Day 5: Inverloch to Melbourne
A sincere apology for the delay in the distribution of the blogs. A lot of the places we end up in at night just don’t have good wifi or phone connection to the Internet. That is no surprise as we try to get out to the more rural communities during the Tour. I’ve had to wait until getting home to finish off the daily instalments.
Big day today. 165km from Inverloch to Melbourne, and we had a boat to catch!
Start with Dazza’s Diary update and then digest the rest.
Dazza’s Diary – Day 5
It was a long day on the road but we did have great weather so one cannot complain. We even had some favourable winds as we turned and headed towards Port Melbourne along the bay. Definitely one of the more enjoyable sections of the tour where we had a fast pace line going, nice scenery and sunshine.
Eric Bana (aka The Incredible Hulk, Poida, and other famous characters) was a surprise guest for this leg. He is a big supporter of the Tour de Cure and took a day out of his schedule to join us. He had a good opportunity to sit up near the front of the peleton chatting to Berett’s and Jens during the day.
It was one of those days where I just didn’t feel like chatting to the rider next to me for a while. After spending such a long time with like minded people talking and sharing stories sometimes it’s necessary to have some quiet time to reflect and process a few things. And this can occur on the bike. I thought a lot about the following during my time of contemplation:
- my best mate’s sister, Terri-Anne, who passed away just before Tour from cancer. I was riding for Terri this Tour; and
- my kids, Callum and Mikaela, and how their views and awareness about cancer have changed over the past few years.
We arrived at the Port of Melbourne in perfect weather conditions and to a large crowd. We had a formal function to attend as well as get everyone sorted in preparation to board the Spirit of Tasmania.
Our function at the Port of Melbourne had a special guest speaker – Lisa Carnell. Lisa is the widow of Nathan Jones who I’ve talked about in a previous blog. Nathan passed away 6 months ago from metastatic melanoma. Lisa no longer has her husband and her three young girls no longer have a dad. The four of them followed and supported the Tour for the 2 days leading into Melbourne. Nathan’s father rode those 2 difficult legs in memory of his son, and made it all the way. Please take the time to listen to her account…
Once we finally got onto the boat it was time to relax and make our way to Devonport. After many days of hard riding I was able to justify one of these as we sailed away from Melbourne, knowing the hardest was yet to come.
Then the fun began. We set up a bike challenge for all passengers and Tour de Cure folks to have a go at. Bikes were set up in the main public area of the boat to see how much power each rider could generate. It was always going to be a show down between Jens Voigt and everyone else. He had a huge target on his back but it was all in good fun and helped raise more funds and awareness.
And some live results footage for you. First up Jensie…Tour de France hard man and legend of the breakaway.
And a passenger. A big unit. Prepared to give it all he had.
And the stats…
Donation tally update as at 28th March:
Up $2,120 in 1 day!!! That’s now $32,735 and 90 cents.
Stats update:
Distance ridden: 165km (total = 722km)
Elevation climbed: 950m (total = 4,650m)
Time ridden: 6 hrs 1 min (total = 25 hrs 42 min)
Top speed today: 61 km/hr
Calories burned: 3,010 (total = 12,805 = 50 Big Macs)
Punctures: 0
DONATION LINK: https://bit.ly/2mm8WyQ
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