300km Walk for Solar

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 7 - 30-40km - Wind Farm arrival!

What an amazing day I had today! We went to a wind farm! Debunked the myths about the noise levels!

To skip to the best part of the day, all day there was uncertainty as to whether we could climb the wind turbine hill because there were fears of a thunderstorm. 

  The wind turbines were beautiful. Creating energy with so little sound. When we were standing about 500m from the turbines there was a loud sound and I began to fear that the turbines were as loud as the news reports were saying. As we got closer however the sound shifted over our heads and we realized that it was a plane. We only began hearing the wind turbines when we were about 300m away from the turbines, and even then, the sound of the dirt crunching under our feet was still louder than the soft gentle wooshing of the turbines. Quite amazing.

   The planned BZE turbines for Port Augusta will be larger and will produce more energy, but the concept of noisy turbines was debunked. Awesome. And it was an extremely windy night, so the turbines would have been spinning faster than usual, potentially making more sound, yet the wind in our ears was louder than the turbines anyway. However, it was discussed amongst our group that the other farmers in competition in the area really like to complain about the turbines because they aren't receiving any money. The money for having those turbines only goes to the farmer, an x amount of money per turbine per year. So, to our day!

  While walking along one of the roads between fields, we were met by the farmer whose crops had been surrounding us for the day. He owned 2500 hectares of land and kindly gave us some of his crops - lentils - after we told him how much we loved our vegetables.

Today we had a group of people documenting some of our walk for a 1 hour movie to be revealed in another year or so. I'll discuss it more tomorrow.

The turbines were getting closer hour by hour until we were finally at the foot of the hill. It was then that the documentary team wanted us to walk a short distance up the hill towards the turbines to give the impression we were making our way - while we had been told we wouldn't be making the trip up because of the impending storm. A bit like waving a treat in front of a dog and asking it not to it eat it. However! We passed the halfway mark and the storm seemed it wasn't coming, so we went up!!!!! SUCH EXCITEMENT!!! I've been to a coal plant in China, I've seen PV, but wind turbines up close was certainly a thrill!

  We originally had plans to go up the hill and camp underneath the wind turbines, but the wind was far too intense, so we decided to shuttle all of the participants to Locheal, and we would then be shuttled back.

While waiting for the shuttle bus, there were as a group of us waiting to be picked up. Nick and I practiced conversing in Japanese for about 30 minutes and while sitting on the ground a group of us picked up the guitar and played a song each. It's amazing to be surrounded by so many guitar players and music lovers. It would seem that left minded people love their guitar! It would also seem that many of us are believers in community and being communal. So we love singing together in groups as we walk and just having a great time. Again I think this is only possible because we have a genuine love of life and love to be together. After arriving back, we were greeted by a feast! Our host this evening had made us so much incredible food, and it was her first time making vegan food and she had tried so hard so we were extremely appreciative. We received such a wonderful reception at Locheal. Apparently the population of the town was only 50, and our groups presence more than doubled the town's population size!! 

Here are some beautiful scenes from today

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 10 - 25km - Walk through Port Wakefield and onto Korreng Road

The blister protection

Ready to Rock and Roll!

The most interesting part of today was the South Australia's Energy and Mining Minister coming and meeting us for a few minutes on our walk. He showed his support and wished us luck on our walk. 

  My sleep last night was interesting, having slept in a dusty, cobweb abundant sheep sheering shed. 

  I did a bit of tai chi this morning, again looking out over the fields. There was also an abandoned house on the young farmers' property that was interesting to walk through. Looking at the air conditioner was so interesting: I've never seen one so simple and with so few selections or settings.

Today we started walking again and made our way back onto the highway. The next 5 days of walking will be along the same highway until we reach Adelaide's city centre.

I had some interesting discussions today. Again most notably a conversation with Lauren from Tasmania about Cradle to Cradle - a system where the entire life cycle of a product considered when you design it. Products today were never designed to be recycled, and that is a reason why recycling uses more energy and resources than it does to create an entirely new product.

Walking past these massive battery hen farms was quite daunting. We would have passed about 4 farms this size along the way today... Quite daunting for many of us to see where our food comes from.

Lauren and I also talked about an issue one of her friends was having. Her friend is an organic chicken farmer. This friend is recently struggling in feeding the chickens. Her supplier of food was recently bought out by another company, a large scale battery hen producer, who have now denied selling this small organic farmer food for her chickens. This has put a lot of stress on the farmer, who needed to change the food supply which stressed the chickens making them inflict self harm by biting out their own tail feathers. What a terrible system that allows businesses to regulate their own actions. Next was with an Aboriginal gentleman about the treatment of the land. We talked about how although these beautiful fields of crops display magnificent colours, they are quite monstrous when you think about them. These fields only support life to the crops you can see standing. Few bugs are alive because of the pesticides, no animals will live in there for that reason, and the are far from a natural ecosystem. It is true every day I gaze on their beauty, but I whole heartedly recognize that this monoculture system needs to become a polyculture. We stopped in a small bakery today to eat our lunch as we passed through a town, and I called a few local radio stations in Campbelltown asking if they were interested in our story.

There was also another media stop for a local journalist.

After lunch we continued to trudge along the highway until we reached camp.

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 9 - 17km - South Hummocks

Yet another amazing day today. We certainly are progressing, one day at a time. And day by day, we spread awareness around Australia of our cause and gain more and more momentum.

I had a radio interview with 3CR Melbourne this evening. My first opportunity to have a chat over the airwaves with people listening to what I have to say. What an incredible opportunity, and oh so much fun! I would love to thank Beth and Sally for interviewing me today! I had an incredible time, and maybe I laughed a little bit too much, but I am having way too much fun on this trip and bearing witness to this amazing campaign over the radio waves!!! To backtrack to the start of the day, waking up, as always, is the hardest part of the day. Time for rest is limited with so many amazing opportunities to talk to many other like minded people from all around Australia. 

  But we woke up and found that a walker had to go back home after being delivered to hospital that night after suffering a stomach problem.  It's sad to see Joel go, he brought an amazing energy to our group while he was with us, and we'll keep walking just as though he is with us. We'll meet him again in the week to come and I know he'll recover and meet us at the final rally.

After getting organized, and after cleaning the chapel the lovely Locheal folks had allowed us to use, we were on our way on an easy 17km walk. The start was difficult with a small hill, my pack didn't make it any more forgiving, but we marched on, with limited breaks before arriving at our campsite.

  The most notable conversation I had today was with a coordinator Amy. We spoke about the concept of "home" and what it meant for each of us. Our conversation led to find that home is a state of mind, when one feels happy and content with their present location. If one is unhappy with where they are, they begin to miss a place where they were once happy. Thus, home could be a place, but is more likely the location that holds what makes or made you comfortable, such as the place of your family, or a place you lived when you have many amazing memories. But it may be possible for one to become so comfortable with themselves, anywhere and anytime, that they may completely detach from this idea of home.

  Tonight we are camping on a young couple's farm in South Hummocks. We have even been granted permission to sleep in the old unused sheep sheering shed. I'm looking forward to bunkering down in there tonight to have an interesting experience.

Cameron collecting South Australian flowers as we progress on our walk. 

We settled down for the night by sitting around the campfire and shared some amazing stories about how we all came to be environmental activists and why we are walking these 300km for renewable energy in Port Augusta. I can say again that there are quite a few of us here with parents that attended the large environmental rally in Tasmania which led to the formation of the world's first green party, from so many different backgrounds. Upon coming here, there was a shock. It is certainly great to be surrounded by so many amazing people, but it has become both a humbling and a belittling experience. These guys are doing such a great role in the whole environmental movement and I'm feeling left behind! I'm going to need to catch up!!

Fortunately, we were able to rest in an old sheep sheering shed which turned into a massive sleepover. Another amazing day done, with so many incredible days yet to come!

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 8 - 19km - Documentary Interview and Arrival into Lochiel

The most interesting part of my day was being interviewed by a group of documentary filmers. The interview was so much fun, and it was great to speak my honest truth to the camera and tell the  about my thoughts on society's direction, its shortcomings, and the changes that we need to make to defeat this system. I'll keep my eyes out for a movie directed by one Jeff Canan, regarding the top down power structure destroying the rain forests of the amazon, but the bottom up approach of grassroots activism seen in the repower Port Augusta campaign.

We stayed overnight in Lochiel and had a very slow wake up this morning. It's well deserved because we have all done our best and walked so far! This morning a smaller group of us went to walk while the others had a well earned rest for the whole day. We walked about 17km in a matter of 3 hours which is a brilliant effort. It was great to have a small group and to walk at a fast speed our little group was comfortable with.

  When we arrived back, the rest of the group was sitting in a small hall in the town's chapel having a discussion about climate change and different organizations' approaches to create change.

  Later we heard a very interesting story from some Melbournites about non-violent direct action which has taken place in Melbourne. They are from Quit Coal, and talked about their efforts in raising a banner and chaining themselves to the columns of parliament house in light of a recent government decision to reduce funding of the HRL coal plant by $100 million, which was a great success, but the government turned around on the next day advertising a $90 million increase to new coal plant ventures. It was an extremely interesting conversation!!!

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/security-breach-as-protesters-scale-parliament-20120903-2597v.html

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 5 - 28km - Wandearah East

We woke this morning to the unfortunate news that 2 of our star support volunteers were going home. They were responsible for some catering, organising the food trolleys, etc, so it was now time for all of those responsibilities to be passed onto the walkers. It is not a big deal at all. These volunteers were doing so much for us and we were too self focused and complaining about our sore legs that we didn't help around camp as much as we should have. Anyway, with these added responsibilities, we would be leaving later from camp (9am) than usual (8am) in order to fulfil these additional duties.

That is something I have been struggling with while I have been on the Walk for Solar. At the start of this walk I made a goal to do it all with a 15/17kg pack on my back for the whole way. I've realised that this is well within my grasp, however, I come home exhausted from the walk that I avoid helping around the camp. This is something I will change over the next few days, to rest up a bit and to start pulling my own weight, I'll ween back on to carrying my pack and see if my body has adjusted yet. Fortunately, the days begin to get shorter in distance towards the end, so that may help me to keep my goal alive.

Tai chi on a pole while a local newspaper reporter covers our story

  In case you were wondering, yes I have worn this blue BZE shirt for the last 6 days without washing it, or changing it. Only the under shirt keeps changing.

I struggled a lot again today. I had terrible leg  pain, behind one of my knees, which I was told was due to irregular posture while walking with a pack - which made sense, but worse was the intense hayfever - get it? in tents? Today, for about an hour I was crying constantly, with frequent sneezing caused by the grains fields stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions. 

Some beautiful rubble on the way.

Georgia and one of the pigs taken out from the Pen.

The farm we stayed at had a wide array of crops (canola, wheat, barley, chick peas etc) but was also home to lambs for sheep sheering and pigs sold to butchers around the state.

As each day passes, we are so far from society, its expectations, the hustle and bustle, the ugly buildings, and we are surrounded by nature. I'm deeply jealous of the farmers who can step out of their homes each morning and wake up to this. But of course they need to meet supply demands just as much as we have deadlines.

Sunset over the wheat fields.

I'm really enjoying being surrounded by this amazing scenery every day.

My view while doing Tai Chi.

Many stayed up late tonight, sitting around a bonfire singing songs.

My body has been fighting well over the last week of walking in these conditions, but today it seemed to reach a climax. Because today was such an emotionally draining day, I went to bed as early as I could and rested undisturbed until morning.

That is one thing I am greatly appreciating while I am here. I am so tired from walking and the further activities held that I am so exhausted that regardless of the bed that I am sleeping on, I'm too tired to wake.

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 4 - 27km - Arrival in Port Pirie and a Repower Port Augusta Community Forum

Today was by far the hardest day yet. For so many reasons...

Firstly, we learnt how good Port Augusta's wind resources are. There has been a gentle breeze over the last 3 days, however there were massive winds last night... Massive. Let me explain... There are 5 walkers in my tent, I sleep alone in the luggage half of the tent, while the other 4 sleep in the sleeping half. Last night however, my half of the tent was facing the wind. My half of the tent collapsed under the strength of the wind, leaving me nowhere to sleep! The winds were so noisy, leaving many of the walkers with only 1 hour of sleep. Many tents also had tent poles snapped in half, torn flys, etc. The wind was awesome! To capture the uniqueness of the moment, I did some tai chi outside around 1am seeing as I wouldn't be able to sleep in the tent anyway. And in the distance there was a beautiful thunderstorm, lighting the school with infrequent stunning bolts of lightning. As if I would stay in a tent and miss this! After Tai Chi I ended up sleeping outside under the stars with a few other walkers behind a windbreak. It's some of the best sleep I've had on this trip and it was a wonderful experience.

As I peaked out of my sleeping bag, I was greeted with a magnificent sunrise.

After waking up outside, we were blessed with a beautiful double rainbow, which lifted many people's spirits despite the night's weather.

Not only was it a double rainbow, although not well presented, it was a complete half circle.

We had fears from the early morning that there were going to be winds of that strength for the next 24 hours, and rain to boot. Fortunately, the rain and wind passed within an hour. 

  One of the support vehicles constantly pushing ahead of us to notifying traffic of our presence.

  This walk is attracting members from all generations. The other struggle was the incredibly strong sun, causing minor heat stroke, but again we managed!!! It was still a wonderful day! Despite the hardships, we are all having a wonderful experience.

Personally, the heat today was incredible and I was definitely caught off guard, but we did manage. The only reason we could manage was the amazing camp site we had had lined up for us that night.

  The heat leading me to insanity... It was wonderful to finally enter another town and to see civilization again. There were small shops and beautiful modern cottage like homes lining the wide streets. There felt to be a sense on community in Port Pirie.  This was the best camp site that we have had so far. Tonight we slept on a football oval, the grass was so soft under our blistered feet. The groundsmen also kindly let us use the shower room, and this was the first opportunity for us to shower since the hostel 4 days ago! Not to forget that it was a communal shower... Boys and girls separate of course! Great bonding experiences waiting to be had.

Our First Aid Officer James busting out some tunes. He is supporting us for 2 weeks, not walking, but offering his first aid ability due to a recent leg injury.

After setting up our tents, relaxing a bit and showering, our mobile First Aid team came and checked up on us. Many people by this stage had many blisters that needed checking. Muscle strains, sprains, bites, you name it and we've had it.

Mary's blisters being examined

After getting checked out by the First Aid team, we attended a community forum on the Repower Port Augusta, giving us an opportunity to have a chat with some of the local community members. The forum was held in a RSL nearby, giving many their first "real" meal in a few days.

Terry, from Beyond Zero Emissions Sydney, demonstrating Port Augusta's planned Solar Thermal Power Plant. Terry and I have attended BZE meetings in Sydney together, so it was great to see him in South Australia.

Matt had his birthday today which demanded a secret surprise birthday hug from all walkers.

The boys eating others' leftovers! We arrived a bit too late being held up with the first aid team so missed the opportunity to order some real food from the kitchen... Mmmmm scraps :D

Some more beautiful scenery from today:

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 3 - 29km - Day of Great Conversations

While I have been out here, I have been surrounded by so many amazing and like minded people. It is so common to share similar views on political or climate issues, and I have been learning so much off all of the participants that are here! As one of the other walkers noted, so many people here are so informed, they are like authorities in their respective fields. I'm blown away to see so many young people, some younger than me, so well informed on political issues and the necessary steps to make change occur.

I have been walking around interviewing people, hearing their stories, hearing the information they have to share. Talking about different industries, how change needs to take place in each and the necessary steps to get there.

I think the amazing conversations I had today were with Wil, and organic pig farmer from Ballarat, and Sarena who has had some amazing experiences in Colombia (http://theelderbrother.com/). Please check her out and look into her book. She has a background in natural medicine, but wound up in Colombia working to build a Indigenous Medicine hospital after some amazing experiences with the Kogi. I will write a seperate blog on Wil in the future regarding his pig farming experience, because it is just so intriguing to me.

Wil from Ballarat

Sarena and I walking towards Adelaide!

The walk all day was wonderful. Beautiful sunny rather, occasionally covering us with cloud and providing us with a cool breeze.

Tonight we had an amazing opportunity to sleep out on an open paddock.

The view of the magnificent wheat fields to the right of us as we walked into our campsite at 5pm.

The walk to tonight's campsite was the most beautiful thing I have seen so far. Unfortunately, the photos can't do the scenery justice, but it was just magnificent. The golden sunlight danced across the sea of wheat.

And setting up camp tonight didn't seem so bad with such an incredible sunset to keep us distracted.

Sunset over day 3.

It was a rather enjoyable night, laying out a tarp and gazing at the stars while munching on chocolate. I have been asked several times, and the stars so far from a city are magnificent. But day by day I am moving closer to Adelaide, and the new moon is becoming larger, so the faint stars are already beginning to disappear. 

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 2 - 27km - Getting closer to Port Pirie

Waking up at 6am today was difficult after a mere 6 hours of sleep. And only having 3 hours of sleep the day before. But thankfully. I was welcomed by a beautiful sunrise, with the small shrubs glowing gold contrasting with the deep red soil.

The view from my tent this morning.

Packing up the tent with my tent mates Liz, Danny, Georgia and Liam.

After an awesome muesli breakfast and packing up our tent in the strong cold, we were on our way at 8:20am.

Starting with some stretches of course!

We've even have 2 dogs on our crew!

Some of the walkers...

Blister report! I've developed some of my first painful blisters! Awesome!!  I'm not very used to this, past hikes have been a breeze but I guess mother nature decided that I needed more of a challenge this time! Caring my large pack along with me wasn't a challenge enough apparently :P

  I'm one of the few members of the hike carrying their full pack -'in total weighing in at around 17kg. 28km with that bad boy isn't so fun, but being a long distance runner, I thought a bit of an added challenge was required. Regardless, I'm smiling and writing down many of the amazing conversations I am blessed to have here. Compared to yesterday, I developed quite a strain on my shoulders today. Thankfully, after that block we were greeted with Keish and Vegan sandwiches. We finished off our walk in good pace and made it to camp. We struggled a lot getting our tent up today after strong winds and trying to hammer into impenetrable rock. We have mostly following the highway and so unfortunately tonight we have been sandwiched by a main road 50m to one side and a train line 50m from the left. This sleepless night really showed me how important Port Augusta is in the transportation of goods.

The view from where I did Tai chi.

After feeling some stress after the 27km, I decided to do some Tai chi to relax.  I found myself a nice position with the base of the Flinder's mountains and a wheat field on my right hand side and with the sunset to the left of me. What an amazing spiritual place this is. I really wish I could keep walking for months like this. Tonight for dinner we were delighted with Lasagna, and what surprised me more was the surprise of dessert that came out afterwards! The volunteer coordinators are really work hard for us walkers. They are amazing. We ended our day with a massage circle. Such a wonderful playful bunch of people, so similar to me, I'm having a great time here!

Thanks for reading this far and for all of your support!!!! To sponsor me, please check out www.repowerportaugusta.org/aaron.morellini Rest up! Another 27ish kilometers tomorrow!!!!! :D頑張ります!!!

Some more pretty pictures from today!

Looking to towards Adelaide

Sunset over the camp

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 1 - 16km - Rally in Port Augusta, on the road to Snowtown

I’d like to start by saying, thank you for reading my blog!!! And I’d like to apologize for being unable to post man good photos at this time. They’ll come a bit later, but will try my best to get some low quality photos tomorrow.

Waking up bright and early this morning 5am after very little sleep… 10 person dormitory with the 9 other guys snoring… It became impossible to sleep! We gathered our things together and left the hostel at 6:30am and headed on our way to Port Augusta!!!

We started our day with a rally in Port Augusta. We heard from a member from Alinta energy, the organization currently operating the Port Augusta coal plants and spoke of the need to move to a clean energy future for a our children. And later from the Mayor who quite strongly spoke of her disappointed in the people of Port Augusta and for not giving us a much grander departure ceremony. She spoke of the people’s struggle against the Brown coal companies over the pas 40years and how we are finally getting close. And she spoke quite passionately to the people from all around Australia who had come from places from all over Aus - Perth, Tassie etc. 

Port Augusta, and around 200 supporters at the rally. The mayor publicly expressed her disappointment in the Port Augustan people for not attending in greater numbers!

A child of a Port Augustan parent in support of Solar Energy. Smart young kid!

Meet Ellie, 5 years old, and the youngest walker on our 300km voyage. She has walked at least 50% of most of what we have walked so far.

The AYCC, who represent most of the people on this trip, are an amazing young vibrant group. Their excitement really is contagious all with wonderful ambitions of making changes in the world working through their local areas. I really need to commend the volunteer organizers, a group of about 5 ~23 year olds who have organized food, travelling port-a-loos, support vehicles, first aid support, police accompaniments, transit routes, and not to mention the rally in Port Augusta on the 16th, and also the Adelaide rally on the 30th. Amazing people. They really need your donations. They have amazing to us so far, and I can’t wait to enjoy the activities coming up during the walk!

After an amazing 16km, with countless cars beeping at us in support of solar thermal, we arrived at our campsites to quickly put up the tents and to eat some well earned pizza and salads.

Even the local police helped us safely cross the roads.

I had an amazing day today and it is so nice to be outside, enjoying the views (while I have my back to the coal plants) and the incredible company. This is where  am supposed to be.

And I’m so impressed with Australia’s youth. Here I was thinking that we are dead and uninterested in politics, but I can see that we are well on our way to making a better tomorrow.

Playford B and Northern Brown Coal Plants - soon to be decommissioned.

Good night everyone!!! 28kms tomorrow! Aaron - 16/328km done To sponsor me, or for more information, head towww.repowerportaugusta.org/aaron.morellini

Some amazing photos from today:

What I’ve learnt from the fellow walkers The Coal Mines Today we also had the opportunity to walk past the Northern and Playford B Coal Power Plants. Michael, an AYCC member gave me some history of South Australia and told me about their importance in the society’s growth. In the past, Premier Playford, a forward thinker, decided that instead exporting iron ore from Wiala up to Newcastle to be smelted, they should instead collect the coal from Leigh creek, burn it in a reactor (Playford Brown Coal Plant), and use that electricity to smelt the iron into steel and export it directly to Newcastle. Back then, building infrastructure like this and planning to develop the state’s economy like it has was a brilliant idea. But, research is showing that burning brown coal is bad for people’s health, and for the environment, so it’s time to replace them. We can never question: “why did we design something so terrible to power SA?” But quite the contrary, we should be asking why we have this information and haven’t started implementing any more forward ideas, and building something like solar thermal? We’re ready. We’ve just been told we aren’t.

To follow on with the coal industry here, Leigh creek is soon to run out of Brown Coal, and it’s of too low a quality to export. The mine was only opened to source Playford, so when that’s gone, these mines are going down with them.

I also came to realize how important Port Augusta is for Australia. It is a transit point for most Australian trade routes.

From what I have seen so far, Port Augusta is an incredible place to for both wind and solar power. We’ve had beautiful sun and strong winds all day. Port Augusta’s sun is comparable to the Sahara desert. It will also produce about 10% more electricity than Germany per PV Solar Panel, who has already reached about 50% of the country’s energy from Solar.

Gas as an alternative? I had a conversation with two gentleman who spoke of Gas’ unfeasibility. This is because the closest gas mine is in Moomba - around 400km- away. Can you imagine the pipeline and the infrastructure to create something of that size. And not the mention the possibility of terrorist attacks on that pipeline. But again, Santos (an energy company), have began exploring for Coal Seam Gas which is in the Cooper Basin. Unfortunately, the Cooper Basin is above the Great Artesian Basin (Australia’s largest aquifer (an aquifer is like an underground river that farmers often use to let the animals drink etc)). Fracking or extraction in these ares could have some serious effects throughout Australia, so the number of Gas Plants needs to be minimized to discourage the construction of Coal Seam Gas Wells.

Uranium Mining There is also Uranium Mining occurring further upstream, who is also probably influencing the aquifer.

Aboriginal Perspective Lastly, a gentleman of aboriginal heritage whose family is one of the original custodians of the Port Augusta region spoke to us. He talked to us about how unfairly the Aboriginal history is treated, and that a little further North of Port Augusta, out of the Nunuku people’s country, there are some cave Drawings of up to 60,000 years old. That’s thousands of year on top of the pyramids. The aboriginals met with Flinders when he first arrived in Australia here, and so it is important that these lands are protected as they have significant cultural heritage for the aboriginal people.

The aboriginals also see the sun as an incredible object, able to bring life, or to bring death. That it produces an immense amount of energy that should be taken advantage of and more renewable energy should be implemented t capture this potential.

[aaronwalkforsolar]

Day 0 - 0km - Arrival in Adelaide

0km/328km walked.However, 1400km flown and 50km driven.

After a frantic day packing and gathering all the essentials (ie 2 weeks worth of undies and socks) I made it to the airport at 4:10 for my 5:10 flight. Being on time for the first time in my life certainly felt good!

Wearing my Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) T-Shirt into the airport was a great idea. After walking into the queue to get my boarding pass, 3 girls approached me and asked if I was going to Port Augusta. That's when this whole trip hit me. I have been bursting with excitement since then!!!

I soon found out that these girls were walking the whole 2 weeks with me. They are organizers from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), a group I have been trying to contact to get involved with in the near future.

We sat separately on the plane, but found each other after the flight and made our way to Shakey's Hostel, checked in and headed to Adelaide's China Town. Here I met another 2 AYCC members, and felt strange to be surrounded by a group of vegetarians. Usually I'm the odd one out. The girls told me that most AYCC events are catered only for vegetarians because the non-vegetarians are generally the minority! What a new and bizarre concept! It was great to be surrounded by a bunch of like minded people, and that's what I'm most looking forward to on this trip. Being surrounded by a bunch of like minded people, and hearing their stories leading them to activism and how they are helping their individual communities and movement of a better tomorrow. It's also been great to tell people what I'm doing! They are genuinely interested and want to hear about what we're doing. When we say this is the effort we are going to to push our government, they are quite impressed! Saying a conversation with "I'm walking 300km" is an awesome way to start any conversation on renewable energy :P

I might need to do these walks every few weeks :P Awesome night! Time for bed! Sleep well! For tomorrow... we walk! The end of day zero. For more information on the walk, or to sponsor me, go to http:www.repowerportaugusta.org/aaron.morellini