It's Rubbish! Extreme Recycling - What to do with a bin bag

Anne starts a New Fad in Skip Rat Street Fashion. Read Map Magazine here Read a cheeky bit more!

Our Cheeky Wicked Camper Van

Our amazingly designed, custom sprayed van with the bookaid.org logo and 'As Cheeky As You Can't' written on the back!!! It's wonderful! Big thank you to John, Camilla and Leanne at Wicked Campers!!!!!!! We love you! Our trailer has the Blues Brothers "On a Mission From God" sprayed on the back and we finally left Brisbane on Thursday (25th)afternoon. Not bad since we only started letting people know about what we were doing on the 14th!

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It's a Lifestyle Choice

The Challenge

From UN World Peace Day (Sep 21st) we circumnavigate the continent of Australia. See map.

We begin with NOTHING: we will have no cash, no clothes, no possessions and no vehicle at the start of our journey.

We remain penniless the whole journey, not spending a cent for anything.

We do any job given to us and donate all our wages to Book Aid.

At the end, we give back, donate or auction all we have been given.

Attempt to reach our goal of raising £10,000 ($22500) for Book Aid

We place the outcome of our journey, our lives and our adventure into the hands of others.

We work in exchange for goods and services such as food and fuel.

Each and Every Person Acknowledged

• We will not fail to publicly thank everyone who enables us to do this.
  
• Our a ‘Good on ya! Cheers mate’ list, will contain acknowledgements of all those who have helped us, and will be updated regularly.
• Nothing is irrelevant. A handshake and a kind word will be acknowledged.
  

How do we keep people involved?

• Our blogsite will be updated, added to, made fun, informative and the only official way to follow our intrepid adventures as they unfold
• Anne takes pictures
• Phil tells a joke
• Gareth grows a beard
• People contribute opinions, stories of their own, jokes, facts, anecdotes, and give us suggestions and invitations.
  

• 

Buckley’s or breeze?
We will be forced into a daily survival situation where we have to rely on ingenuity, audacity, exchange, dares, comedy gold and the generosity of strangers to obtain the most basic of things. We will make our way round in who knows what manner, or in what sort of state, but always with good humour and originality. We will have to be audacious and cheeky to carry this off. So, be it a simple case of picking berries for shelter, telling jokes for pies, dressing up as a chicken to get our socks washed or tightrope walking for toilet roll, we will do it in exchange for something we need to circumnavigate the continent without a penny passing into our hands for work. It will be hard, we have to keep on trying, not as hard as we 'can,' but until we 'can't'. We must continue pushing on to the finishing post back in Brisbane, no matter what difficulties we come across.

Along a planned route we will find as many activities as we can, visit tourist attractions and places of interest, try our hands at any and all jobs (especially those targeted to travellers who enter on working holiday visas) and we will document all our finds and experiences. Every small business or individual who helps us will have their company logo and or name printed on our weblog.

With the local and national media, radio, TV and newspapers involved, we will build a profile to generate a following that will be able to see our progress daily online.What we are collecting here is a resource for people interested in Australia and a mateship list. A list of people who share in the ideal that the world is a good place, a list of those who believe in helping others in need, and most of all, a list of Aussies who like to have a laugh, share a good time and believe a 'can’t' can become a dead set ripper of a 'CAN'! Join us on our quest to help international child literacy by lending us your support, by sending us things you think we may need along the way, by making online donations to Book Aid International and/or to our fuel fund and by telling your friends! Read a cheeky bit more, the link below, to find out how to help us achieve the impossible.

There are many ways in which our friends, family, the media, companies, and our new to be mates can help us.

Donations
Please make donations to Book Aid.

Please make donations to our fuel and emergency breakdown/car maintenance fund. We will endeavour to not have to touch this fund but we predict we will need some help making sure we are carrying enough fuel in our vehicle to get us through the long unwinding roads through the desserts. All money which we manage to not use will be added to the Book Aid donations.

Mechanic
Will we need some fine tuning? Probably. "Pass me the spanner mate, it's most likely the head gasket, or is it the sump? Kick the tyres and find out". We are engine illiterate. Help us

Wish List

Please send us some of the things on our wish list. Don’t let Anne have to go through months and months of driving with smelly boys. Send odour eater socks and car fresheners etc to our starting address or to a post office. We will be grateful to anyone who sends us anything!

Spot us on the street and give us something. See our car parked and leave us something in our donation box, anything will be gratefully received but if they are biscuit shaped, edible and crumbly, Gareth will be happy.

Burn and send us mixed Cd's of your own music. We will need to listen to something as we are passing through areas with no radio frequencies. We will put links to all the music we like on our 'Thank You, Good On Ya Mate' website.

Offer us work
If you have a business which hires contract or seasonal workers, offer us a job in exchange for goods. We want to try our hands at any jobs you have for us, the stranger the better. Any jobs which we haven't already done, we will do to the best of our abilities. And remember, all money earned will go straight to Book Aid International.

Suggest work places to us.
Suggest places which we should contact for work. If you have worked in Australia and found your job , the people or the place interesting, or if you have any contact details for unusual jobs Australia, please give us details.

Do you have a garden which needs weeding, a dog which needs brushing, laundry which needs hanging or a car that needs waxing, we will happily do it in exchange of a feed, a bed or a wash.

Suggest places for us to visit and activities for us to do. We want to hear your stories. What really impressed you when you were here? Do you love your Auzzie town, tell us why we should visit you?

Send us Off
Come down and see us off at our start in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia.

Sunday 21st September

We will be starting out in the Valley Mall, Brisbane. If you can make it, please come down and speak to us. We will be the three people striping of their work clothes and donning black bin bags waiting for some kind soul to donate us some clothing.

Swapsies
If you see us en route, please swap something you have excess of, that we could use, for something we have excess of.

Website
Do you know how to improve this website? Please help us make improvements, make it more interesting, easier to navigate, add graphics etc. We need to add an interactive map with our destinations. Can you help us with this?

Artists
Please help us develop a brand. We need an identity, a logo or maybe a caricature/cartoon of ourselves so people can easily recognise us on the road.
Develop a design for our vehicle spray work or vehicle wrapping.


Spread the Word!
Help us gain the support we need to complete our challenge. Send a link to our website to all your friends.
Ask your work/friends/family to sponsor us.
Become our Facebook friend and join the Facebook 'As Cheeky As You Can't' group. Send a Facebook friend suggestion to all your friends. Sign up to our weblog and keep a watch over how far we are getting with our cheeky trek. Become a follower. Subscribe to our feeds.
Tell your local papers about us. We could use as much publicity as possible.

Have you met 'As Cheeky As You Can't'?

Do you have a story to tell about a time you spent with us? We want your stories and pictures. Either tags us in public pictures on Facebook and write up your story in the group or our wall, write up an article and post it (tagging us in the post) or share it in the comments box on blogger at the end of one of our articles. Remember, you are an integral part of this adventure, the people we meet are the most important element of the success of our quest.

Please contact us asap or send us something we will need.

Back to Ascheekyasyoucant home Read a cheeky bit more!

Come See Us De-robe!

Sunday 21st September from 9am.
Fortitude Valley Mall sunken area.
We will have a ceremonial de-robing moment, when we don our fetching black bin bags and give up all our worldly goods. Come and see us, laugh at us, point at our limelighted goose pimples and say to yourself "Mmmm....rather you than me mate. You look like a wally!"

We need all the help we can get so please come down to show your support, leave a donation, bring us some knickers or just give us a supportive word. We are a little nervous but we have full faith in the people of Brisbane and the people of Australia. Read a cheeky bit more!

A Few Hours To Go

A concoction of adrenaline, nerves and excitement, we had little or no sleep last night.
It is now Saturday night and we are cleaning our rooms, packing our belongings and watching the amazing but ominous looking fork lightening outside. It seems there is a huge storm brewing and it looks like it may start raining. Rain....hmmm...this is a spanner in the works we haven't prepared for.
As a Brit, when Anne first landed here in the middle of Australian winter Gareth laughed at her as she adjusted to a winter where the sun shines and you get a tan! Everyday for the first week after she arrived here she took out her coat and umbrella wherever she went, just in case. She has finally gotten used to the Australian glorious winter and it looks like it may rain now of all days.

Oh no.... Wet plastic bin bags, no clothing or shoes, wet hair and no towels to dry ourselves with! It's not something we are looking forward to. Fingers crossed the storm doesn't stay around tomorrow because we have to give up everything, which means we won't be able to use umbrellas!

We have been offered a number of beds and jobs in various places around the eastern coast of Australia. Thanks for all the offers!
People have been been sending us wonderful messages of support which have been very encouraging. That people are showing their willingness to get involved in this trek is really in line with the feelings being shared around the world tomorrow on United Nations International Day of Peace. People exchanging goods for other goods or services and giving a helping hand to others for no other reason than to share a smile.


We are keeping our fingers crossed that someone will turn up tomorrow and donate a camera, some clothes and offer us a job or invite us in for a feed. Unable to predict the outcome of tomorrow, we will surely have another restless night sleep, but we do have faith in the people of Brisbane......even if it does rain......... Read a cheeky bit more!

2 Days to go!!!!!!! Eeeeep!

We have less than two days to go before we are naked in our bin bags, a quivering trio in flimsy black plastic, covering nothing but question marks and hope, in The Valley Mall on Sunday. Eeeep!

We have had a great response so far. However one of the big things we still need is a video camera so we can film our exploits. Can anyone help us with this?

Gemma Snowdon from 4zzz radio and The Wire, interviewed us today. She is the first person to witness 'The Steve'. Listen to what she had to say about it here! Listen to The Wire's MP3 'Backpackers do it With a Difference'

Toucan displays have given us the means to advertise our challenge with a panel display wherever we go.

We have been offered some interesting jobs and and have been offered some beds along the way. Base Brisbane, on Edward St, have offered us bums beds on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Nova Radio inteverviewed us, we will put a link to the interview here as soon as we get it.

Lach Stock and Barell have donated shirts and a crate of wine for us to use as bartering tools for fuel etc.

eprintonline.com.au printed us 500 flyers.

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3 Days Til The De-robing.

Wicked Campers have very generously given us a campervan! This is a marvelously generous donation! A huge thanks to the team at Wicked Campers. Some members of their team will be coming to see us on Sunday in the Valley Mall at 9am when we de-robe! They are customising one of their vans for us. Can't wait to see the 'cheeky' design!

Simon from the Brisbane Times came to speak to us. It was lovely to meet you Simon.

Three Britons are about to leave themselves at the mercy of Australian generosity as they embark on a nationwide tour using only donations.
On Sunday Anne Race, 30, and Phil Carr, 28, both from England, and Gareth Owen, 31, from Wales, will abandon their worldly possessions and - dressed only in garbage bags and carrying only the equipment needed to record their journey - begin the daunting challenge of trying to circumnavigate the continent.
read more

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4 Days to go

Camping.com.au have very generously offered to provide us with all our camping equipment. This is a massive help! It means we will not go without a place to rest our heads wherever we go. Using this great site you can search for outdoor services, shop, discover Australia using the location guide, browse through the classifieds, Match/Meet an outdoor type and get Membership Shop discounts.

Our interview with ABC Brisbane was wonderful. See Here
We met the lovely Kelly Higgins-Devine who will be following our trek and catching up with us every few weeks on her Drive show.
Listen to our interview here!
We were donated these caps to keep the sunburn off during our trek and listeners are starting to email us with invites to dinner at their homes and maps among other things. Thanks a lot for your support!

Willing Workers On Organic Farms (WWOOF) is a form of cultural exchange in which WWOOFers live and work as family with host farms, and learn about the skills of organic growing and the area they are visiting. They have given us three free memberships and some shirts! Thanks WWOOF team!

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5 days to go!

We have got our license through from the council to put up a display in Fortitude Valley and sit in front of it in our bin bags. A big thank you goes out to James Dorman for giving us a prime spot in Valley Mall.

Raised £415. Great stuff everyone. Not bad for our first days.

Received money in our fuel fund and Anne has found her lost driving license.

Received T-shirts and literature from Book Aid International, Thanks to Lesley Pinder.

Manx Radio are interviewing us this week.

The Sunderland Echo are printing a story.

A huge travel book and map was given by Andrew Herbert, thanks mate.

Beds have been offered around some destinations we will be going to near the end of our journey.

A car is in Sydney waiting for any mechanic that has the time to do a little fixing, and for someone to pick it up or to drive it down to us.

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it. Read a cheeky bit more!

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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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!

The Australian Visa and Wither the Wind Which Carries Our Phil

A rather significant spanner has arisen which puts all our efforts on hold. Phil has been made to wait for his visa for entry into the country on a working holiday one year pass. Although most visas can be done online and received promptly the next day via email, some applications can be flagged and become part of a back log of papers waiting to be processed. Phil has become part of one of these office piles and we are now impatiently awaiting the arrival of our third wheel.
Start date for our Cheeky as You Can’t Oz trek has now been put on hold until we gain news from the Australian consulate regarding Phil’s passage.
For visa applications please visit
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/462/index.htm Read a cheeky bit more!