The joy of uncertainty

On our second (and last) night in Violet Town we were treated to dinner by Denise, who we met at the VT Neighbourhood Centre. 

Denise cooked us a delicious Mexican bean dish served with flat bread and a salad from her garden before we swapped some tunes on her guitar. With Denise's good company and generosity we beaned out of this happy town heading east again towards Benalla, leaving behind our best freeloading camping spot so far, along the Honeysuckle Creek.

At Baddaginnie we spotted critter-like Bulrush flowers. Bulrush, or cumbungi (Typha spp.), was a useful traditional food. The outer rind was peeled off the underground stem and layed before the fire, the fibres were then twisted to loosen out the starch (Tim Low, 1988). The soft white starch of the young shoot can also be eaten raw and the left over fibres can be spun into tough string. The immature flower stalk can be woven into mats. (Survival.org)

A little further on we spotted Salsify (Tragopogon) flowers that had gone to seed. There is so much naturalised free food (thistle roots, salsify tubers, wild lettuce) we've missed the chance to eat this season because they've already become too woody, and there's so much naturalised free food (cherry plums, figs, nectarines, peaches, apples, walnuts) that just aren't quite ready.

So we keep a look out for local produce to supplement what we find and what we have brought with us.

After a brief stop in Benalla we rode out into the heat of the afternoon to find a camping spot along Lake Mokoan. We are really starting to embrace the uncertainties of each day. Where are we going to camp? Who are we going to meet? Will there be drinking water? Will there be power? What will we find to eat?

We arrive to find that the once man-made lake has been returned to a magnificant Yorta Yorta wetlands. It is brimming with more-than-human life, which must necessarily include death to keep things cycling.

With the decommissioning of the lake the caravan park has seen better days. We were welcomed not by the manager but by permanent residents Gary and his grandson Josh, who brought over some beers while we set up camp. We're starting to experience the incredible generosity of people and understand the importance of sharing stories while sharing common ground.

We are also discovering the different plant guilds that are forming in certain regions. At home, oaks, hawthorns, apples and blackberries have formed ecological partnerships with blackwood wattles, peppermints and messmates making habitat and food for numerous species. Here, in northern-central Victoria, we are finding that figs, walnuts and loquats are the naturalising trees. We are regularly seeing newcomer figs (Ficus carica) growing under heavy-drinking eucalptys,

and loquats (Eriobotrya japonica) growing under nitrogen-capturing wattles. These newly naturalised, drought-hardy food species will be important to observe as the climate changes our growing regions and knowledge of local food becomes increasingly crucial to community health and survival.

After a solid snooze (eaten in quantity, loquats have a gentle but noticeable sedative effect), some oats and juice and a bit of a wash,

we left the wetlands and the caravan park and set out for Wangaratta, cycling through gangster territory, up into the infamous Warby Ranges where we discovered these Grass trees (Xanthorrhoea spp.). The seeds of these plants were ground as flour and the stem was used as a fire-stick for the ingenious fire-stick farming that was so common to Aboriginal land management practices. The resin was used to bond materials together such as stone spearheads to wooden shafts.

We recharged in Wang,

before setting off on the rail trail to Beechworth.

Not far along the trail we came across a splendid black mulberry (Morus) full of ripe fruit.

We are too early for some, too late for others, but just in time for this sweet delicacy rich in vitamins C and K, high in iron, and an anti-inflammatory and will lower blood pressure. Wow, all that free medicine. Who needs multinationals?

Social warming continues to play a big part of our travels. Being on bike and not windscreened off from the world enables plenty of opportunities to meet and sniff the locals.

We're having more opportunities to hunt too, though so far unsuccessfully. We've shot arrows at rabbits and have tried to spear trout in the shallow clear streams we pass. As eleven year old Zeph (who will join us shortly) reminds us by phone, 'it takes time to learn what Aboriginal people know about getting bush food'.

After a leisurely 27 km ride out of Wang we camped at the old Everton Station just 15 kms short of Beechworth. We had previously saved our municiple charge (we're using our motors less and less) and a good night's sleep (more loquats) for this last section of the trail, which we were warned was pretty steep.

And arrived in Beechworth through a sustainable air-conditioning system,

to find a free home for a few days along Spring Creek in the centre of town.

In the past ten days we have slow travelled from Jaara Jaara to Yorta Yorta country inspired by Indigenous patterns of existence and how we might recreate them in a post-oil, climate change world.

We hope you've had a good ride too.

Gift economy

We said goodbye to the Goulburn River and the Murchison caravan park, home to a community of colourful permanent residents – Desley, Brian, Keith and Di – and headed east.

It was an unexpectedly difficult ride due to the lack of shade and a headwind for much of the forty-three kilometres to Violet Town. The sun baked us on this flat and straight stretch of road where annual grasses and fences dominated. Little stood out apart from the occassional creek and composition of wild flowers.

We arrived in Violet Town hot and exhausted, we found some shade to recuperate under and some free municiple power to recharge.

According to Sam from Ballarat e-bikes, "each lithium ion battery holds 0.333 kilowatt hours. Assuming someone is paying 27 cents per kilowatt hour, and the charger is 90% efficient, it's about ten cents per charge per battery." While the bikes recharge we have been collecting litter in the parks, reserves and sports grounds that we poach the power from.

We figure that the 20 cents of free energy we take from each town to assist our movement equates to about one bag of collected rubbish. When people ask us about our art practice we say we're quite well-known for waste collecting. We also pick up rubbish and pull up weeds in exchange for a free camping ground.

This morning we woke to a rich chorus of birdsong at our camp along the Honeysuckle Creek. A morning's walk enabled a feast of free food, including these deliciously sweet Nagami kumquats (Citrus japonica spp.)

and these luciously ripe loquats (Eriobotrya japonica).

Zero had earlier just missed out on hunting down a buck hare along the creek, so when we stopped for a cup of tea in the main drag we asked the cafe if they had any meat scraps for him. Success!

We've discovered three other things while being in friendly Violet Town. The first is the potential food supply in the gardens of abandoned houses, something to note as we move from town to town.

The second is walnut shell mulch. The region is a walnut growing climate, at least for now, and what a great way to use the waste product of this food.

The third is that Violet town has a range of publicly-accessible, intentionally-planted fruit trees and herbs, including figs, plums, rosemary, lemongrass, sage and olives,

which compliment the spontaneous roadside fruit growing here including cherry plums, pears, apples and walnuts.

Getting away

It was quite some effort to leave Daylesford last Friday. Months of work, teary farewells with friends and family and a general emptying of settled life. All this culminated at the Albert Street community garden before we pushed off towards banjo country, accompanied by our friend Clay.

At Guildford we spotted water ribbons (Triglochin spp.), a traditional bushfood, and dug up a small plant to discover that the rhyzome was comparatively small. While our digging tool was out we dug a hole for our first compostable nappy.

The hills of home flattened out and it was a cruisy ride into Castlemaine where Juliette and Tosh kindly offered their home and Lee and Dave generously cooked for us. But despite all the warmth and familiarity of Castemaine we were keen to push on.

There is free food everywhere (milkmaid tubers, roadside trees coming into fruit, dozens of edible weeds) but we have brought supplies still fresh from home to keep us going (thanks for the lovely cookies Chris),

so we just pass by many noteworthy things. A magnificant crop of roadside Salsify (Tragopogon spp.) en route from Redesdale to Heathcote.

We are just finding our pedals in our very new way of transitory living, which is tiring and mid-day seistas are mandatory,

for all.

Yesterday we travelled for 75 kms to Nagambie, happy for the most part. We found that our 70-80 kg bikes are rideable without electric assistance, even up the hills. We're in training for the high country.

Yet this is a year-long, low-carbon art performance, not the Olympics. We're only wanting to travel around 30 kms a day but we're finding out that sometimes a good camp spot is worth the effort. Zero leads our road train, forever on the look out for free food and free accomadation,

which isn't as difficult to find as you might expect.

We're spending about $20 a day and the nightlife is awesome.

Active activism

We, Artist as Family, stand firmly with our feet on the soil, as we stand with Jonathan Moylan.

Photo by Rasha Tayeh

For those of you who are out of the loop, Jono is a 25 year old from Newcastle who is facing up to ten years in prison and a $765,000 fine for sending a press release highlighting ANZ’s role in funding the Whitehaven open cut coal mine in north-west NSW. The mine threatens community health and food producing land at Maules Creek, and the health and survival of Koala populations in the Leard State Forest.

We reckon we're in pretty good company too:

Vandana Shiva

The photo of AaF above was taken by our dear friend Rasha Tayeh. Rasha is, among many things, a documentary filmmaker whose most recent work is The Growing Food Project, a short doco that explores some of Melbourne's urban agriculture practices and community food initiatives, where people are coming together to build local, fair and sustainable food systems. The film features Patrick's award winning poem Step by Step.

The film's premiere is on Wednesday 20th Nov at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) at 7pm.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion of food activists inviting the audience to discuss the benefits of supporting local food systems.

You can purchase your tickets here.

And while on the topic of Patrick's poetry, a huge congratulations are in order:

Patrick has just completed four years of doctoral research. In a nutshell, Walking for food: regaining permapoesis is:

a biographical thesis that investigates how we might transition to fairer, more just and sustainable communities. It draws on Indigenous knowledges and permaculture modelling in the attempt to demonstrate achievable societal change from the household and community economies out. The thesis contends that modern living is inherently damaging; and on such a scale that personal accountability is degraded. The ecological and social consequences of this are clearly evident, and the thesis challenges us to transition to radically different forms of living where permanent making replaces disposability, and personal accountability is once again performed.

If you're interested in receiving a PDF of the final draft, please contact us.

And while we're on the topic of positive and inspiring activists, Perth based singer songwriter Charlie Mgee, AKA Formidable Vegetable Sound System, recently visited the Hepburn Shire during the Swiss Italian Festa where he played a fabulous set of some of his songs from his album, Permaculture: A Rhymer's Manual.

Charlie's album focuses on bringing simple concepts of sustainability into the spotlight using the power of music, rhyme and humour to convey the permaculture principles in fresh ways to new audiences. If you get a chance to see Charlie play, we highly recommend you grab it.

And, while on the topic of grabbing: there has been much handlebar grabbing in these here parts as the departure date for our adventure draws near - 6 days!! We have been spotted all over the place as we ride with our panniers fully loaded on practice rides from starboard to port.

If we don't get a chance to post again for a while, see you on our way up the continent!