Day 3: Canberra to Adaminaby
Good evening everyone. Day 3 done! Been a tough day. Not only the longest day and most hills so far but we had fog and mist out of Canberra, then sunshine, then cold wind, then cold wind and rain, then back to just being cold. For me today was pretty tough. Quite fatigued for the last 50km and the cold started to get the better of me. Also started to get some knee pain so had it strapped tonight as a precaution.
Anyway, here’s Willie again for some perspectives…
“Hello again everybody, it’s a now somewhat weary Willie Maykit here, reporting on day 3. But before I get there, let’s cover last nights community dinner in Canberra….
It was a slightly more formal environment last night as we had returned to the city environment. Better tables, better chairs, better facilities, far less food! As with every night, we presented our daily jerseys and they went as follows:
- Doer: Zac Morris
- Awareness: Fiona McWhinnie
- Attitude: Peter Hing
- Focus: Simon McMenamie
- Guts: Luke Baker
- Inspiration: …..just read on a bit….
The guest this evening was Dr Alex Dobrovic of the Ludwig Institute. Again it was amazing to here from the ‘brains’ that are at the forefront of cancer research. Like yesterday evening, we surprise him with an Ion Torrent machine from LifeTechnologies and he was blown away. But wait, it gets better. Owen Wright, the CEO of Life Technologies (pictured below), and his team made a surprise donation to TdC of a cheque for $530,000!!!! He was a clear deserving winner for the inspiration award
The riding this morning was tough. Cold foggy departure out of Canberra, busy road, gradual but continual incline and a rough hard shoulder. We spent most of the morning in the shoulder and this meant numerous punctures. This slowed our progress and seriously fatigued our mechanics (again).
The rain came back before we reached Cooma and with it the temperature dropped. We reached Cooma after 120kms, wet, cold and knowing Tour was getting serious. Food at Cooma was brilliant. Hot, wholesome and plentiful – just what I needed and the others who were also finding it tough going.
After Cooma we had a couple of solid climbs and this started to show up those who had trained sufficiently pre tour and those who hadn’t. Personally, I wish I had done more and I know I am not Robinson Crusoe.
Happily, the last 15km into Adaminaby was mostly a beautiful descent. This was a great way to finish day 3 and great day to have banked. This town is a small, beautiful, high country gem. Population of 234 and home to the Big Trout. We’re back in ‘Man From Snowy River’ country and the riding is amazing.
‘Til tomorrow
Willie Maykit”
There is one extra picture I wanted to add into the blog today…see if you can spot something above the riders in between the cows…yep, a quadcopter doing some aerials for us. Someone likes their technogadgets!
And the final few items…
1. The daily stats
175km (running total = 511km),
2050m of elevation climbed (running total = 5375m) ,
6hrs 41mins of riding (running total 19 hrs 08mins),
and I had 1 puncture today.
2. Photo gallery
The photo gallery grows with more great action snaps…Day 3 added
Day 1: https://www.tourdecure.com.au/pages/news/gallery/index/248
Day 2: https://www.tourdecure.com.au/pages/news/gallery/index/249
Day 3: https://www.tourdecure.com.au/pages/news/gallery/index/251
3. Fundraising progress
An incredible $1.34m has been raised by our tour team so far. My personal tally is a whopping $26,300 and I’ve reset my target to $30,000 so if you think you know of someone who may be interested in helping please feel free to forward the blog link to them – it has the donate link included.
Bye for now.
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