How You can Help

In order for this to work there are a few things we need.
1. Jobs we can do in return for donations to book aid international.
2. Offers of a meal, fuel or accomodation along our route.
3. Spread the word to your local, statewide or to the national media
Click below to find out more about how to help.

As many of you know we have visited a few impoverished countries, and in meeting the children of these places, we vowed to commit ourselves to a do a good deed to help them. It was Anne's 30th birthday a weeks days ago and Gareth 31st too, so now is a good a time as any to do some good for child literacy, giving kids a chance at having a better life. We are nowhere near friends and family, but we're sure you guys would buy us a pint or take us out to dinner for our birthdays, if you had the chance, so we ask this of you instead.

• Leave a comment after one of the posts. If people can see that many others are following this blog then it encourages more interest.
• Either become a follower, by following the instructions, or subscribe to the blog.
• As a birthday treat we ask a big favour. To donate at least the price of a pint to the charity we are backing on our adventure starting Sept 21st, through our webpage, next to the total target of £10,000. It is our goal to do something for a worthy cause.
• If you are a really generous mate, then you may also want to consider donating on the other button (the one that goes to the fuel fund), the price of a chaser for after that pint, at the top of the webpage, to contribute to our fuel and emergency fund. This fund will be used should the occasion arise we need a little monetary help to get us out of any pickles we may come across, for example, to eliminate the chance of us being in the middle of nowhere without fuel, dying of scurvy and dehydration in the desert wearing nought but Hessian potato sacks (We will endeavour to not use this fund as we want to add this to the total Book Aid fund on arrival to Brisbane in January).
• Please ask the people in your office/work to take a look at our sight and maybe donate.
• Maybe you could send out an envelope round the office then use your debit card to donate the amount collected to our charity. (Please remember to donate through our web page so we get closer to our target and we know how much money our colossal event has raised for child literacy.)
• Please pass this mail or your version of it to all the people in your address book, the only way this thing is going to work is if we get as many people reading our blog as possible. Please please pass this on and add your own personal message to the top.
• If you can’t open the blog page in you work etc, then please open it at home.
• If you have any positive comments to make about our trek, then please leave them on the website for other people and the media to see.
• Help in any of the other ways stated in the full post It's a Lifestlye Choice.
  
  This is an immense challenge. We have to convince people to give us everything we need.
  But at the end of our adventure we should have tried our hands at a great number of jobs, tried many activities, written up reviews and articles for many services, places and people, collected a deal of money for charity, gotten ourselves in a great deal of newspapers, magazines and hopefully TV, and we will no doubt have learned a great deal. We must succeed in this challenge, if we don’t we starve! However, the worst case senario is that we have raised awareness and money for Book Aid and died starving, but happy in the knowledge we tried.
  
  You can find two different donation buttons. I hope you can donate to one fund if not both. After all, to succeed in some of life’s biggest challenges you have to surpass being as cheeky as you ‘CAN’ you have to be As Cheeky As You ‘CAN’T’!
  
  Thank you.
  
  

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Our Charity- Book Aid International

Our chosen charity is Book Aid International.

We believe books change lives. Books have definitely changed ours, inspiring ideas and creativity, giving us language skills, and aiding our education.

Please make a donation here to give impoverished children a chance to change their lives too.

Book Aid have said.

"Many thanks for choosing to support Book Aid International on your Australian adventure! It is very much appreciated and definietly one of the most imaginitive ways that money has been raised for us"

Book Aid International was listed as the number one way to help Make Poverty History on the channel 4 website. http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/M/makepovertyhistory/8ways/1.html
We believe that Book Aid International is doing great work indeed. Please visit their website soon to find out what they do, and to see how our adventure will support them. We hope people will think the cause is a worthy one .

There are many ways to raise money for charity, we have raised money at various events in the past including: walking on hot coals, London marathons, walks, running into the painfully cold North Sea on Boxing Day, sponsored fasts, dances, costume wearing, bake sales, book sales etc. We have always had a great deal of fun and gained as much for ourselves in terms of experience from each of the events as we have in monetary value for good causes. We believe raising money for charity can incorporate a fun element and we hope to have a lot of fun along the way!

In the past, volunteering time in Indonesian schools, in special needs departments, in reading to children, in conservation and environmental work, and in orphanages, amongst other projects, we have met some wonderful people and had a great amount of fun. We feel however that the money raised from this trip will directly benefit more people and reach the places we can’t volunteer in through Book Aid International. We believe that Book Aid International is doing great work indeed. Please visit their website soon to find out what they do, and to see how our adventure will support them. We hope people will think the cause is a worthy one.


This Cheeky trip is one we will consider to be the hardest of our events to raise money and also the most enjoyable too. Travelling is easy if you have money to buy all of life’s essentials and some luxuries but we will not be able to get these things. The challenge will be 15,000km without any purchasing ability. To see how difficult it is to start from nothing. To spend four months or more without this power to buy our way out of trouble will be hard because we are doing this in a world where it’s easy to get by if you have the money to spend. Our only currency will be ourselves.

We will survive with only our ability to work for favours, talk to people and smile. Our aim is to reach £10,000 for Book Aid, so for example, we are hoping that after we have worked on a farm in exchange for a basket of food, the rest of the money we could have earned (if we were able to take it) will instead go directly to Book Aid, in order to reach our target. Yes, we are asking people to be generous, but we really hope people know exactly what it is we are doing so no one feels they have been conned into helping us.

There are many very hard-working people making a huge difference, in the front line of world poverty, which we fully commend. We are in no way to be compared to these wonderful people, we are simply trying to raise awareness and a little money for those who can put it to good use.

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Our Wish List, What We Need.

Help us if you can!
We need small and mega large donations of tangible things.
Remember we are beginning our journey with nothing at all. that means we need everything. Please donate anything you think we may need. Try and think of the things you would take if you were going on a camping holiday and see if you have anything you could let us have for a great cause.

Transportation:we are hoping for a vehicle big enough to sleep in; a van; a caravan; mobile home. This will be a great way of marketing your business!

A video camera:we need to document our progress and collect footage of us doing jobs and activities along the way.
Laptop; so we can edit and upload photos, write articles, upload pictures, write articles, internet access so we can research areas to visit/get in touch with potential mates etc
Camping equipment; tents; sleeping bags; roll matts; torches.
Food: as much as possble please! We will need as much none perishable fodder as we can carry. If there is one sure fire way making this plan work is if Gareth has a good supply of biscuits and cookies.
click here to read a cheeky bit more and find out what else we need and how you can help.

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A Week To Make This Work? Are You Serious?

What will happen on Sunday 14th September?
We will be pressing ‘send’ on our computers, to forward an email plea to businesses, media, radio, TV and anyone else we can think of, who could help us achieve our goal. We will have exactly one week to convince people in Australia to give us beds, jobs, a vehicle, clothing, food and everything else we will need to get around Australia without any money or possessions.

What will happen one week later on Sunday 21st September?
We will, in a grand gesture, sit on the main shopping and café mall in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia, with nothing but a black bin liner, and wait for things to happen. We are hoping people will answer our pleas positively and set us up with everything we need.

Erm…but what if they don’t? What if nobody gives you what you need?
Then you do not have as much faith in people as we do. I am sure people will want to help out a good cause and be involved in an audacious plan.

No seriously, what if you are sat there all day and no one takes a blind bit of notice of you?
Then the world has lost its sense of humour. I will wish to live no longer. I will eat last night’s kebab remains, sober.

Won’t this be really, I mean, really difficult?
Erm… yeh. Read a cheeky bit more!

Your Review Here--The Golden Palace Restaurant, Brisbane

China Town, Brisbane, a relatively small pocket of red and gold running parallel to Valley Mall, opened on Chinese New Year 1987. Designed by three Chinese architects and three engineers from Guangzhou in China’s Guangdong province, Chinatown Mall is regarded as the most authentic in Australia. Walking up the mall and gazing at the shops surrounding a grand pagoda—which was rebuilt in 1996 after it exploded when a car drove through a second story window and landed on it in Jackie Chan’s film, First Strike—you will find Chinese supermarkets offering imported Asian goods, Chinese herbalists, duty free shopping, jewellers, a weekend street market and of course the plentiful, colourful restaurants. Steamy aromas escaping the many eateries and sights of the marinated birds and meats in the shop windows will tempt you into submission, but if you manage to make it to the top of the mall without eating yet, then you may want to visit the Golden Palace.

Sat in a cheerful room, I tasted something I had neither heard nor seen before. Presented as delightfully as it smelled, and smelling as deliciously as it tasted, it was something of a creative signature of the Golden Palace. Crafted by Hong Kong trained chefs, the glistening coat from a mighty oven roasted chicken had been gracefully removed and draped over, to tailor fit, a steaming prawn meat valet. The crispy chicken skin was a fine garment for a surprisingly complementary torso.Suzanne, the daughter manager of this long established family run restaurant, proudly invites us to join her.
“We’re one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in Brisbane and the biggest in the Valley and city area.
This restaurant was opened over 20 years ago and has been under the management of my family for over 12 years.”

A multi lingual waitress, looking authentic in vivid mauve and gold, carves a juicy Peking duck by our table and places succulent slices of the offering onto home made crepes. The self rolled crispy duck pancakes left us holding back on licking our fingers for want of more, but the next dish, wagyu steak cut into bite size, melt in the mouth morsels, outdid the first. Each mouthful was a gift for the tongue, chefs Peking sauce complementing the prime beef without overpowering the palate.
With two teams of staff, each working along side either the yum cha chef or the a la cart chef to perfect receipes and service, Suzanne proudly exclaims that the food has an ability to advertise itself once customers try it. Relying greatly on word-of-mouth marketing, she has a number of regular patrons. Her only complaint is that she sometimes finds that her frequenters tend not to be as adventurous as she would like them to be. By allowing staff to try new dishes, so they can appropriately describe all menu items, she influences some visitors and regulars to widen their knowledge and appreciation of Hong Kong cuisine. “We want to make sure every customer is satisfied every time, so the restaurant promotes itself. This is how we maintain a full house every Saturday and Sunday lunch time.”
The food presentation was outstanding, with pieces of vegetable artwork adorning each plate, carefully hand crafted to mimic flowers. The waiters and waitresses were friendly and it was very easy to find comfort in the relaxing environment. “The floor staff must speak English and Mandarin or Cantonese, and our chefs are brought here on their merits as specialist chefs in Hong Kong cuisine."
Although it isn’t exactly a first date place, for lack of privacy or romantic lighting, I would bring the family or a group of friends for any occasion to sit around one of the Golden Palace’s circular tables, which ensure a sociable, authentic eating experience coupled with a whistle wetting Australian wine list.
With a 350 seat capacity, and two private dinning rooms, the Golden Palace often holds corporate events, weddings, yum cha banquets and it has convenient ATM facilities. For menu and reservations please visit the Golden Palace website here.
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