Week 6 mileage
Day 36-37: Darwin: 70kms (getting round the place)
Day 38: Darwin to Daly Waters: 590kms
Day 39: Daly Waters to Alice Springs: 914kms (huge day!)
Days 40-42: Alice Springs: 50kms (multiple trips to golf course and sourcing tyre replacement…)
Week 6 mileage: 1,624kms
Total trip mileage: 10,137kms
Welcome all to another week of my ramblings.
Week six was a big one, both km wise (have ticked over 10,000kms in total!) and with two hospital visits.
Kicking off in Darwin, I visited the Royal Darwin Hospital and presented my second personal donation of my ride, a $5,000 cheque to the Royal Darwin Hospital paediatrics ward. My money will go toward some new treatment chairs for the kids in this very busy ward.
Again, what a wonderful team of people they have there. Currently going through renovations, the team were extremely appreciative of my donation and were kind enough to give me a great tour of the ward and field all my questions on the goings on as well as the future look of the place.
Me with Gina Majid, Acting Clinical Curse Manager General Paediatrics, and Maureen Brittin, Co_Director Nursing, Division of Women, Children and Youth.
I finally got my bike serviced (felt a bit guilty) but thankfully my faithful stallion passed (if you can pass a service) with flying colours and there were no issues. It is certainly holding up its end of the bargain being hard ridden around this beautiful country – I am no expert rider and the bike has been extremely forgiving.
After hearing about the wonderful work the Alice Springs Hospital does in their paediatrics ward, I jumped on the phone and asked them if I could help out. They gave me the perfect answer – new iPads! This was something I had been hoping someone would ask for as I really want my personal donations to help kids have a better time throughout their stay and have some fun (ironically enough I only own a very old iPad mini for reading but I assume iPads are generally fun (disclaimer: I find reading fun)).
The ward is a 40-bed ward and they currently had only 3 iPads! I promptly ordered 5 new iPads to be delivered to the Alice Springs Hospital paediatric ward (so I didn’t have to strap them to my back) and jumped on the bike to make the detour to visit this great ward.
Two big days on the bike (1,500 odd kms) later I arrived in Alice Springs.
You and me both buddy... on the way to Alice Springs.
My major stop off on the way to Alice Springs was to visit the famous Daly Waters Historic Pub, an eccentric pub if I ever saw one, and one of Australia’s most famous (the one with all the bras hanging from the rafters). They also have very generous parking...
Nice angles.
Alice was much bigger than I expected, and with a flattened out back tyre due to the high speeds of the NT roads and the heat (see below) I needed to source a replacement!
Luckily, when I dropped in to Jetcor Yamaha in Alice and convinced them that the flat-spotted back tyre was due to 10,000kms+ of a lot of straight riding and heat and not due to me thrashing out burnouts to try and impress people on my ride, they hooked me up with a very generous deal in support of my ride and hooked me up with a new rear tyre much better suited to the type of riding I am doing.
Yep, I think this tyre is done!
After sorting out mechanical issues, I visited the lovely Alice Springs Hospital, and thankfully Apple’s renowned express delivery had performed and the iPads had arrived well ahead of me.
As mentioned, this was a bit of a detour from my original route, but when I spoke to the Royal Darwin Hospital team and heard about the Alice Springs Hospital Paediatric work and the amazing things they do, particularly for indigenous kids and families who do not want to travel/may not be able to, I had to ride down and visit.
Coming from a rural area, I know that rural towns can sometimes be forgotten (no matter how beautiful they are, hint hint Renmark South Australia). While the capital cities often attract a lot of fundraising, sometimes the valuable work and services in remote areas can go unnoticed.
These rural hospitals do not have the same facilities/resources as many major hospitals – they truly put in a mammoth effort.
The Alice Springs Hospital has a wonderful team of people providing amazing services to many children.
The 5 iPads I have donated will be used by children who find themselves having an extended stay in the hospital. The funky one I am holding has one of the hospital cases put on it to "child proof" it – given I drop my iPhone alarmingly regularly I had forgotten to consider providing some cases!
Me with Sukoluhle Moyo, the Clinical Educator in the Paediatrics Ward, and Dr Keshan Satharasinghe, a resident paediatrician.
PS: Sukoluhle and Dr Satharasinghe are both sitting on kid chairs, I am not performing some weird half standing squat.
For me, it was now off to Uluru (I had detoured this far why not!) and I look forward to updating you on my time there and my trek back north and finally heading east in next week’s blog.
Donation update and call to action
I am thrilled to inform you that we have now passed halfway in donations! As I write this, $26,369 has been donated to the Children’s Cancer Foundation! With my matching donations directed toward hospitals around Australia, that means that as a team, we have pledged $52,738 in the battle against childhood cancer! Thank you so much to you all.
I am still looking for corporate sponsors and connections so please let me know if any businesses you may be involved in or know may be keen to get involved.
As always, you can donate by clicking here.
Best
James