Today we work up and had a lovely breakfast
with the apples and blackberries we picked from trees by the road side. We then
made our way to Neerim District Secondary College where we said our last
good-byes to Kate and Ange, our co-coordinators. They had been with us everyday
from the start but it was now time for them to go back to Melbourne. We had
lots of fun presenting our skit to the students at Neerim and we thought our
workshops went down well too. Aaron a student at Neerim College has taking the
initiative to get his school into recycling which is great to see. 

Friday
26th Feb -Marieke

What an
amazing day! We just seemed to have the best luck all day. Sunshine and clear
skies, we woke to another lovely (HUGE) breakfast and rode to the local
Trafalgar high school. The kids were really fantastic. They were really
responsive and we all had a lot of fun in our workshops with year 7's and 8's.
With a really busy afternoon we split into groups and tackled all our tasks
brilliantly. We even had time to swim in the local free pool with the students
we had spent time with that day. Rachel and I had an amazing response for food
and trailer repair donations in the nearby town of Moe, special thanks to Craig
from the bike store and Jennie from 'The Valley Greengrocer and Deli'. We ate
particularly well tonight thanks to our wonderful and generous hosts Sue and
Ross (and all the left over food from last nights shin-dig with the local
Sustainable Living group in Trafalgar). It really was such a positive and
productive day that we all felt a warm buzz (ok, I felt a warm buzz...but I
assume everyone else was on my vibe).I really feel like the group is becoming a
wonderful team and we can conquer anything and inspire these students.

We are all
happy, well fed, and being chased around a yard by two over-enthusiastic dogs,
life is looking great.