I am testing to see if I can email posts to the blog.

I'm heading off to Melbourne this evening on the first leg of my trip.
We fly out to Thailand in the wee hours of Saturday morning, and the
cycling will start on Tuesday.

I am looking forward to it, and am happy to have the two days in
Melbourne to catch up with my friends Debbie and Kelvin and also to sort out any last minute things that I may have fogotten.

It has been a little crazy here at home trying to get things organised
for the trip and I will be glad to be able to breathe again.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came along to the quiz night on Thursday evening.

We raised over $1500 from the night, a fantastic effort!

More details and photos on the fundraising page.

Thank you also to all the businesses and people who donated prizes for the quiz night. I have listed everyone on the fundraising page, so please think about supporting the businesses that donated to help make the evening such a success.
Please let me know if I have missed anyone off the list.

Thank you to Mel Luy for her effort with creating and researching the questions, to Sharlene Andrijich for her work behind the scenes and to Karina Coldrick for MCing the evening. Thanks also to Brad Sayer for his work on the door and with the bottle, and to Jhodi Hill for charming everyone into buying raffle tickets.

I have also added a link to the right for Other People's Experiences on the Oxfam Challenge and Cycling with Laos. Click there to read what it will be like for me when I am over there.

I have less than a week to go now before I am on my way for the trip. It's very exciting!

Click on the Quiz Night for details on the prizes that have been donated so far for the event this Thursday 22nd February.

I picked my passport up last night, with the visa for Laos in it! Thank you very much to Liz Reid from Jetset Scarborough for organising it for me.

I am getting excited! A week until the Quiz Night, and my last big fundraising effort, and then another week after that and I will be on my way to the Challenge!!

It has certainly been an interesting journey so far. The support that I have received from friends and colleagues has been fantastic. Training on a bike has been an eye opener. In some ways it has been easier than I expected, and more fun, but it has also been a lot of hard work. It takes a lot longer to clock up the miles than I expected.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way so far, and please hang in for just a little while longer!