Leave them kids alone

School's out when the java jive rolls by, no matter what the teachers
say. We happened to stop by a place of education to discuss our route
and not long after there were kids jumping out windows and weaving
past arm flailing teachers in order to get a look. Easily a couple of
hundred kiddies lined the streets an ran with us until we out
distanced them. On the way through top cat noticed one of the teachers
give a theatrical shrug and turn away. That's right, mate. There was
nothing you could have done.

In other news the trailer is no more. For those of you unfamiliar with
this saga the trailer is the single aspect of the jive that we spent
the most time on. Very much to the detriment of all else. The main
feature of note on day one was the quick release system on the hitch,
designed to prevent injury to the cyclist if the trailer hit
something, by pulling loose the connection. Much effort went in to
ensuring that the hitch did indeed release quickly. Perhaps more time
should have been spent ensuring that it was also able to stay
connected when you are just riding along. Time lost but valuable
lessons learned.

All for naught though. This morning while taking a turn as trailer man
I came off at a moderately dangerous speed and caused irreparable
damage to the hitching arm (plus a sprained wrist). We tossed what was
left of the trailer into one of the support cars and went on our way.
End of an era.

In final news top cat is very good with the kiddies. while camped last
night he entertained a very large group for more than an hour in
surprisingly good Indonesian. Later on they surrounded smokin mike and
myself but all we could do was wiggle our eyebrows and read from the
phrasebook. The kids seemed to love that too though they seemed a
little confused. Top cat later reported that one of the children
erroneously claimed I was handsome.

Ian "two-beat" Patullo.

Ps. The tracker has been on the fritz due to being in the trailer but
so far we've covered nearly 180km over these two days. Not bad huh?