Good to be home

Well isn’t it weird to be back home after three months on the road in the fantastic campervan from Sydney RV Centre.  As you saw earlier on the blog, we all got together on the first weekend back home and had a few quite drinks at the Newport Arms Hotel.  Since then, a group of friends and some of the support crew all came down to Brookvale Oval last Saturday night to help raise additional funds.  With the help of the Manly NRL team, I was interviewed on the field by Peter Peters while the support crew went around the crowd collecting donations.  It appears we raised around $9,000 from the collection with a crowd of 14,000 people.

Manly have since added to their support by having one of the great players donate himself to the cause for a day on Manly Beach.  Thanks Choc, this is much appreciated.

I have continued training to keep the body from shutting down and have gone back to Scenar Health for some recovery sessions.  We have still been busy with radio interviews and I will be live in the studio of 2KY/Sky Sports this Sunday between 8.30am -9am.

Our finale dinner that is fast approaching sold out in the first week and it looks like we are having about 400 guests to the function.  With money raised from this, and other donations still rolling in I am hoping to still climb towards the million dollar mark.  I will leave you this week with some additional footage not seen before on the blogs.

Cheers Craig

Lonely outback roads

Out on the water

More fantastic fundraising in Narooma

Once I woke the support crew I learnt that I had been lined up for a hair cut by Fiona who attended the function on the previous night.  After the haircut it was the usual interview on 2KY with Hollywood and Zorba, and then time o hit the road.  I was taken to the coast where I had finished the previous day and launched the ski off a protected beach.  This particular morning we didn’t use our support boat as Darren from the NSW Maritime offered to meet me out to sea near the Narooma SLSC.

As I left the beach and commenced to paddle north the wind once again lifted and came on the nose from the north-east.  To add to this the small swell reflected off the rocky headlands to make the water a bit messy.  I paddled for the first 50 minutes in solitude through crystal clear ocean with Montegue Island about 4kms to my right.  Adam and Ged came out in the maritime vessel to video the last part of the paddle into Narooma via the river mouth.  The only sea life I saw today was a large school of bait fish being knocked over by sea gulls.  As I moved closer to the river mouth the ocean came alive with activity from the Narooma SLSC.  We had a number of surf boats, IRB, jet ski’s, recreational vessels and then as I entered the river there were board paddlers and about a dozen members of the numb nuts swimming club.

All this plus a fundraiser at the O’briens Hotel, Narooma, was organised by Sue-anne and Geoff Newton who I met on Australia Day in 2007.  Again the people of the south coast went out of their way to assist with the charity.  To all the people involved in today’s activities, thank you very much.  Let’s hope this is a sign of what may be generated during the next week. 

Let’s join together and see what we can all do in a week.

Happy Sunday, Craig

Ian Campbell ABC radio

Another head wind

Met by locals

Narooma fundraisers