Photo: Mt Agung, Bali.

22nd April 2018, by Jenny.

Travel Home Base and Around

Since Susanne and Torsten (the Germans) continued on their amazing around the world journey on bicycles, we have pretty much continued on with the projects we had already started at THB (Travel Home Base). Will and our daughter, Harper, have been building the storage and bed for “Agnus”, Harpers’ Mazda Van, and she is almost ready to load up.  I did my bit, and made some new curtains for her, but I have basically just been pottering around in the garden.  I have become quite plant mad, but it is all starting to look very nice.

The idea is for storage crates underneath, and individual cushions on the benches that will make up the bed, but for now the double mattress will be okay.

Great team work you two, now all is needed, is to put up the curtains, and make it homely.

You can see the progress with our two veggie patches, the third one is composting for now. I am a very proud plant mother, and talk to them all with encouraging words daily. 

Most of the front garden has been small cuttings or seedlings, and is showing some real progress too. It will be great to see how’s much it’s grown when we return from the USA.

Some things I’ve also done, besides gardening, are getting a nice foot pamper with my good friend Nicole. She lives a long way from me, so it has become a bit of a tradition when we catch up. I also help my friend Delys, with her little business (check out Dilli Delli, on Facebook) by painting canvases for her workshops, and producing Mandalas, as homework.

Will has been quite pushy with the logistics and preparation for our big Canada and US trip in July, and has already been doing work on the big touring Thorn Nomads. After lots of YouTubing, Googling and emailing, he organised some new parts, and did the necessary maintenance.

With all the parts and research done, Black Betty is the sacrificial lamb. She is going great guns now, and had no problems during the service.

Yellow Dog came in next, and it was easy second time around. Chain rings rotated, as was the Rolhoff sprocket, new chains, and thinking about the brake pads. They don’t really need changing yet, and the parts are small enough to carry with us.

In between this, we took a short break, and headed over to Bali to catch up with my Sister (from the UK), and her husband, who were on a cruise from Singapore.  The cruise finished in Bali, so why not pop over to say hi again? It was a great opportunity.  My mum came too, and all of us, enjoyed sitting by the pool, reading, drinking cocktails, and having afternoon naps while it was too hot to be outside. It was a good chance to do some more cycle training, hiring some Dutch style bikes and cycling along the Sanur beachfront.  There is a pretty good path that runs for about 10kms along the beach.  It doesn’t matter if it is too hot, there’s plenty of bars and resorts to take cooling cocktail breaks at.

The pool was critical to our holiday. Watching the young Balinese girls learning the traditional dancing, by the pool. Floating in the pool, reading by the pool, and even Yoga by the pool.

This is the team to help us get some cycle training in, and find a few good spots for a cold drink.

Mother daughter bather team out and about. You can’t come to Bali and not buy some crap, so we did that too.

The eating and drinking part. It was a big part too.

So aside from eating, drinking, swimming, sleeping and totally relaxing, we didn’t do much. All of us enjoyed the break, and all of us were happy to be getting back to our usual climates.  The poor Poms, had suffered heaps with their cruise, as they had come from a pretty cold winter, to the hot, sticky equator. Even us Aussie sun lovers were feeling the humidity, so it was nice to get back to a dry 28C.

We even got up Once to see the sunrise. It was a beautiful time of day, we should have done it more.

Team Wiljen and Mumsie! What a holiday! Let’s go home and get training!

As far as our training for the huge Canada/USA ride, we are not really doing a very good job.  If it wasn’t for the Germans, and a visit from a long-time supporter and follower (Randall Holland), we probably wouldn’t have gotten out on the bikes at all. Randall decided he needed to get out on a ride, (he lives in the hills of Perth) so contacted us and rode on down.  We took him of a short 20km tour of the southern estuary, and back along the beach, stopping at Bar Therapy for a couple of beers.  It was a beautiful day, and we all enjoyed meeting each other in person for the first time.

Showing off our lovely little town is always a good way to train, thank goodness Randall came to see it.

Randall has been communicating with us, and following our blog pretty much from the beginning, and has been a great supporter. We have all wanted to meet before but hadn’t quite got our timing right. So, it was with great pleasure that we hosted him overnight and enjoyed his travel and life stories. The following day, we all rode along the coast to Rockingham, where we had lunch, before parting ways.  We all cycled to the Train Station, 6kms from the foreshore, and caught the trains to our separate destinations.  What a fantastic day we had, finding a new path for all of us, which was spectacular and enjoying the easy way home in the heat of the day (It was getting warm, at 32C).

Randall trained us hard, and we enjoyed every minute. Thanks so much for making the effort and getting in touch with us.

Mum and I went to the Perth Garden show, where Mum bought a chainsaw, and of course we bought plants. There was a fantastic sculpture called Martin Janine, who had such amazing work we loved.

Will and his mate Darren, had a great ride to York, and the York Motorcycle Festival. They had amazing riding weather too.

Mumsie has recruited my step sister, Mandy, to help get us training. We all did a very leisurely and enjoyable cycle to an Italian cafe for lunch. It was about 16kms on the Bromptons, and mum on her folding Polygon bike. Training is training, at least we go to out there.

On top of the needing to do training, we have been researching camping equipment, camping stores in Calgary, Warmshowers hosts in Calgary, new footwear for our journey, and basically trying to get things in order.  The Travel Home Base is almost there, with the insulation being upgraded, and the edible garden area progressing nicely. Left to get sorted before July, is the water tank, and a last area of concreting.  We have begun these two jobs and should have them sorted in the next month.  Then all we need to do is enjoy the fruits (Lemons, Kumquats and Figs) and vegetables (tomatoes, beetroot, spinach, capsicum, lettuce and snow peas) of our labour. But really, the training is what we need the most, so if there is anyone out there who would like to help us in the training department, what we need from you, is as simple as you wanting to go for a ride somewhere and asking us to tag along.  We discovered that we don’t hesitate if it is someone else’s idea, but we are lazy bastards if left to our own devices. Please help us, there are Mountains in Canada! Very huge mountains!