December 22nd

Hi Cass

Hope this message finds you in good spirits now that you've got the first thousand miles behind you. Apologies for taking so long to get in touch but as you can imagine after seeing our offices it has been very busy here and apart from wanting to wish you all the best at the start of your journey there hasn't been much to say regards joint publicity for your trip and the charity... until now.

Congratulations to yourself and others involved in your website, it looks very good and more importantly has some good content. Our UK site will be relaunching in Jan 99, which we'll be publicisng so we'd expect an increase in traffic. Whatever the stats we'd hope to be able to increase both awareness of your fundraising efforts and the funds themselves. We have a proposal for our newsletter RoughNEWS. We would like to offer you a page (around 800 words) to recount your previous three month experiences/observations etc. A Cass Gilbert On-the-Road travelog article.

Could you please let us know if this is of interest and send us your article no later than 20 Jan 99. If everything works out OK we'd like to run it as a regular article until the trip ends. We could illustrate the piece with a photograph of you and Possum in situ and a map showing your route and how far you've travelled and a box giving info on CWAC. We're currently printing 60,000 a qtr, 20,000 go to our subscriber list the rest distributed free at travel shows and bookshops.

In the meantime best wishes for your trip, Happy Christmas and New Year Down Under and a travel quote (I noticed you liked them from your Cycling Plus article) for your collection; "There is rarely anything as good at the end of the road as what you can find alongside it" George Borrow

Cheerio

Simon Carloss