Simple Live

On the bicycle trip we explored ten categories of life – shelter, community, food, work, clothing, technology, money, health, spirituality and environment – but once we arrived back in our home state of Victoria we became obsessed with just one. Shelter. Where are we going to live? And so began a four-month search for a home. When we were in Victoria’s goldfields region we visited a tiny house called the EconoSpace designed by architect Peter Cowman. Sophie fell in love with this quaint little cottage, and we had vague plans to build one on a bush block. But being young people with very low incomes, Sophie and I are basically locked out of the Australian property market. Nevertheless, we decided to see what was available in our price range. Sophie spent many hours ogling property porn, and we quickly realised we could only afford land in rural or semi-rural Tasmania....

At the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne a few weeks ago, a couple of people came up to me and asked about my background in advertising. Why did I leave? I realised I hadn’t actually explained it on this blog, so thought I’d share an essay I wrote about it last year. Here’s an excerpt: The chance to get paid to come up with zany ideas was what attracted me to the industry in the first place. So while my friends sat in university lecture halls learning history or philosophy, I enrolled in RMIT’s creative advertising degree and spent my years of higher education staring at jam jars and sauce bottles, trying to write taglines that captured the emotional essence of kitchen condiments. In retrospect it sounds embarrassingly superficial. But this triviality was what made it such a blast. When what you create seems completely inconsequential, you feel free to...

I’m following up that post about grey Melbourne with an invite to see the greyness for yourself. Sophie and I are giving a talk at the Sustainable Living Festival at Federation Square on February 16, and we’d love to see some friendly faces in the crowd. Here’s a cropped image from the program:Here are the full details: Who: Greg, Soph and Dr Samuel Alexander from The Simplicity InstituteWhat: A talk called “Seeking the Simple Life”When: 1pm, Saturday 16th FebruaryWhere: The “Under The Gum” tent, at Birrarung Marr (next to the Yarra River, behind Fed Square) And here’s the spiel from the festival’s website: “Simple living, also known as ‘voluntary simplicity’, is the paradoxical concept that you can increase your quality of life by reducing your consumption. When you say goodbye to superfluous material possessions and learn to live with less, you actually get a whole lot more out of...

Places have palettes, colour schemes unique to the area. I once visited Linfen, a coal mining town in central China with the worst air pollution in the world, and its palette was black: the sky was bluish black, the trees were greenish black, and the dirt was brownish black. Needless to say, it was a depressing place. Far North Queensland’s palette is the bright green of rainforest plants and young sugar cane. Tasmania has a more muted palette of faded eucalypt. And Melbourne, I discovered as our train hurtled through the city’s industrial west, has a palette of grey. We had decided to take the train back because it would have been too hot to ride in summer. (Considering the recent bushfires, this was the right decision.) Here’s my bike being packed away into a box: The train journey was horrible because we had to cart these big bike boxes...

On November 7, more than eight months and five thousand kilometres after we started our bicycle trip up Australia, we rode past the sign welcoming us to Cairns, our final destination. We cruised down the main street lined with fig trees, and then parked our bikes at the esplanade. We had actually made it! I expected a rush of exhilaration, or at least a swell of accomplishment, but when we reached our goal I felt strangely flat. It was just another day on the road. Why the anticlimax? Perhaps because we rode from Melbourne in one long stretch, so by the time we reached Cairns we’d been in the saddle for four months. After so many hours, days and weeks of cycling, our unusual method of long distance travel had become normalised. Travelling thousands of kilometres by bicycle didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. As we stood on...

After leaving Mackay, I wanted to explore simple living in spiritual traditions, especially Buddhism. But I’d left it too late. We were way behind schedule, which meant we didn’t have time to detour from the highway. Somehow, I’d have to find a genuine simple living Buddhist on a busy truck route in Far North Queensland. I called the Buddhist chaplain at James Cook University in Townsville and asked if he knew of any Buddhists living simply and sustainably north of Mackay on the Bruce Highway. It was an absurd request, but instead of laughing at me, he asked a question. “Have you heard of the walking monk?”“No,” I replied.“He walked from Gold Coast to Townsville, and now he’s walking back. You’ll probably pass him on the way up. Ask at truck stops and towns if they’ve seen a barefoot monk carrying a begging bowl.” So it turned out that a...

We were told the ride up north Queensland would be tough. People warned us of baking hot days, humid nights, lurking crocodiles and endless stretches between towns. We discovered it was all a load of crap. On the advice of a bike store worker in Gympie, we took the inland route to Rockhampton along the Burnett Highway. It added 80 kilometres to the trip, but it was worth the extra pedalling. This was classic Aussie bush: arid grasslands, twisted gum trees, vast blue skies and remote towns with grand Queenslander-style pubs. It was burning-off season, so we cycled past blazing paddocks. We also enjoyed glorious sunsets. And saw some lovely views of open country. We’re used to doing 50-80 kilometres a day, but for this stretch we managed more than 100 kilometres a day. We woke up at 5 am to the sound of rainbow lorikeets screeching in the gum...

Australia’s vastness is humbling. Just when you think you’ve made some headway along the coastline of the great southern continent, you look at a map and realise the insignificance of your achievement. Even worse, a local reminds you. Yesterday I told a woman on the Sunshine Coast, just north of Brisbane, that Sophie and I had cycled all the way from Hobart, and we were heading for Cairns. “You’re halfway there,” she said. It was a sobering reminder of Australia’s gob-smacking size. Like most Australians, I’ve spent my life huddled in the relative coolness of the south-east coast. From that vantage point, it’s easy to think the road north ends at Brisbane. Not so, my fellow southerners. Brisbane is only the halfway point between Melbourne and Cairns. And once you get past the Queensland capital, it’s a hard slog all the way to the top. Actually, for Sophie and me,...

Cycling up the little driveway in Landsborough, I felt as if I were reuniting with a long lost friend. I had read Rhonda’s book Down to Earth while cycling through Tasmania. It was one of those books that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and I felt as if Rhonda were speaking directly to me over tea and cookies. We were warmly welcomed by Hanno and Rhonda who came out to greet us. Early conversation was calm and polite, and I had to remind myself “Oh yeah, Greg and I are complete strangers to this couple”. From reading Rhonda’s book, a direct window into her life, I felt as if I knew her but, of course, she didn’t know me. Later that evening over dinner, this issue arose as Rhonda highlighted some of the hardships of her newfound fame. She described a particular media shoot held at her home where...

You might remember an ABC documentary in 2004 about a “modern swagman” named Grant “John” Cadoret. It was a cracking yarn. In 1977, at the age of 22, John left his job at a Melbourne bank for a three month road trip, never to return. He spent the next 25 years walking Australia’s highways, living off what he could find by the side of the road. He ate discarded food, picked up coins to buy canned beans and noodles, drank from creeks, and slept in the bushes without a tent or fire. The whole time he’d never been on the dole or visited a doctor, so he was practically untraceable. Meanwhile, his family had filed a missing persons report, and hadn’t heard from him in decades. Then a writer bumped into John on the road, tracked down his parents and reunited the family. You can read the full transcript here....

After months of negotiating with publishers, I’ve finally signed a book contract for our story about cycling up Australia exploring simple and sustainable living. One important aspect of simple living is supporting the local community, so I’m proud to say our publisher is a Melbourne-based company called Affirm Press, with a commitment to “publishing books that have a positive impact on the community”. You can check out the website here, and browse some of their other titles here. The book will be titled “Changing Gears” and is due to be published in September 2013. Now all Sophie and I need to do is cycle to Cairns before the wet season hits. Only 1800 kilometres to go…This entry was posted in Our journey and tagged Affirm Press, book, Changing Gears. Bookmark the permalink. Original linkOriginal author: Greg Foyster...

When we first started cycle touring, I absolutely hated it. It was such a slow way to travel, and we seemed to spend all our time securing food, water and shelter. On our first 1000 kilometres around Tasmania, I turned to Sophie and said “How on Earth do people do this for months on end? It’s a horrible way to live.” But once my legs had developed cycling muscles, we had settled into a routine, and my mind had slowed to a pace that allowed me to appreciate the scenery – rather than rushing from place to place just to take photos – I started to love life on the road. Especially when the weather was nice. After we visited Little Black Cow farm stay, our route through the Hunter Valley was a dream. Let me describe a single day: We woke at 7am in a small town called Aberdeen,...

Escaping Sydney was hellish. We wanted to take the freeway, but the emergency stopping lane didn’t extend over the Hawkesbury River bridge near Mooney Mooney. Mooney Mooney bridge So we had to take the Old Pacific Highway, a hilly road through thick bush. A few days later, once we passed Newcastle and entered the Hunter Valley, we joined the New England Highway, which was the scariest stretch of road I’d been on in a while. Bike lanes appeared then disappeared, the shoulder was a lane wide in some parts and non-existent in others, and we had to cross half a dozen two-lane roundabouts in heavy traffic. Twice we walked our bikes over bridges with trucks whooshing past 20 centimetres away from our panniers. But it was worth the effort to get away from the city. We spent the night in a place called Little Black Cow farm stay, a 300-acre...

While in Sydney, we caught up with Costa Georgiadis, the host of Gardening Australia. I’m pleased to report that he’s just as energetic and zany in real life as he is on TV.  At various points in our interview he stared at me googly-eyed through a glass jar, held up a spoon in front of his face, mimed using a crowbar, imitated the bowling action of Merv Hughes, and rocked back and forth on his haunches right next to the lip of a swimming pool. But if you think Costa is a bundle of energy, you should meet his chooks. After showing us around the verge garden featured on the show, Costa led us into the backyard and introduced us to his seven hens. Perhaps his favourite was a Rhode Island Red named Kinky. She was docile and loved to be patted, remaining calm in his hands as I stroked...

By the time we reached Sydney, Sophie and I hadn’t been in a large city for over two months (Canberra doesn’t count). As soon as we cycled through Franchiseland – my nickname for outer suburbs filled with Coles, McDonalds, Bunnings and Harvey Norman stores – and reached the trendy inner sanctum, I suddenly felt very unfashionable. In country areas, I wasn’t self-conscious about my ugly camping clothes, but Sydney was a different story. Looking around at all the hipsters with brand name sunnies and tight black jeans, I realised that I was dressed like a dork. Fortunately, we’d come to Australia’s largest city to learn about sustainable fashion, and I’d arranged to take part in a clothes swap at Surry Hills library. The swap was organised by The Clothing Exchange, and a sign at the entrance explained the rules: you could swap up to six garments or accessories, but they...

We spent four days in Canberra, and the focus of our visit was investigating the topic of work. Although more and more Australians are working part time or casual hours, a 9-5 full time job is still the norm. What are some alternatives to this typical employment pattern? How can people escape the so-called rat race? To explore these issues, I organised an interview with academic and author Clive Hamilton, who co-authored groundbreaking studies into “downshifting” when he was at The Australia Institute. (Many readers would be familiar with his book Affluenza, and his more recent works on climate change, such as Requiem for a Species.) We met at his office in Canberra. He told me he works 9-10 hours a day, adding up to about 50 hours a week. Since the release of his first paper on downshifting in 2003, Clive has published seven books, and he’s writing another....

After cycling up Brown Mountain and across the Monaro Plains, we entered the Australian Capital Territory. As usual, I was very excited to cross a state border. We had lunch sitting on top of the sign in that photo, looking back towards New South Wales. But Sophie wasn’t as excited as I was to be entering a new territory. “We’ve crossed a line on the ground. Big deal,” she said. She was cranky because we still had 50 kilometres to go to Canberra, and it was already past midday. We were way behind schedule. But she had a point. Why celebrate crossing a human-designated border, when nothing had actually changed? The landscape was the same. The climate was the same. The culture was the same. There was no noticeable difference. Wouldn’t it make more sense to celebrate crossing an environmental border, like reaching the coast, climbing to a plateau or...

Every region has a hill with a notoriously steep slope. Where I grew up on the Bellarine Peninsula, it was the Leopold hill on the way to Geelong or “The Big Dipper” in Ocean Grove. In southern Tasmania it was “Break-Me-Neck Hill” on the highway into Hobart. On the southern New South Wales coast it was “Bellbird Hill” near Pambula. And in the Bega Valley it was Brown Mountain. Yet while most hills rise a few hundred metres at most, the road across Brown Mountain winds its way up the Great Dividing Range, rising 900 metres in 17 kilometres. Normally Sophie and I would go out of our way to avoid such a climb, but crossing Brown Mountain was the most direct route to Canberra, so we needed to cycle up it to remain on schedule. And we were nervous. Very nervous. The Bega Valley locals had spent all week...

When we’re on the road cycling five to six hours a day, we eat a lot. But we’re limited in the food we can carry, so we tend to eat bland staples – things like rice, lentils, bread and cereal. For months I’d been looking forward to indulging in some delicious local food, and we finally got to do that in the Bega Valley. In total, we spent about a week in the area meeting farmers, abattoir workers, chefs and downshifters who grew their own produce. We wanted to explore the concept of local food, and we thought the best way to do that was to learn everything we could about food production in a single locality. We began with a tour of the “small species abattoir”, operated by Bega Valley Gourmet Meats co-operative. The abattoir allows locals who raise their own chickens or rabbits to have them professionally slaughtered...

The route out of Victoria was tough. It rained for three days straight, and we had no choice but to cycle through the foul weather. We’d wake up, put on our wet bike shorts and leggings, ride to the next destination, and then set up camp in the rain. One time we camped along a logging road. The next morning, the area adjacent to our tent was covered in water. If we’d camped just twenty metres down the path we would have woken up at 3am to find ourselves lying in a puddle. Cycling in the wet was depressing, but it was also an educational experience. We learned that rain is actually more dynamic than we’d realised. Sometimes when it looks like it’s pouring, it’s really only drizzling. And the amount of rain can vary significantly over a small area. It could be bucketing down in a valley, but completely...