Day 10 Jindabyne to Canberra 190km
Day 10 – Jindabyne to Canberra 180km (190km on the Garmin) with 1600m of climbing
Who would have thought you could do an easy 190km.
All a bit surreal!!! That’s the best description for the final day of the 2013 Tour de Cure Signature Tour.
Today was cold, as in really cold. As in minus 6 degrees cold. Add in a bit of wind chill, it was probably more like minus 8. Four layers and a thick jacket did little to lift the body temperature. With one rider down with hypothermia from yesterday it was worrying, and we had 2 riders drop off to try to warm up. It took 90 minutes and 40kms before the temperature moved past zero and another 45 minutes to get to morning tea and a badly needed hot drink, 3 muffins & a muesli bar, cold makes you hungry. The 60kms after coffee proved dramatically less stressful and by the time we reached lunch the sun was out, jackets had been removed and the mood had lifted.
Lunch was in a farmer’s field which had been taken over for a village fair. We were rung in by the local town crier and then greeted by bagpipes and kilts with Amazing Grace, morphing in to Scotland the Brave morphing in to Yankee Doodle Dandy. Another magical regional Australia moment. It was a quiet and reflective final lunch. The tour was rapidly coming to an end and whilst everyone was excited about seeing family and friends again, the main topic of conversation was going over the tour highlights
The remaining 60kms through to Canberra proved smooth and by 2:30pm on May 5th, 10 days after we had left Adelaide, our peloton of 60 pink shirted riders was happily sharing hugs outside Parliament House in Canberra before pedalling on for 10 minutes to be reunited with loved ones. One minute you’re riding your bike, the next minute the tour is finished and normal life resumes (well, almost). We still had the celebration dinner at the National Press Club. It was a good night, but different. As a cosy group of riders and support crew we had done our celebrating the night before after we had all somehow survived our ride up and over Dead Horse Gap in the Snowies, and this night was more about being reunited with our families. A highlight of the night was the short video which Channel 7 produced as a brief recap of the 10 days https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vGqAXmWU4
The sense of positivity, support and “can do” attitude from morning breakfast to lights out, often in the face of adversity and against the backdrop of personal tragedy, has been humbling and it has been inspirational.
(PS some final numbers)
Kms ridden: 1643
Mtrs climbed: 10,123
Road kill: 29 kangaroos, 4 foxes, 2 wombats
Voltaren tablets: 6
Food consumed by self: enough to feed a family for a month
FUNDS RAISED: Personal A$22,572.94, Total Optus Contribution A$326,000, Total 2013 Tour de Cure A$2,392,847 (and still growing…………………..)
Frozen & in need of a hot drink, queueing behind the coffee van at morning tea.
The end.
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