What a day. Unfortunately it was too dangerous to stop and photograph the best bits, but I have to say Macquarie Pass is spectacular. There are areas with no guard rail because there is no room for the posts and the drop is hundreds of metres. The other side is sheer rock walls.

I walked out of Donny’s at about 8.00am and set off for the mountain. A bloke called Robert walked with me for a few hundred metres as part of his daily walk. It was uphill so was good to make me walk at his pace.

Past the Robertson pie shop at the top of the hill and then it was all down for a long way. Took this shot with a great view over Lake Illawarra with the Pacific Ocean in the background if you look really hard.

The road continues for a few kilometres before the pass starts. The pass is 8k long with an average of 10% grade. At the inside of the hairpins it is about twice that. We had one highway patrol check us out near the top and another about ¾ of the way down. He was a nice young copper (they are all young these days) and we had a quick chat about what I was doing before traffic forced him to take off.

Met Klaas a couple of times on the way down in the odd place that he could get off the road. I think the sign works. People do a double take when they see it. All the truckies were fine but there were a few dickheads who thought they owned the road. Two young blokes driving slowly up the hill, slowly because they were behind a truck, yelled out “Dickhead”. Charming.

One of the few places to stop.

Only got 19km for the day because I really struggled after the mountain. Still about 5km out of Albion Park and I think about 9km to the water where the media will be tomorrow at 9.00am. Not a good place for entry but it’s the closest.

The computer battery totally died so found a place at Windang called Computer Town They didn’t have one in stock but Mick fixed me up with an old one for free which seems to do the job. At least the computer doesn’t turn straight off if the power lead falls out.

Klaas:  Here we are in one piece down the mountain. Back on the coast. The Maquarie Pass is possibly the steepest, most treacherous road in the entire universe. From Robertson down to Dapto it winds down with up to 180* bends and no berm anywhere. It is so narrow in places that two fleas have difficulty passing. I was send down the mountain and find a spot where I could park facing the traffic and display a sign saying ” CAUTION, KAYACK AHEAD” Steve then caught up to me and I went down another few kilometres and so forth. Enormous trucks, cars and motorcycles roar up the Pass and I was a nervous wreck at the end when finally he reached the bottom. Any minute I envisaged myself scraping his remains off the road and sending them to a good nut doctor to see what makes him tick. As it was bloody hot sitting in the car all day and to celebrate the fact he has walked pulling the kayak from Canberra to hear, I insisted I buy a motel room for the night and celebrate with a Bistro lunch. Tomorrow is another day and he will be paddling across Lake Illawarra to the sea, or not, depending on wind and tides.xxxxxxxxxx

It was nice to leave from the camp site. From the sign and calculations Robertson was 22km away. It rained going through Moss Vale but the shop awnings kept me dry and that was it for the rain for the rest of the day. Pretty lucky really.

After 2.5km there was another sign, Robertson 22km. OK. Another 4km on and the next sign said Robertson 20km. After a 6km long straight the next sign said Robertson 12km. Mmm… this is getting confusing. In the end we left the kayak in Robertson with a bloke called Donny with 23km on the GPS.

Julianne and Lynne met me just before the straight with Julianne advising me that it was flat all the way to Robertson. She was right except for the really big hill. The one that is 1.5km long and reaches halfway to the clouds!

We are off to dinner at Fitzroy Falls tonight with about twenty people. Rather than give the group a full adventure experience I will have a shower after posting this.

These guys came over to look at the kayak

Beware the agapanthus! Pretty good display.

Look closely and you can see the steam off the road. This is the top of the “flat” hill

20m from our tent. I guess the word PIZZA has fallen off but Klaas has fixed the problem

And finally Klaas has got his computer back on line so…

Hi everyone, so far so good. About time I put my bit in. So here goes.

We camp somewhere and Steve hauls his kayak 28-30 kilometres down the road, phones me and I pick him up, take him back to the campsite, feed and water him and early night. Next morning ,break camp, drive to where he finished the day before, drop him off to start his day’s walking and I look for a camp site and put up the tent and unload the gear, do the food shopping, prepare dinner and pick him up when he is ready.

Steve is like a man possessed. He is a “True Believer” and totally dedicated to his mission. He is fanatical in that he insists on walking every inch of the way. Yesterday, while taking him to where I picked him up the day before I missed the spot. It was pouring down rain and he did not notice the spot either. He insisted on turning back. I said, “Do yourself a favour mate, nobody will know.” His answer, “I would”. That showed me what an honest man he is, and I have great respect for him, both for his honesty and his will to complete this physical marathon walking and paddling half way around the globe to highlight the results of Global Warming. He is outspoken and has unwavering views. I don’t always agree with some of those but as Voltaire said long ago “I may not agree with your viewpoint but will defend to the last your right to express them”.

This is the third time I have written day 7 but the keyboard seems to have finally dried out. We started the day at Bunnings buying a heat gun. It did help but the fullstop key stayed down and the delete key had a mind of its own.  Klaas went ahead to Moss Vale but didn’t get much joy so bought 10kg of rice to immerse the computer in. That worked a bit but the problem was still there intermittently. Every time the fullstop took off I would heat the key up with the heat gun. Sometimes that worked but when I lost the whole of this post I gave up and went back to the rice method. That worked overnight so we start day 8 with a computer again.

As I pulled off the Hume Highway  walking up the on ramp from the Illawarra Highway a bloke went past on the Hume in a white station wagon with one hand pumping the horn a the other fist pumping the air outside his window. The enthusiasm and the timing were incredible. Sure beat the party by myself with a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Got a flat 10km outside Moss Vale and eventually dragged into the caravan park at 5.00pm ready for a beer. There is a sign that says BAR about 30m from the tent so that’s where we went. It is a Pizza Bar. No beer!

The rain gods smiled on us yesterday. Although a lot of the road was wet none fell on me. There were four VLHs, that’s a hill rising for more than 2km in K4e terminology.

When we went looking for the pub I put the tough camera under the tarp but it got trodden on and turned out not to be so tough.

Hume Highway: Tick

Just the boring old Hume Highway with the only potential variable being my progress so what did I do? 28k again, that’s what I did. Four very long hills (VLH) to test the legs.

It had been raining in the morning and the tent leaked onto the keyboard but I just kept wiping it and it all seemed OK

Saw a couple of rabbits during the day but nothing like the many that I saw south of Goulburn. Passed a couple of dams which helps perspective. Sometimes I am unsure whether I am going uphill or downhill, so it’s quite handy that the top of the water is horizontal. At one dam an eagle stood near the edge waiting. Waiting for what I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to be the first thing to poke its head above the water.

Blew another tyre and bearing so at the end of the day we put new bearings in three wheels.

The water drama raised its head when I tried to update the web site. Some keys not working but when the fullstop went berserk and the delete key got a mind of its own there was real trouble.

This obviously applies to others

Wow, what a day. Cool, overcast and occasional drizzle. Started at 7.00am and was at Goulburn Post Office by 11.15am. Finished only 11km further north after waiting over an hour for the press and then doing a tyre change. Thought the hill out of Goulburn was steep, but a shattered bearing and flat tyre were the problem and after fixing that it was a doddle. Total today was 29km and I can still walk like a normal person!

Last night my mate Warren called. Woke me up at 9.00pm the bugger. We discussed a few aspects about the trip and he had the temerity to suggest that some of my problems might be age related. My response of course was that whilst he may be a fine engineer, having studied with me a few years ago in the early seventies, he wasn’t all that smart in the humanities area. But I did decide to test his hypothesis in deference to our friendship.

Feeling on top of the world this morning and flying along the highway at maybe 5km/hr I counted my steps. Top speed was 113 steps per minute. Can’t be right I thought, so I tried harder. Next minute was 112 steps per minute. If you take the time to listen to Down By the Water on this site it was written for me by my mate Dennis Nattrass based on my 2009 all day walking pace of 122 beats per minute.

So, something to think about here. I could just assume Warren is an idiot and attack him for his stupidity. Alternatively I could show some strength of character and accept that things have changed, that I am operating in a new paradigm. Having chosen the latter I now have something to base the rest of this trip on. That’s the new reality and if I am to succeed I must work with that reality.

Why does that sound so simple and yet when it comes to Global Warming it is so hard? Given some of the abuse I have received, my only conclusion is that had the Warren comments happened to those people they would have abused him, called him an idiot and suggested that he have a good look at himself.

More and more I am losing patience with the deniers. So let’s have a crack at another public figure, Tony Abbott’s adviser Maurice Newman. Where does he come from? It certainly is not from a scientific background. He is waiting for proof about climate change, not giving professionals the respect they are due. With every National Academy of Science in the World saying that we need to take urgent action the man accuses them of Group Think. Bugger me, what is he doing if it is not group thinking? What a shame he does not understand scientific process.

Him, and guys like him, with their absolute lack of intellectual honesty, with their total lack of strength of character are jeopardizing life for my children and grandchildren. How dare you, you arrogant bastards.

Apparently there was a learning experience for Klaas today. He now knows to untie the tent fly from the ute before he drives away. Just a matter of timing really.

It is cold here. Unbelievable, after dealing with pavement temperatures probably above 60 degrees, to sit here shivering.

Federal Highway: Tick

The big merino coming into Goulburn

A day off and I can now walk normally, enough so that no-one notices anyway. After a great drive listening to the mix from DJ Lea, I picked Klaas up at Sydney Airport and met his some of his family who had come for the funeral. Nick, his other son, was on his way back to Austin, Texas, where we will base ourselves to buy the RV and get ready. Nick seems like a smart cookie as well as being a lovely bloke. He looks like a Texan from the movies too – tall and fit looking, so probably apt that he lives there.

Now let me introduce Klaas to you. He keeps telling people he is nearly 83 but that doesn’t happen until 5^th March. See below, I’m the good looking one.

To give you an idea of his character here is a little story. Last year Klaas came to see me on my boat, next door to his. He was holding a handkerchief on his forehead where he was bleeding.

“What happened Klaas?”

“I got into a bit of trouble at the boat ramp near the sailing club.”

“Yes?”

“Well there was this bloke there who had left his shoes near the fish washing tub. I was washing sand off my feet and Wolfie sniffed this bloke’s shoes. He kicked at Wolfie so I told him not to kick my dog. He said he would kick my dog if he liked, and stood right in my face so what was I supposed to do? I leaned forward quickly with my head and he started bleeding and yelling but eventually he went away cursing me.”

I was disappointed in Klaas, so I told him so. “Klaas I would have expected a bit better from you mate. Surely at your age you can get your timing right to do a decent head butt. Let this be a lesson to you. Either get it right or give up because you are too old.”

And that is one of a thousand stories like that about Klaas. His book, “Past My Use By Date” chronicles a life of adventure. That is why he is with me. We will see tough times. There will be lots of trouble. We have no idea what that will be but we will sort it out when it comes.

Now to the shoe saga, seeing as a few people have commented. I used runners that had been successful before and were about half worn. On the first trip walking boots aggravated my Achilles tendon so I was reluctant to start with them. On day two I went one size up in runners after throwing out the size nines and used thick running socks. Day three I went for thinner running socks with the walking boots which is what I will continue with. I must admit though, my thongs were great today and the Elastoplast is still where I taped it.

We drove back through Dapto and up Macquarie Pass. Dunno how I got it wrong but it is a bit further than I though. There is bugger all edge to the road so it will be nice when I get that over and done with. Still about 75km before I am off the motorway though.

We are off to dinner at the Paragon Café where we used to stop in 1971 on the way back from the snow. Still a great spot. Gotta go and take the washing out of the machine. The caravan park is very nice and the ground was easy to drive the pegs in. The Bunnings is huge so all good memories of Goulburn so far, except that some idiots put a telegraph pole in front of the Big Merino.

Questions about DJ Lea and her music are most welcome. She is very talented.

Last night I woke myself up a few times moaning. The one thing I am struggling with is the pain. Maybe I had forgotten but I don’t seem to be doing too well this time around. This morning I deployed the same blister strategy as the hands when I paddle, and I think that’s worked – prick the blister and then put a tight Elastoplast over the whole area.

Stopped at lunch time for a break at some pine trees so I went behind one and went to sleep on the soft pine cones leaving the kayak in front of the tree. Woke to find two young blokes ready to take the kayak. They had already chucked out my dried fruit and nut mix. They reckoned they thought it had fallen off a truck and were about to pop it onto theirs. Sure. I could have woken with a very nasty surprise.

Managed 28km again. Had to stop when I lurched a bit to the left, into the traffic that is, so decided I was way too tired to continue. Hid the kayak on a farm road and started hitching. A young woman going north gave me a friendly toot and a wave so she obviously had heard me on the radio or read the paper.

The 189^th car stopped, which was after 19 minutes (who says engineers are strange?). It was driven by a lovely young bloke called Simon and I expect to see him pop up on the facebook page. He had just come back from Paris so how’s that for coincidence.

I have pitched camp at the  Goulburn South Caravan Park which is near Bunnings. Might have to buy another heat gun because the special epoxy that sticks to HDPE tipped over and leaked in the kayak. There are holes that must be dealt with before the coast.

Went to sleep before the sun yesterday but will try to make dark tonight particularly as I can go and have a shower.

Now to yesterday’s spray. All of those people are in the public eye, take our money, and have performed atrociously, but it has made me think. What is Global Warming all about?

It is about Strength of Character. People who have that will accept a situation for what it is, and they will be strong enough to do whatever it takes to rectify the situation if it is bad.

In the case of global warming the evidence is unequivocal. Almost all of the scientists who have the knowledge, and all of the National Academies of Science in the world have warned us that the situation is dire. The planet is warming, humans have caused it, and unless we take urgent corrective action the prognosis is grim.

The problem is we have very few politicians who have the strength of character required. They make excuses, kow tow to the fossil fuel companies that fuel their election funds ($700k from New Hope Coal to the Newman government), feather their own nests and the nests of their mates, pat each other on the back and do everything that people in mutual admiration clubs do. Even when they identify the problem, as did Kevin Rudd, what happened? Bugger all, that’s what happened.

If we are ever going to get out of this mess we must find politicians with Strength of Character and I can’t see them in either major party.

Last night I was trying to get the spasms out of my back but my heels hurt. It’s difficult sleeping on your back with heels off the ground! Woke up a lot better and was away at 7.00am.

Not sure of elevations but seemed to keep climbing which put a lot of stress on the top of my leg. It sorted itself out at Lake George on the flat though. Blisters are getting worse, especially where the shoe fell to bits yesterday, pain is getting worse. I forgot how much this stuff hurt!  The big disappointment is that I am falling to bits and have only covered 50k, less than a quarter of the distance to the coast.

The leap frog method is working fine. Stopped at a rest area at Lake George and met a bloke called Chris who offered to take me back to the ute. That was at mid-day and about 20km. Next was 8km further where I had to stop at 3.30.  A young guy called Alex drove me back after a wait of less than 15 minutes. That’s a total of only 28km for the day. I need to rethink my schedule because I am not going to walk into Goulburn tomorrow that’s for sure.

I have a beer left so will drink that with a tin of chunky soup and curl up to sleep when the sun goes down. After the heat of the day I need a jacket by about 6.00pm and I sleep with that on and a quilt.

Got angry today thinking about our idiot politicians. Campbell Newman, Tony Abbott, Mathias Cormann, Scott Morrison to name a few. These guys are either intellectual lightweights, in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry, or intellectual cowards. Most likely it is the last two but they aren’t smart enough to see it.

A tough person looks at the situation, gets the best professional advice possible and then acts on it. Is it a coincidence that most of the destroyers and climate deniers are blokes? That Mathias calls blokes with social conscience “girly men”? I think they need to grow some balls, man up and accept the undeniable facts about climate change and take this country on a path to solving the problem. Either that or get out and let someone tough enough take over.

While I’m on that, what about Greg Combet? I asked him when he was new to the Climate Change portfolio what he thought about James Hansen. He didn’t know who he was! (google him if you don’t know). He then spoke to us about climate change. I thought he was a decent chap but just ignorant. Having left politics he is a consultant to AGL, the frackers of our land and bleeders of greenhouse gases. It’s pretty obvious that Greg Combet is pretty keen on looking after Greg Combet eh!

On my way at last. Mixed feelings, lots of unknowns ahead, great sadness that Klaas is not here, interesting learning experience with shock jock this morning, only one TV station which is very strange given previous experience on lesser trips, walking past parliament house where our elected leaders are so disappointing in their intellectual capacity.

This morning started at 2CC with Mark Parton. His first approach was to assert that there were previously higher temperatures in the 1800s in Australia than now. I made the mistake of saying that the records were not in reliable standard Stevenson Boxes. I should have tried to explain that a few outliers mean very little in statistics, it is the area under the upper extremities of a normal distribution curve, but given the quality of the phone call from a listener it is unlikely this would have been understood.

He then tried the other tack that we had no chance of keeping below 2 degrees warming and I find it really difficult to assert that we will. We do, however, need to try as hard as we can to frustrate the deniers that seem hell bent on destroying civilization as we know it.

Anyway it was a good learning experience, especially when the interview was finished. In the many scores of studio interviews I have done none ever ended like this. Mark thanked me on the mike and then moved onto another story without looking in my direction at all. I stood up and looked through the window to the producer to see what I should do but he was on the phone. His name is Rod Henshaw, an old hero of mine from TV and radio and his story especially about Nauru is worth googling. So, after standing around like a stale bottle of piss for a couple of minutes I made my exit and took a call on Rod’s phone. The bloke just wanted to abuse me, which is fine but reflects poorly on him. Rod saved me by saying he needed the phone. Shame his presenter did not have similar manners.

There was a good crowd at Engineering House and both Brent Jackson and David Hood made excellent speeches. What they had to say really needs to be in mainstream media, the role of engineering to build a sustainable, strong economy. News just in from Hoody is that the WIN TV coverage was excellent.

Walking through Canberra was easy. Parliament House, Lake Burleigh Griffin, Black Mountain Tower in the background, but no fountain. Obviously miss timed that. From the centre of Canberra it is all uphill, getting steeper and steeper for about 10km. The temperature was going up, I was feeling the strain and I recalled an incident in the UK that helps explain the difference between the flat and the hills.

In the early nineties I was driving at about 95mph behind another car. It seemed like most people drove like that in those days, and there are no points accumulated for fines overseas. To cut a long story short we were pulled over and the bloke in front was booked while I waited. After a brief conversation about reasons for speeding, safety etc, after he looked at my licence the conversation went like this.

“It’s not fair that I just booked that man for a lot of money and you get off is it sir?”

“No,” I replied, “but you can book me.”

“We don’t book Australians sir.”

“Why not?”

“We can’t trust them to pay their fines sir.”

“I don’t understand, you just fine me and I pay.”

“No sir, it doesn’t work that way sir. We detain them until the first day of sitting. It is Friday and the next day of sitting is Monday. That’s not so funny now is it sir?”

So from a position of great confidence one can be reduced very quickly. In this instance he let me off after he had his little bit of fun but not the hills. Rising out of Canberra it felt like my feet were melting. To stop the kayak from jerking you take some of the load with your arms. First you put them behind and hold the harness frame, then they get tired so you hold it at your side until your arms cramp up, then they go to the back again. About that time a knee will falter, your back hurts and then the pain in your feet chimes in. After about a dozen of these cycles you start to dream about the top of the hill.

The top at last, you speed up, the pain disappears (except the feet) and you are on a role. Then there is the descent and the knees complain, the back voices its concern and it’s time to stop for a drink.

And so it went for 22km until I called it a day. Not a lot, but at least it is a start. Hoody turned up an hour later with my ute so here I am beside the road, one beer down and a can of Irish stew giving me a belly ache. There are large blisters on my heels and my runners have been destroyed by the heat and the load. 22/8000 ths completed.

The sendoff

On my way

Parliament House

Camp 1

Wrecked runner

Sunburnt banana that was on the kayak seat

The big day is tomorrow. Am I ready? Nope, but it will happen. Klaas has gone to Manly and will be there until I pick him up on Sunday. There is the funeral and all of the family issues for him to attend to. It is a very, very sad time for him. I am in Connor’s office at Men At Work Comms in Sydney and head to Engineering House in Canberra in a bit over an hour.

The next few days are less than ideal but doable. Without a support person I will do a shuffle, hitchhiking back to the ute at the end of each day and moving it up to the kayak.

Lea wanted fresh fish for dinner on Monday because it is our favourite. On the way back from the Nannas I went to Lismore Square to get some frozen chips to go with the fresh Ballina snapper but forgot that the kayak was on the roof. Damage to the front was significant, but we bought a heat gun at Tuggerah and with the expertise of two absolutely superb engineers (that’s Warren and me in case you missed it) plus Klaas, it is now back into shape – well sort of. It will do the job anyway and it is hardly noticeable from the back.

The Lismore send-off with Mayor Jenny Dowell was excellent with both Prime and NBN doing a great job for the news that night. Jenny has given us a pile of letters to give to community leader in the USA. It is superbly written so I have extracted the words which are as follows:

It is with great pleasure that today I farewell Lismore man Steve Posselt on his 8000 km odyssey around the globe connecting cities and communities that have been affected by significant natural disasters.

Southern Australian states have only last week seen serious bush fires that while thankfully not claiming human lives have resulted in devastating losses of wildlife and property. Worse fires in Canberra, our National capital last decade and in Victoria and Tasmania in 1983 remain etched in our memories for their human losses and destruction of landscape and properties.

Lismore is a flood prone City and while we have not had a major flood since the late 1980’s, we fear the impact of a flood similar to the catastrophic flood in the Brisbane area, two hours to our north in 2011.

All evidence suggests that severe weather events are increasing in intensity and frequency. Scientists warn that humans are contributing to global warming of our oceans and atmosphere that result in this increase in extreme weather events.  As leaders, we must act on halting the activities that are contributing to climate change. By reducing our own carbon emissions, raising awareness in our community and urging governments to act, we can make a difference.

Steve Posselt is a man on a mission to raise awareness in a unique manner. By paddling and walking with his kayak Steve has already raised awareness in Australia of the man-made devastation of our major river system and of the human impacts that contributed to the Brisbane floods. Now he takes his message, his kayak and his passion to the USA, Canada, UK and France.

I wish Steve well in his epic journey and look forward to welcoming him home in November.

Until then, I commend Steve and his story to you and hope that the citizens of the world welcome and care for him as he takes his message to leaders in every community.

Yours sincerely
Jenny Dowell
Mayor
Lismore City Council

That was very moving I thought.