a big day out!

243km, 2,978m of vertical ascent,10 hours 19 mins and finished in clouds (and the dark) at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains about 120km from Bondi! A pretty special day!

The day started dry and cold with some wind! The ride to Cowra was nice, the scenery was beautiful Australian eucalyptus surrounded by lush agricultural land, watched guys on off road motor bikes herding cattle and horses playing in their paddock! As we headed towards Bathurst the weather became more variable and roads busier as the petrol head pilgrimage to Bathurst began - the big race is tmr!

The day was dominated by climbing - was very happy with the 303s they performed well on the climbs and were solid on the wet descents, which were bumpy and in places big cracks!! The tune by the guys at morgan street cycles in wagga was good as the Scott ran beautifully quiet!

After Bathurst the road to Lithgow was more of the same but became very busy with people leaving the racing for the day!

The weather gave a real range today - bright sun, heavy rain, rainbows ... Only thing missing was snow! It was like Sydney was throwing challenges at me to see if I was worthy of riding coast to coast across Australia! This feeling continued as the sun set and i started riding thru low cloud/fog!

By the end of the ride I am just over 110km from Bondi beach! So no need for an early start tmr. Will head off after Warwick arrives and I have had a large strong Latte!

High - riding the climb to Mount Victoria in the dark at the end of a long day but feeling good! And the well deserved beer at the finish!

Low - when I realised my fingers and toes were colder than when it rained on the Nullabor!

Magpies - 5 attacks by lunch but none in the afternoon! Thanks everyone for the tips on what to do - fave so far is barbed wire on helmet and for its simplicity ... A gun! Ha ha!

Pix - none today bcoz no internet access only thru h/p!

Music
Ok given the hills today here is my top 5 for getting a good rhythm for a long standing climb
1. I like the way u move
2. Castles in the Sky
3. Turn it up
4. Stand Alone
5. Welcome to Africa

Stats
243km (total 3880km, 141h 47min)
S 33' 38.066
E 150' 17.078

Tomorrow I ride to Sydney! :D

Motivation and messages from friends makes the difference!!

Well it is Day 15 and two weeks since i started my ride in Fremantle and i am still sane (my opinion) after 3,637km and 131 hours in the saddle! There have been some ups and downs but today was a challenge!

Sometimes it is not the long days that bring you down, but the unexpected! Today it was the unexpected climbing, combined with my nemesis, headwinds, that turned up the gradient on the hills! I expected the day to be short, as i had an event that night with the Junee Rotary (more on that later), our plans saw a day of relatively flat riding and the chance to put some kms infront by the end of the day thereby eating into the target for tomorrow. It did not turn out that way, with a 1,000m of climbing! And i was riding the Litespeed avec aerobars, 404s and a tight cluster, so not really suited!

After 6 hours plus i had only covered 145km and we had run out of time before i needed to drive to the Rotary function! Ironically my average speed in the last hour was significantly faster as the winds had dropped, just at the time we needed to turn around! This did not make me a happy bunny! Interestingly almost every day has seen the best riding conditions in the last 2 hours of daylight!

It was the early part of the day that was the toughest. The wind was getting me down big time and the unexpected hills just added to the frustration, so i am truly grateful to some people who called and smsd me during that time that kept my spirits up - thank you, u know who you are :) That got me through the day!

The Rotary function was great! A BBQ followed by yours truly and then a raffle - raised over $400 to add to our total. It was heart warming to hear the great stories about the difference the Learning for Life program is making with students in this part of the world. Thanks you Junee for your generous hospitality, particularly to Adrian Piccoli (NSW member of Parliament for Murrumbidgee) and the Rotary Club President (Roger Quines) for arranging the evening, and a special extra thanks to Roger, as he also let me shower at his house beforehand - something that benefited everyone i think ha ha! And actually got me warm for the first time in the day!

A bike tune was needed for the Scott, hence why i was riding the aero set up Litespeed, we found some really nice people at Morgan Street Cycles in Wagga Wagga - use them if you pass through they were great, especially when they knew what we were doing. Shame not everywhere is like that!

So today had a real sporting flavour to it: we are staying in Wagga Wagga, home of the (in)famous Wayne Carey a brilliant footy player (the real game AFL BTW) and i also rode through Cootamundra, birthplace of The Don! (Bradman for the non-cricket fans) They obviously breed great people here. The landscape is also stunning, lush green hills, some fields of lavender(? it looked like it but maybe not, as i didn't have time to go and sniff it, although i was probably going slow enough to reach out and test it!) horses in paddocks ... pix will come soon (i hope)

Photos - had to put up some old ones because it is difficult getting photos from the support crew at the moment (u know who u are!) - so we all need to give them a hard time to cough up some pix!!! Anyway the pix i have posted are catch ups - a lizard that i ran over! Look in the background and u can see the "smooth" tarmac i am riding on - ha ha! Skylab - from the Nullabor when it broke up over WA, imagine that falling in your back yard .... apparently the USA were fined $400 for littering ha ha! Blue top - riding down to Lake Cowan WA (think i talked about this in a earlier post), red top on the road to Balladonia on the Nullabor, gotta love the rolling road, like a roller coaster!

High - Seeing tears in the eyes of people when i talked about the difference the Learning for Life program makes to the lives of young people, during the Rotary function in Junee tonight - a lovely bunch of people .. Thank you!

Low - see above!

Magpies - 2 attacks no direct hits!

Stats

3,637km, 131 hours

S 34' 12.385

E 148' 26.365

groundhog day!

OK ... weather cold, flat plains, head winds, magpies ....yada yada yada!

High - the purple eastern sky at sunset and the sound of Kookaburras (the first in 3500km) sitting on the top of the Coolamon Hotel.

Low: Tortoise roadkill :(

Magpies : 4 attacks

Music: the flies like the choice today! (see pix)

Stats

250km (total 3,500km, 125 hours)

S 34' 30.500

E 144' 50.617

Hay! Hay! Its Wednesday!

My colleague Tim told me to expect it flat and windy.... well he didn't lie. But having been across the Nullabor already i knew what to expect. However i didn't expect the roads to be so bumpy .. just what do they put in the tarmac here? My bike was rattling like mad, the seat moved up and down and i expected the bottle cages to fall off!! And as for the body parts ..Man! Pleased i wore the heavy padding shorts today!

Started the day in Mildura, very civilised, leaving from the hotel and immediately crossing the border into New South Wales..... Sydney 1030km the sign said. However, it was freezing a fact that was not helped by the hotel room being cold! The early morning sun had little warmth in it and just to cap things off, the wind was strong and in my face ..... and that headwind stayed most of the day!

Today ended up as the longest distance and time in the saddle so far. Over 290km and 10h 45 mins of riding! Not the most enjoyable as i was working against the wind all day, but satisfying to get to the end and with 70km to go the wind direction was better.

High: Seeing the lights of Hay just as the last rays of sun disappeared!

Low: loosing the feeling in the ends of my fingers, despite wearing long fingered gloves

Magpies - OK i have to create a separate category i think, coz they are always the low point. Just three attacks today, the best/worst depending if you are man or magpie was 50km from Hay ..no trees so they must have been getting possessive about a bush ha ha! .. a pincer movement two magpies one left, one right! i remember spotting the one on the left heading for my head like a missile, head down, beak out, flapping like crazy - it only pulled away about half a meter from me! Have been thinking about how to deal with this .. i reckon a can of hairspray .. any other ideas??

Music - with the strong headwinds i went for music i knew would motivate me, so it was a lot of gym bunny stuff and the last slog into Hay was Paul VD again ... he is becoming a good friend for when i need to get my head down and focus.

Stats:

291km (Total 3240km, 115 riding hours)

S 34' 30.5

E 144' 50.617

What a slacker!

OK so today was a light day. Up early (see picture of dawn) and rode the 106km from where we stopped last night into Mildura. After working out the logistics for the next few days i realised i was far enough ahead to take a half day off! What a slacker! So had a nice lunch followed by a sleep and then dinner in Stefano's at the Mildura Grand Hotel - great food and atmosphere and a real change from our normal evening meals that have been rushed because of the late finish, normally we just make last orders or in truth phone ahead and have the support crew order before the kitchen closes.

Had an interview with a local journalist to talk about the Learning for Life program and my ride so far. Lets hope that gets more awareness for the cause and fund raising. We are almost at $90k, so please keep telling your friends ...would be great to hit $100k for my arrival in Sydney.

Yesterday we said farewell to Barry, one of our support crew, he drove us from Perth to his home state of South Australia (see picture of Barry) and welcomed Waqas and Minas. The photos from today are from Minas..he has some great shots that u will see more of over the next week.

Music - chill out music coz no riding from 11.00 - Hotel Costes

High - lunch, big strong coffee (first since Perth), chatting to friends/princess and afternoon sleep

Low - hearing the snap of a Magpies beak so close to my right ear i though they were gonna eat it! OK this might sound paranoid and Hitchcockian, but there was a piece on the radio today about Magpie attacks and the increasing problem!!!!! I just hope tomorrow morning there isn't a line of Magpies sitting on the telegraph wires outside the hotel waiting .... ha ha!

OK so big day tomorrow - into New South Wales within a km of the hotel and then on to Hay.

Stats

106km (total 2947km, 105 hours)

S 34' 11.129

E 142' 09.842

Man, velo and kangaroo! A surreal experience!

OK a short blog tonight. Crossed into Victoria tonight (yet another time change - sigh!!) after a 275km stage from Spalding in the Clare valley to 100km shy of Mildura in the Riverlands with views of the Murray River. I will ride the 100km to Midura in the morning that will put us well ahead of plan and only 1,000km from Sydney.

Today i think i had the most memorable experience of the ride so far! i was 130km from Mildura on the Sturt Hwy, the sun was setting and the orange Australian dusk glow had started! Out the corner of my eye i sensed movement and looked to see a Red Kangaroo (i think) bounding through the bush, he continued on to the road alongside me and then to the middle of the road. For about a km he bounced and i rode side by side glancing at each other. I was listening to "I like the way you move" and i swear the kangaroo was bouncing and i was turning to the cranks, to the same rhythm. It was a surreal experience! Reckon he was thinking "imagine what that guy could do on his bike if he had legs like mine!"

For the next two nights we stay in Mildura where internet access should be a bit easier - the road sign in pix shows the importance of the web these days and i couldn't resist the other road sign - a good example of multi tasking ha ha! Added some other pix .. hope you like them!

Stats

275km (Total 2,843km)

S 34' 16.462

E 141' 03.727

Slip, Slap, Slop! At last the sun is out!

Another time change (sigh) - daylight saving - made an excuse for a later start and the opportunity to catch some more sleep. But has left me totally confused about what time it is!
Day 10 had an amazing scenery change starting from Iron Knob, almost desert like, and finishing at Spalding, in the green luscious rolling hills of the Clare valley. All completed in beautiful sunny blue skies and topped off with the moon rising over the Clare's green hills (spectacular!). I had to stop at a traffic light in Port Augusta - I think the last one was on day 1! Man! That is different to Singapore!

Used the Scott Addict and 303s today - was nice to have a lighter bike as I started to face a series of risers in the Clare valley - was interesting to see the 303s in the hills - they performed well, from small hills to longer shallow climbs - and they feel very solid especially on the rough tarmac here! Today I realised that the 404s had done the entire Nullabor - reckon that's a good test for them!

Today I saw the longest train ever - no kidding it must have been kilometres long! When we were in WA I saw a sign saying the longest train was 8.5km long!! Oh yes and the blue skies meant the flies are back - luckily I only had one fly into my mouth today!! But I would rather be warm with flies than cold and without! I need the extra protein anyway! Ha ha!

Music - ok I have a number of favourites today "Children" by Robert Miles because of the Smith Family Kids and it reminded me of meeting a friend who was running when I went to pick up my bikes just before I came to Perth (it seems so long ago now!) Must be getting homesick for Singapore! Talk Talk "Life's what you make it" great words - and very true! And Jamiroquai "Emergency on planet earth" which was great for a tapping a rhythm up a long gentle climb!
Great purchases/gifts - the factor 70 sun block I was given by my work colleagues is great and has held up to today's blue skies very well. Maybe if it gets hotter I will finally use the Skins Ice tops!

Things I am missing from Singapore - yes a beautiful baguette!, my princess, rice (Thunder Tea and frog porridge), smooth tarmac, cycling/gym friends, feeling warm.

Stats
221km (total 2566km)
S 33' 29.883
E 138' 36.398

PS no pix today coz no internet - will upload tmr!