By Toasty, on September 29th, 2010 You know, you can’t help but feel part of something special when you go and have a look at the online total raised by people participating in the Around Australia Ride for the Steven Walter Foundation and see it at over $100,00 – or $103,030 at the time of this posting. It’s been a long year, made even longer by knowing that this fantastic trip is coming our way. It’s funny, the last month or two has been just DRAGGING along but suddenly here I am only three days out from leaving and we have collectively raised over $100,000. Continue reading the full One, Hundred, THOUSAND! post. By Toasty, on September 29th, 2010 So with only a couple of days left until I up-stumps and point the old girl north, I thought I would post the various ways you can follow me on this five week journey. Follow me on Twitter You can subscribe to my Twitter feed and receive any updates I push to it. They will mainly be Google Map links to show where we have stopped at various stages through the day, random musings that come with long hours on the road, and notifications of when there have been new blog posts. Follow me on Facebook If you Continue reading the full Following the Journey post. By Toasty, on September 26th, 2010 Before Well I said there was one final modification before I go – it was me. To put it simply, five weeks of my head in a helmet and spending a lot of that time through the very hot and humid north of Australia I figured it would be one less thing to worry if I just got rid of the hair – simple. So down to the barber shop yesterday and got a trusty #1 all over. Hopefully it will grow back… After Continue reading the full Last modification post. By Toasty, on September 24th, 2010 A week from today it will be the eve to probably the biggest adventure of my life. Will I get any sleep? Not a wink. Will I be ready? Probably not as ready as I want to be. Will I be looking forward to it? Like nothing I have looked forward to before. Everything that has shown up for the adventure is here, everything to be bolted to the Road Star is on, really all that’s left is to pack the bags (and repack about a million times) and hit the road. The fundraising has been fantastic with my personal Continue reading the full So close I can almost taste it… post. By Toasty, on September 20th, 2010 These stats are shamelessly plagiarised from the map book each of us has received. So without further ado, taking part in the Steven Walter Foundation’s inaugural Around Australia Ride are: 52 motorcycles, with 10 pillions, and with 10 support crew there are 72 individuals all up. The oldest rider is 68, the youngest rider is 28 26, and there are three women riders (yay!). The largest motorcycles are the 1800cc Goldwings (of which there are plenty), the smallest is a 650cc KLR single cylinder, and I think I am on the only Yamaha Road Star – go the 1600cc! We’re Continue reading the full Some Stats About the Group post. By Toasty, on September 18th, 2010 I’ve updated the Itinerary page with the latest and final route information. It now includes dates, destinations and distances for every day plus links to Google maps for each of the towns. By Toasty, on September 18th, 2010 Charging my iPhone from the motorcycle battery More goodies in the mail yesterday after receiving my Powerlet inline charging kit for the iPhone from BlueRim Australia. Due to GPS applications being renowned for chewing through the battery on an iPhone, I knew I needed to get something so I can charge the iPhone while on the road. Plus it will help if I forget to charge the iPhone overnight – can’t have an eight hour day on the bike without tunes! The kit was incredibly simple to install, just hook the charger up to the correct battery terminals, loop the Continue reading the full Motorcycle Charger for the iPhone post. By Toasty, on September 17th, 2010 Just some of the things I am really looking forward to: starting the trip! lots of sunsets – especially up north and in Broome where our final night of a three night stopover is a beach BBQ fishing off the beach in Broome! the red of the Outback a bar and a bed at the end of each day riding in a big group a winery tour in Margaret River seeing so many places I probably would never have seen Limeburners Whisky Distillery in Albany seeing Esperance again as it is one of my earlier childhood memories (haven’t been there Continue reading the full Things to look forward to post. By Toasty, on September 15th, 2010 Our very own itinerary Got home today to find a care package waiting for me from the Steven Walter Foundation. Inside was a sticker for my motorcycle so riders can identify each other (cool), an Around Australia Ride t-shirt (cooler), and an awesome map book custom made by the SWF (coolest!). Seriously the amount of effort that has gone into this thing is just incredible. Our map book includes pages for the day’s route, how to get to each motel we are staying at, listed fuel/rest stops and kilometers, contact numbers everywhere and even a page or two for Continue reading the full Itinerary Book post. By Toasty, on September 14th, 2010 One of my recent dilemmas has been how to get my better quality pictures from my digital camera onto my iPhone once I am on the road without a computer to sync the pictures with. Thankfully I discovered a little device called a zoomIt which does indeed allow me to take the SD card from my camera and through the zoomIt upload them to my iPhone. The below pictures I took with my Canon camera and then transferred them over. A quick crop using the free Adobe Photoshop Express app and I’m ready to upload the pictures to this post Continue reading the full ZoomIt SD Card Reader for Iphone post. | Ride Around Australia October 2010In October 2010 I rode a Yamaha Road Star around Australia to raise money for the Steven Walter Foundation Program. This site documents the trip prep in the lead up to the journey and a daily diary of the trip itself. |  You can donate to the Steven Walter Foundation at the following link. |
