I am making a weird and wonderful journey.  An anti-single-use-plastic bamboo bike mission.  It’s not your everyday sort of bike ride.

Although I spend time with lots of kids, I spend most of the time alone, huffing and puffing my way up huge hills with a bright red face!

But all of the time, whether I am feeling tired or hungry or excited or wet or hot, ALWAYS, I am looking forward to meeting mini superheroes and hearing their ideas about how we can make the world less filled with plastic (particularly single-use plastic).  I am so in awe of these kids (and big kids) that I made some superhero capes to honour and share their ideas and enthusiasm.

In the past few days I have been posting on facebook about 2 little boys, Noah and Tyler, who are so determined to make a difference that they decided to make wooden soap dishes out of reclaimed wood (that would otherwise end up in landfill).  They will keep half the money for materials and well deserved treats and give half the money to Sea Shepherd.  I went to meet them and they kindly agreed to model the capes and tell their story.  Please do check the video and their Sea Change facebook page to learn more and support what they are doing.  I’m not sure if they are taking international orders just yet, but who knows…

Tyler and Noah with their soap dish prototype sketches

One Auckland school I visited, Sunnybrae Normal School, set a mini superhero homework task for their kids, after my visit.  Their weekly homework was to do a beach clean or a clean up in their local area and report back to school on it.  As you can imagine, I was delighted to receive this photo montage of their efforts:

One of their pupils has become something of a beach clean fairy at her local beach and has even got her family involved on a regular basis too.  They told me that they never expected to see as much rubbish as they found.  Now every time they go to the beach they can’t stop seeing it and they always leave the beach better than they found it.  Hooray; mini superheroes helping adults to become superheroes too!

Halfway up a very large, steep hill near Kerikeri, I heard my name being yelled.  I turned to see a small, excited child leaning out of a car window.  He was one of the pupils I’d spoken to at Bay of Islands International Academy. The car pulled over and Reef (what a perfect name for an ocean guardian!) and his granny started telling me about his idea to go and do a beach clean at his local beach dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  I gave them my contact details and begged them to send me a photo of Reef dressed as a turtle cleaning a beach.  I haven’t received any photos of Reef the turtle, but oh my goodness, it was just phenomenal even just to hear his plans.

For any of you out there having brilliant ideas, please do get out there and do it and please, pretty please with a cherry on top, please send me photos, I would just love to see and celebrate your real life mini superheroes.  Because they are where it’s at, they are the ones who influence others around them just by being awesome and they are the future we need!