TAOC: The Team

18 April

The Adventures of Chifley: The Blog

I wrote an epic blog post about our epic walk. You can read it here.

Also check out our team tracker for photos and messages from us during the event!

Final Time: 29hrs 12min
Total distance walked by our team: 359.6km

15 April

The Adventures of Chifley: The Team

So! After some minor changes to the lineup, tomorrow at 8.30am.... Umbrella (Peter), Cup of Tea (Kelly), Mouse Cursor (Lora) and ephant (Elise) will be heading off on their 100 kilometre journey, assisted by the wonderful Giraffe (Lucien) and French Robot (Nicolai).

I'd like to take a moment to thank our incredible support team. Nicolai has spent numerous hours slaving away in the kitchen to prepare food for our training walks, and for the event. Lucien has driven out to the trail with us several times and waited around for us to train.

Additionally, James and Duncan have been invaluble supporting us throughout our training, and will also be heading out to the trail to help Nicolai and Lucien out

I'd also like to thank Ingrid for her support and assistance with our early training efforts. We were all very sad when illness and study commitments meant that she couldn't remain on the team. We will be thinking of you tomorrow!

Thank you to everyone who has donated, and who has promised to donate! It means so much to us!

Keep an eye on our page here for our position updates. Thank you thank you thank you everyone!

28 March

The Mountain^2

So it's been a little while since we've all trained together for various reasons such as injury and sickness, and we were getting a bit concerned I think about whether or not we'd all actually be able to do the Event.

Luckily though, last night, all four of us were once more reunited on the trail and in high spirits. Our aim: to conquer the mountain. Twice. In one night.

We got out there at about 5.30, and started our first expedition at 5.45, following moments behind another team. The competitor in me had us pushing forwards somewhat in order to take them >_> I can't help it, I like winning, even when it isn't a race. So we got ahead of them at the halfway clearing point on the backstairs track, and (I) felt jubilant in our victory. A bit further up again though we had to pause to remove various outer layers as the evening was much warmer than we expected (or rather, climbing a mountain produces much more bodyheat than we expected), and our foes charged on in front of us, shaking their heads at our youthfulness. They did point out to us an echidna, lying cutely in the shrubbery, which I wanted to pick up and take with us. They're so cute. And so not cuddly.

We made good time to the top of the backstairs, and took a well-deserved mars/muesli bar break at the top before merrily trekking onwards. We also spotted the giant scary tasmanian ants which I had recently assured my American friends don't exist on the mainland >_> We re-overtook the headshakers on the fun downhill part, which was covered in a soft and comforting layer of ash, as opposed to it's usual gravelly horror. I then made the mistake of taking my eyes off my feet, in order to high five everyone, and my foot tried to escape, flinging me to ground with a pretty twist and a grazed knee. Fortunately I'm well practised at dealing with escapee feet, and didn't take any real injury.

continued below...

28 March

The Mountain^2

Getting to the end wasn't too bad. The uphill was difficult, and neverending, but we did it! The last downhill I ran down mountain goat style as the last vestiges of daylight wiled away. We got a little lost on the last windy track to wesburn park, as the bit with the log stepup now has a tree barring it's way, so we walked up and down that path twice before we found the correct exit. And then to victory and dinner! The mountain took us exactly 2hrs to conquer. Elise's brother and his gf were kind enough to pick us up from Wesburn, drive us to the golf course, let us nomnom some food, then take Peter's car to Wesburn, and bring Peter back to the golf course, so that we could just drive home from the end.

Attempt 2 began at 8.40, with us all I think feeling a bit wary of doing it -again-. I wasn't excited about it. I hate hills. A lot. But we did it. We climbed the backstairs, no echidna this time. I think we also took less time on breaks, and it didn't feel as long as the first time. We took just a few seconds to breathe at the top before ploughing on down the firetrack. Walking in the dark is very different to walking in the light. I don't pay any attention to landmarks that aren't under my feet. So I could probably do the walk again in the dark and know exactly where I am by the lay of the land under my toes, but there's always a feeling of timelessness when you walk in the dark where before you walked in the light. Everything seems much further away I think. It was more fun the second time round though. Cha loves the dark, and we were walking very close together to utilise each other's light, and I was merry about approaching the end, so it was all very festive and fun.

When we got to the final hill the second time, there was a sense of "ugh not again", but it's so close, it's nearly over. We passed a team coming down the hill and they gave us encouraging cries of "not far to go now!" We took it slow and steady, and as we approached the E-tree

09 March

Challenges: Part 2

Admittedly, part of what my mind has been fixated on lately has been the sheer physical act of walking, and sometimes the discomfort that goes along with it. After a few hours feet can get sore, and everything becomes a bit sweaty and uncomfortable.

But, then I think about challenges. This is a pretty big challenge. One of the biggest I've ever undertaken. I'm not traditionally the sort of fitness conscious person who would usually sign up for Trailwalker. The rest of my team have me beaten for speed and fitness, especially on the hills. I'm a gamer geek, more usually found sitting in front of a computer somewhere. But that's not to say I'm a completely hopeless case. And I have committed to this with every intention of training up and doing my very best.

I don't have to face very many challenges in life that I don't actively choose to put myself through. Many people in the world are not so fortunate. They have challenges forced upon them, simply to have the basic things we rarely have to think about: having enough food, clean water, health care, education, safety...

All in all, it starts to make my complaints about being covered in sweat and only half way up a hill seem rather trivial.

I really want to thank everyone who has been supportive, both through donations and encouragement. I am confident we can all get back on track and see what we can make of this.

-- Cha

09 March

Challenges: Part 1

The Adventures of Chifley: The Team has been going through a bit of a rough patch recently. We have had Elise nursing a twisted ankle, Lora studying for some important tests, and various hiccups interfering with out training schedule. It's made motivation difficult at times.

Lora, Peter and I did walk part of Checkpoint 6 to 7 recently, then a loop back to the car. It was good to be walking as (most of) a team again. Fingers crossed that Elise heals up properly very soon!

I've been doing a lot of walking on my own, which is not ideal but far better than no walking at all! Hills Training around Ferntree Gully and Belgrave, and I walked the Yarra Trail a few weeks ago. Near Belgrave I saw a peacock hiding among someone's rubbish bins. I really wish I'd had my camera.

I suppose this brings me back to something I touched upon previously -- walking as a thinking space. When I'm walking as part of a team it's less obvious, but in general walking gives my mind time to wander.

07 February

Can you Hackett?

So today we conquered CP2-4, a grand 24km that includes (for me) -the- most challenging part of the course - both Belgrave and the dreaded Hacketts. We started off nice and early once again: I had a pleasant 5.30am wakeup, I think others had a similar bright start, and we met out on the trail at 7. Okay actually -I- met out on the trail at 7. The others went to the wrong end of Lysterfield and didn't make it til 7.30. But that's okay, I'll forgive them (this once...) Today our team consisted of Elise, Cha, me (woo!) and our fourth for the day was Peter. He drives. We like him. The plan was to meet bright and early to avoid the heat, and to attempt to finish the 24km in about 5hrs, meeting our support crew Lucien for lunch at Olinda. Nicolai, support crew member in charge of food, made us awesome lunches to fit our many and varied dietary requirements and fussiness which we all greatly looked forward to. The walk started off great, with the firetrack of doom proving quite pleasant in the clear cool breezes of early morning (a stark difference to the death inducing heat of the first time I attempted this part of the trail). Being so pleasantly surprised I was optimistic about the day. We'd gotten our getting lost out of the way before the walk, and the weather was perfect. Shame I don't look where I'm going... Managed to put my foot in the only crevice on the entire track, and get it stuck in there, causing a most hilarious cartoon style sideflop onto the not-so cushiony gravel. It's alright though loyal supporters, I came away with just a few impressive bruises and scratches. If anyone asks, I was mauled by a bear... and he lost. Things improved. I then took over map reading, and led us boldly into the unknowns. Actually thats not true, it wasn't unknown at all. I've walked it four times. Kinda ironic that I led us down the wrong path. I -did- notice though.. I mean, we were going downhill, it was easy, there was... no one else around.

07 February

Can you Hackett? Part 2

I think we did awesomely today. The entire distance is basically climbing from 100m elevation to 600m (yay for Peter's GPS keeping us informed). And I'm pretty sure 200 of that incline occurs over Hacketts. Which we killed, did I mention? Yep, we fricken slaughtered every single one of those hills. It was a slow job at times, but we were thorough. And we kicked this section's arse in just over our hoped for time, in 5hrs and 40mins. Hey, trust me, 40mins -is- just over when you're get distracted slaughtering innocent hills ^_^ ~Lora

02 February

Muesli bar Recipe

I've been on the look-out for good training snacks, particularly those I can make from scratch. Last week's experiment was home-made muesli bars. It takes a little time to toast all the seeds, but I think they turned out rather well.

Unfortunately, this recipe isn't appropriate for our whole team, but those of us who did try some on Sunday seemed to enjoy them. The sesame flavour came out rather strongly, which was quite tasty but I may experiment a bit with the quantities next time.

Super Muesli Bars

• 50 g butter or 1/4 cup oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup rolled oats, toasted
• 1/2 cup wheatgerm, toasted
• 1/2 cup roasted sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped (optional)

Measure the butter or oil, the honey and peanut butter into a large frying pan. Bring to the boil, stirring to blend the ingredients, then turn the heat to very low, and lightly toast the rolled oats, then the wheatgerm, about 10 cm from a grill, stirring frequently, and watching carefully so neither burns. Mix these in a bowl with the previously roasted sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. Chop the dried apricots finely, in a food processor if available, and mix with the other dry ingredients.

Cook the honey mixture gently until it forms a firm ball when a little is dropped into cold water and left for about 1 minute, then stir in the dry ingredients thoroughly. Press into a lightly buttered or oiled 20 cm square, loose-bottomed pan, and leave to cool until it is firm but still flexible. This is the time to turn it out and cut, with a serrated knife, into two pieces, then cut each piece into 10 fingers. Wrap individually in cling wrap, or store in a completely airtight container.

Source: Meals without Meat (Alison Holst)

Enjoy

-- Cha

31 January

Hitting the character limit

(Continued from below. I guess there's a character limit on this thing?)

It's kind of funny, I remember that hill (the first 3km after leaving CP1) being a lot worse than it actually felt today - I am just that much more fit this year compared with last year! Not that it was completely trivial (although I did show off and run past some bikes in the last 50m or so!).

With judicious use of the map, we managed to not get lost again. (although we failed to refill our water packs when we were able to and most of us ran out of water by the end! We'll have to be much more careful with that in future - it's not easy to tell how much water you have left in your pack until it's all gone!) Arriving at Lysterfield Lake before 12.30pm. Quite a bit later than we'd initially planned, but still a pretty reasonable time.

I'm looking forward to walking CP2 - CP4 next week!

In less excellent news, unfortunately Ingrid is not going to be able to walk the trail with us on the day, although she still wants to do some of the training. Also it turns out our Understudies are not actually available for all of our training sessions (thus failing at being understudies! But Duncan will be support crew! Yay Duncan). Thus we are currently without an official fourth team member. Nicolai has been training with us for the past couple of weeks, so we will see how he goes after today...

Oh no, I've ended the entry on kind of a downer. Uh... we had Jellybeans! Delicious delicious glucose lollies from the chemist. So delicious. Lora only likes pink. (She doesn't realise that all of the colours taste the same. Except for the black ones which taste like AWESOME)

-Elise

31 January

Wiggle to the Left

So we got up bright and early today to head out to the trail! It was our first time on the actual trail this time around.

A member of our Support crew, Duncan, was nice enough to pick most of the team up from my house at the delightfully early time of 6.30am! In fact, everyone was early which meant that I was the one holding everyone up! Duncan dropped us off at Lora's place. We tagged along with Dragmoe to get a ride to the start of the trail!

It was still nice and early (and not too hot!) when we started, which was good - couldn't say the same by the end of the day! blerk.

We did manage to get ourselves briefly lost, which was unfortunate. The problem was basically that we thought we were further along the trail than we actually were - so we ended up missing a turn-off. We did get to see a giant basketball on a stick, but rather than making excellent time, like we thought we were, we were actually not making good time and wasted time walking in the wrong direction and working out where we actually were. Ah well - we know that on the day this won't be a problem because there are lovely Oxfam volunteers pointing us in the right direction at all the tricky bits!!

Once we were back on track, it was all pretty smooth sailing. We did have a few excellent wildlife experiences!

• Kangaroos!! We interrupted a mob of Kangaroos grazing and they bounded off in front of, in between and behind our team members (and understudy!).
• Snake! Yee and I saw a snake wiggle off to the left. When you see the snake, of course, it's not really a problem!
• Bugs! The bugs really liked Cha's hair. A lot.
• We managed to avoid both the Drop-Bears and the Snipes.

With all of our getting lost and such, we ended up arriving at CP1 at around the time that Dragmoe arrived at CP2. We decided to push on and started up the hill.

23 January

Poker Night!

So tonight I hosted our poker night fundraiser event, coupled with my infamous bake sale. First off, wanna thank everyone who came, I hope you all had fun, and well fricking done, we raised $275 tonight! Good work! I'll be adding it via the internet over the weekend :) So for those who missed out, here's how the night went: Feather and I started out nice and early, with last minute preparations of icing and prettifying all the baked goods. We had some troubles with the cupcakes that exploded into a giant amorphous mushroom in the baking process, and we think we made them look pretty, but no one was interested, so maybe not. It could however have been because of the enormous success of my caramel slice, which I had never made before. Apparently sprinkling cocoa on top really sells. The welsh cakes flew out of the basket, as usual, so there is a good chance I will make some more for the next bake sale in higher numbers. I know you all dig my little foreign delicacy. We had some great help from Mouse in packaging the goods for sale, and then everyone started arriving for pre-poker chitchat and musical chairs. (There wasn't actually music, I just didn't have enough chairs inside for everyone to sit down at once.) Poker went pretty well. I was the first one out, going all in on a pair of pocket Jacks, and losing to a pair of aces in two other players hands. But that's okay, who wants to win? Well, Vidya, and she did. Well done :) There was also much pool, frivolity, and illegal LT jokes, and all in all, it was a pretty fun, laidback night. Thanks again everyone. Looking forward to the next event ^_^ ~ Lora

06 January

Yarra Adventures

One of the cool things about walking, I think, is that you get to see lots of interesting things along the way. Traditionally, I tend to meander and am easily distracted, so now that I'm training for Trailwalker I have to focus far more and maintain a faster pace. Even while I'm focusing, though, walking feels a bit like an adventure, and you never know quite what you might find.

We are looking forward to actually getting out to the trail, but so far have been training a bit closer to home.

I find it very interesting to be able to walk quite a short distance and see so many different things. I think that's one of the nice parts of living in Melbourne. Walking towards Abbotsford and then along the Yarra I start out among interesting shops and graffiti art around Fitzroy and Collingwood, followed by a transition into vegetation and parkland, with the city as a backdrop. My route even included a view of the Collingwood Children's Farm, as a small hidden away patch of agricultural scenery.

Among the city streets I saw a man riding a unicycle, and found $2 on the footpath, which I choose to take as a good omen. Unfortunately, the traffic lights slow up walking a bit too much to really spend much time walking along the streets.

In the parks and reserves there are a lot more walkers, joggers and cyclists about. One jogger even made the effort to say a breathless good morning as she passed me. I startled a red-rumped parrot (Psephotus haematonotus), and noticed at least one natural tree hollow with grass protruding from the opening, betraying the location of someone's home.

Along the Yarra there are lots of people about, but for short moments you can still pretend you are alone and far away from city bustle. I suppose that brings me to another good point about walking, which is the space to think and reflect on things. But that is a post for another day.

-- Cha (aka Kelly)

20 December

The Adventures of Merri Creek

This afternoon our team plus our two understudies went walking around clifton hill and northcote!

Lora was clever enough to plan our route for us, and we also took some time to plan out some of our future walks. We'll try and walk the whole trail during February!

Walking along the Merri Creek trail we saw a recycling bin and a trolley. The trolley appeared to have been in the Creek for quite some time.

I have two fundraising announcements to make:

The first is that you may notice our Fundraising Pledge has been increased to $3000. We were over half way to our original $1000 goal already, so we have increased our pledge. Thank you again to everyone who has donated already!

The second fundraising announcement is that I plan to introduce a new character into The Adventures of Chifley: The Comic. But I need your help to decide who I scan and draw in first!

So! Each dollar you donate counts as one 'vote' for a character! You don't have to spend all of your votes on one character. So for everyone who has donated already, and for everyone who is donating between now and the end of January, please let me know who you want to vote for, and what the breakdown should be!

Here are some examples of Characters you could vote for:

• Monkey
• Panda
• Frog
• Feather
• Emu
• Caterpillar
• Umbrella

You don't have to vote for one of the above characters, if you aren't sure who you want to vote for (or want to vote for yourself as a character but you don't know what your character is or if you have one) just let me know! The new Adventures of Chifley character may be someone completely new!

29 November

Braving Footscray

So Lora had to work in Footscray today and she had a long break in the middle of the day, so we decided to walk with Lora in Footscray in order to save her from boredom

Alas! It started to pour with rain just as we were going to leave! But I consulted the BOM and established that the rain would not last.

Ingrid and I picked up Cha and headed over to Footscray to get Lora. At last! Our whole team was together in the one place at the one time. It was the first time that Lora and Cha had even met each other, but they didn't appear to hate each other so I think we'll do okay!

We headed over to a park in footscray and did our first official team training walk (carefully avoiding the broken glass and used condoms) Although we only walked for about an hour I think it was really good to get us all together and get us into the training mindset and routine!

--Elise

24 November

Preparing for Preparing

So unfortunately our first Official Training Session had to be postponed due to rain on the weekend. Sadface. Ingrid and I have been on a couple of short walks, and I'm sure the others haven't been slacking off too much - but it will be nice to get together and walk as a team!

I'm really thrilled with the people who have donated to our team so far - we've raised $225 so far, which is absolutely fantastic. We're still five months away from the event and to know that people are supporting us is a real morale booster! So thank you Anonymous and Lena! We love you!

We are going to be planning some events, so we'll keep you posted on those - we don't expect everyone to give us money without getting anything in return (but we really really appreciate people who do do that!). I'm thinking Poker Night, Trivia Night, possibly some movies... It will be awesome

This evening Ingrid and I attended the information at Melbourne City Conference Centre. I think Ingrid found it slightly intimidating but I'm super excited! I know that we can do this, I know that we can ALL do this!

If you can find it in your budget to donate some money our way, be it $20, $50 or whatever, it would mean so much to us, and even more to the people that it will be helping - but if you can't do that, or you can and you want to do more, The Adventures of Chifley: The Team needs to consist of more people than just the four of us. We'll need a support crew on the day itself, but we'll also need supporters to help us with training! We want to get a few days out on the trail itself so we'll need people to drive us out and back home again - which will require a few hours of waiting around for us. Some of this will be at night time! If you have a car and some free time and a book you've been wanting to read, let me know! :)

11 November

Introducing The Adventures of Chifley: The Team

The Adventures of Chifley is a Webcomic, a Blog, A Podcast and a Trailwalker Team

Elise Kendall: ephant
Lora Evans: Mouse Cursor
Ingrid Phillips: Hippo
Kelly Holland: Cup of Tea

Elise and Lora participated in Oxfam Trailwalker in 2009 as part of team #2ndfloor. Unfortunately they both had to retire before they end (our two other team members Suresh and Chifley both made it to the end! Go them!) and they are DETERMINED TO MAKE IT THE WHOLE WAY THIS TIME!

2010 will be Ingrid and Kelly's first trailwalker! Lora and Elise intend to push them hard at training and we hope to cross the line as a team of four!

Our weekly training schedule starts soon, and we will keep you updated here with how it is going!

I will also be posting updates on my twitter account and on The Adventures of Chifley: The Blog

We've got a long way to go, and a lot of training ahead of us - you can support us by donating to our team! I know the event is not for a while, but we will really need the motivation.

Our official goal is to raise at least $1000 for Oxfam. Trailwalker 2009 saw us raising around $2000 - so lets try to beat that!

-- Elise