Travel Reference
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is going to plan and he's looking forward to the adventure continu-
ing. I've been in touch again with Robert Tickner of the Australian Red
Cross, asking him to send me a Red Cross flag that I can raise when I
reach the South Pole. It will look great in the photographs.
december 18
Christmas has come early. Just when I was beginning to wonder if my
run is really making a tangible difference, I received an email today
from Bob Tickner telling me that the East Timor project that Pole to
Pole has helped to fund is going great guns.
All materials have been procured, and negotiations with the
community have been reached for completion of the project
works over the next weeks. Tap stands and storage tanks will go
in for January in Com and again in February for the school and
health clinics and the schools should have latrines in February
as well. In Pato the latrines and well rehabilitation is scheduled
for completion in March.
Messages like this make all the aches, all the pain, all the near
disasters and the hardships worthwhile.
december 19
Today was all about running with Brooke and Dillon and catching up
on things in the real world. Their life is school and skateboard parks
and basketball hoops, concerts and plays, fun and laughter: exactly
what I need to hear about to take my mind off the daily grind of this
endless run.
The time has been moving so quickly since my children arrived.
They are great company on the road, and I am now up to speed with
everything going on back home in Australia. Dillon has excitedly told
me about a monster BMX park where he and his mates ride their bikes
and skateboards down ramps and into huge pools of soft foam while
trying to do tricks, and how he can now drop off the lip into the skate-
board bowl at Bondi Beach. He wants to get an old car and do it up
with me, just as I did with my dad. Brooke has filled me in on her first
