around Australia by bike

My name is James Talbot-Kamoen. I am cycling around Australia solo - my bike, my tent, my equipment and plenty of spare tubes for my wheels. I am hoping to spend time on country, and learn what Australia is really about.  Just a few of my plans are to work as a farm hand in different parts of the country, get in some local fishing, spend time in local communities, bring my Goolaburu friend Eric in Broome a signed North Melbourne football jumper, volunteer with a few community groups and get to know the people in Uluru, NT.

The aim is to finish my trip in under the amount I've saved up for it, which is $6,950. I am going to try as hard as possible to stay under this budget and any left over will go into Friends of the Earth (FoE) Australia, a non-profit environmental and community-focused organisation.

Throughout the ride I am hoping to join in on a few local campaigns of FoE around the country. I'd love to provide some support if possible and try helping bring awareness towards their campaigns. The reason I chose to support FoE is because they believe environmental protection is inseparable from broader social justice concerns, and as a result use an environmental justice perspective in its campaigning. If you really think about it a lot of community issues are generally associated with environmental issues, whether its pollution affecting our health or a lack of green spaces impacting our state of mind.

A strong social perspective means that FoE Australia is well placed to develop alliances at the grassroots level with other organisations and communities. FoE provided Coast Monkeys, a local non-profit group I was associated with in Melbourne, plenty of support and showed me that they put their money where there mouth is. Foe Australia also supports Indigenous sovereignty and works at both the local level with specific Indigenous communities as well as participating in debates and campaigns at the national level.

For those of you that are interested in the journey thank you for your support and keep your eyes on the blog with details of my day-to-day travels or the website.

UPDATES

Jan 22. James has now finished his tour of Tasmania, and is starting to head west, through Geelong and on to Adelaide. If you would like to catch up with him, please check his blog.

 
You can donate to FoE here.