heading south but its not all downhill ha ha!

Day 18 started under a blue sky and a banner at Bondi Beach ... Lycra alongside the wetsuits of the early morning surfers! It was a great start with two of the Learning for Life kids making a speech. I also talked to a number of mothers who wanted to express their appreciation for the Learning for Life program. The kids had also made good luck posters - you can see in the pix.
So three of us set off from Bondi, thankfully one of us (maryanne not me) knew the way. Cathrine rode with me today, having spent the last two weeks following me around as a core part of our support crew! So we say farewell to her today, although she may make a brief cameo appearance in Melbourne!

We headed South in nice conditions, ending up on route1 going over rolling hills, although some were pretty steep - hardest gradient was around 9% - and I clocked up 2600m of climbing over the 231km to Ulladulla.
I am now less than 900 km from Melbourne and about 750 from seeing my princess, who I miss sooo much!
The day including the dusk antics of the support crew who other than looking after me all day take photos! For Minas (Who is a brilliant photographer) this involves looking for great spots to get just the right shot. For Waqas this means driving to and fro and in some cases acting as the model until the bike arrives! This is quite hilarious, as I will see them setting up from the distance and I often play "where's minas" coz the photographer is not always in an obvious place - funniest place so far was standing in a field next to a llama! Seriously though the support crew are great and I know it must be tiring for them. But it is really great that everytime I see them they have a big smile!
Had to change bikes for tmr as the rear tyre on the 303s has worn through to the tape!! Something I discovered late in the day! Good job I didn't see it earlier as I would have been very nervous on the wet steep descents.

I have had questions about nutrition weight etc. So here goes!
I weigh morning and night on the same scales to monitor weight - it has remained quite stable, in fact with less range than Singapore coz I sweat less here and don't get fluid weight loss as badly. Sitting at 70kg +/- 2kg
I use Perpetuum as my core food and then add carbs around it. This is mostly muffins, scones, bread etc. I stop every 75km for a coke and food. These stops are quite short and anti-social(aka I am stuffing my face ha ha!). At the end of the ride I use recoverite and then have my first "dinner" such as rice pudding, soup ... Then I have a proper dinner ... Pasta plus meat/fish dish!
Its a lot of eating, but I think keeping myself fuelled has maintained my mental well being not just my stamina. Oh yes and I use enduralytes every hour.

At the other end of things ha ha. Brave soldier during the day and Triderm (or equiv) at night has kept me OK in the region under the most pressure. I also make sure I do a fair bit out of the saddle riding to reduce contact time - even so I am sure I will have a permanent saddle tattoo after this ha ha! Not sure what colour though!

High - talking to the kids at the start

Low - realising that the most dangerous vehicle on the road is a car pulling a boat on a trailer! Why? Coz the boat gets wider as it goes up until the height of ur head and so ... When the car passes and u think "wow that was close" you then see out the corner of your eye the hull getting closer and closer, hoping that the widest part of the boat misses ur head! It did (miss I mean)!!

Magpies - rain kept them away - great!

Music - same same!

Stats
231km (total 4232km, 154hours)
S 35' 21.103
E 150' 28.558