Sophie Conlon
Three mates will be challenging themselves and riding almost 500 kilometres from Goolwa to Mount Gambier/ Berrin to raise money for mental health this month.
Jason Moore, along with Jamie Ramzan and Aaron Skirrey will make the journey in support of South Australian mental health charity Talk Out Loud.
A counsellor in his working life, Mr Moore said he and Mr Ramzam were mental health advocates and YouTubers with a channel based on tourism and challenging themselves, which Mr Moore said was how the idea of a charity cycle came about.
“It’s about pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and showing that if you do that you can achieve great and different things,” he said.
“The idea of marrying those things together and doing a charity cycle came about because we wanted to take that step further.”
The pair have never attempted anything like this before, but Mr Moore said Mr Skirrey was a seasoned cyclist.
“It 100 per cent be a challenge and very difficult,” he said.
“Aaron has done many charity cycles, so even though myself and Jamie aren’t experienced cyclists we will have somebody there with a bit of experience – we’re really grateful to have Aaron on board.”
Aiming to raise $10,000, Mr Moore said 100 per cent of donations would go to Talk Out Loud thanks to several sponsors jumping on board to supply things like food and accommodation.
“Anything we make is amazing,” he said.
“There is no overheads, there is nothing we need to pay for to make this happen thanks to our amazing sponsors, so we can really gladly say that 100 per cent of proceeds will be going directly to Talk Out Loud.
“We’re very grateful for all the support we’ve got.”
While on the adventure Mr Moore said they hoped to promote tourism in South Australia by filming the journey and creating a feature length documentary and mini series.
He said the official documentary would come out next year, but they would share behind the scenes footage on social media along the trip.
Wanting a decent adventure, Mr Moore said the starting and finishing towns were picked somewhat randomly.
“Rather than just cycling through the city, we wanted to do two beautiful beachfront towns,” he said.
“Obviously Goolwa is a great starting point and I know Mount Gambier isn’t necessarily beachfront, but going to Mount Gambier along the coast we get to go through a lot of beautiful towns and end in the beautiful Mount Gambier as well.
“Those two destinations sounded like pretty decent start and finish lines.”
The cyclists will leave Goolwa on December 28, ride around Lake Alexandrina and cross the Murray River at Wellington, before following the Coorong to the Coorong Camp Site.
On day two they will journey along the Coorong and finish at Kingston SE, before heading to Millicent via Beachport on day three.
For the final leg on December 31 they will ride from Millicent to Mount Gambier/ Berrin, finishing up at the Cave Gardens/ Thugi.
Mr Moore said they were looking at organising a mental health festival at the finish line and encouraged people to come along.
“There will be a couple of bands playing, and we’re going to make is a mini mental health festival,” he said.
“So any locals that want to come down and cheer as we arrive and enjoy some music, we would love to see them there.”
If you would like to follow the journey, find Bunyip Adventures on Facebook or YouTube.
The fundraiser is live now, and donations will be accepted until the end of January and Mr Moore encouraged people to check out their social media for a donation link.
