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Old 01-01-15, 11:02 PM
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Machka 
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A few of my many pleasant memories of my 2004 Australian tour were people offering me sustenance of some sort.

One situation was near the beginning of the tour. We had just climbed from sea level up to a particular lookout ... quite a struggle for me ... and I was gasping for air at the top when a couple who were touring by car started chatting with me and my cycling partner. After a moment or two, they offered us each a cup of coffee. They had a little stove and all the fixings and boiled up some coffee for us all. It really hit the spot!


A couple weeks later, we rolled into a campground, and started making dinner. The first couple weeks of the tour we had been eating mainly beans, eggs and a bit of fruit and veg so there we were cracking our eggs onto the camp kitchen BBQ and heating up our beans while a group of fishermen started to gather and watch what we were doing while they waited to use the BBQ. After a few moments they asked us if that was all we had for dinner ... yep, that's it. They could hardly believe it, and informed us that we were joining them for dinner. Then they pulled out all sorts of meat ... chicken, sausages, hamburgers, steaks ... enough for a small army. We all ate our fill and there was still some left over.

The next night at the next campsite something similar happened ... we were back to cooking up our eggs and beans at the camp kitchen BBQ, when a family gathering kind of took us under their wings and provided us with sausages and hamburgers ... and again, we all ate our fill and there were heaps left over.

After that, we started including meat in our meals more frequently.


And a couple months later, my cycling partner had gone off ahead and I was trudging along slowly on a hot December day when I spotted a fresh fruit and veg market and decided to stop in and get a snack. I picked up a few pieces of fruit and was paying for them when one of the customers started chatting to me. Moments later he went to a freezer in the corner and gave me a couple chocolate ice cream things and would not let me pay for them. They were lovely!


Just a few generous experiences.
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