3 Weeks to go!

The last 6 weeks since Garry and I finished our pre-tour ride from Adelaide seem to have flown by and now we are finally counting down till the first day of the main tour.

It's been a busy time trying to get everything organised from working out what additional gear was required, getting our new riding kit made, to sorting out all the flights, finalising route details, travel insurance, and the list goes on and on.

Behind the scenes we have also been working on our new website thanks to NewBiz Solutions in Ballarat who have very generously given allot of their time to help develop our ideas and host the new site. we have mentioned our new site a few times now, and are very close to officially launching it, it's been a long time coming but we wanted it to be right and believe the final outcome has been worth the wait.

As with much of the image and graphics I have been working on an official riding kit for the tour, the aim was to create something that would look fantastic while helping us stand out on the road as well as promote our tour, charities and sponsors at the same time, after a range of incarnations the final design was chosen and we have now received the finished product thanks to Champion System Custom Apparel and couldn't be happier with the outcome.

Day 1 of our tour will have us set off from Ballarat Cycle City in the Ballarat CBD on Saturday 21st of April and make our way to Geelong for the night, we have planned for the first day to be a ride day and welcome anyone who would like to join us on the road to come along.

If anyone is interested in coming along we plan to leave at 10am.

Following day 1 we will then spend the next four and a half weeks making our way around the east coast of Australia toward Brisbane promoting our causes along the way before heading of to the USA for leg two at the end of May.

Day 6 - Ararat to Ballarat

We woke to what felt like quite a mild morning, donned the wind vest and The Long Road polo tops and headed off to the Ararat Advertiser to meet one of their reporters and photographers for another interview about the ride, then off to one of the town cafes for breakfast before hitting the highway.

Chinese Heritage Centre in Ararat, not totally sure of the connection with Ararat but an interesting building none the less.

We headed out of Ararat full of excitement knowing that we were heading for home, (We had decide to finish the pre-tour in Ballarat rather than Melbourne as that is the start point for our main tour, so we can carry on from where we left off.) We followed a little bike track we found that followed the side of the highway (A nice change from the road shoulder for a while.) and stumbled across a local lake with a nice view of the surrounding mountains.

Green Hill lake with Langi Ghiran State Park and Mt Buangor in the background.

It didn't take long for the heat to start taking hold as we made our way to our lunch stop, the temp just seemed to be getting hotter and hotter as the week went on, but at least the wind had died down.

Old Cob & Co changing station in Buangor that has since been converted with a more modern extension.

Much like the day before we were beginning to feel better on the bikes and were moving along at a much better pace, that was until we came to the climb just outside our lunch destination, Beaufort.


Well we thought Mt Lofty in Adelaide was a tough way to start the ride, but after a week of hills, headwinds and heat this short but steep climb nearly stopped us in our tracks and the complete lack of any road shoulder just made it worse, we were very glad to put it behind us and make it to Beaufort for plenty of cold drinks and two big bowls of pasta before tackling the final stretch of the day.

The view back down the hill, it may not look to long or steep but at the time boy did it hurt.

It had been hard after each stop getting back out into the blistering heat, but we knew we only had one more stint to go and we were all done, we past Lake Burrumbeet on the western outskirts of Ballarat, not so long ago this huge lake was bone dry due to drought, we stopped at the local pub for a couple of ice cold cokes and once again headed out into the sun.

Lake Burrumbeet.

We made it in to Ballarat at around 4:30pm, our fastest day for the trip, as we rolled into town, it was good to get a few calls by friends and see some friendly faces at our finish at Ballarat Cycle City.

Seeing the Ballarat sign at the edge of town was a welcome sight.

Jason and Garry at the finish outside Cycle City in Ballarat after 650km's in 6 days.

Day 5 - Horsham to Ararat

Early-ish start today after a late night of Chinese food and some beers, as we were off to see the local paper (The Wimmera Mail-Times) to get a photo and interview done. We will post the clipping once it gets sent to us.


Breakfast was at Jason's fav pie shop. Apparently they have the best pies in the world. Apparently but that isn't confirmed as yet.


Once we hit the road we expected it to be a typical day of riding although a shorter distance. It didn't take long for it to become interesting. Jason snagged what he thought was a cable laying on the road then realised it was a baby brown snake after it slithered away. That left both of us on edge thinking every piece of cable was a potential snake.

The Grampians National Park between Horsham and Stawell.

Our first stop for the day was at The Giant Koala at Dadswells Bridge. Basically its a massive cement Koala as you can see below. That said lunch wasn't bad. As usual Jason's eyes were to big for his stomach after he ordered what looked to be a 2 foot tall sandwich and a bowl of chips. 

The next leg to Stawell was a challenge. Once back on the road we were out of the shade of the trees and into a very hot sun. At one point Jason's trip computer recorded the temp to be 42 degrees, I could have said it felt like 50. The heat just drained the energy out of you. Once we stopped at Stawell the only thing we could think of was water and something cool, so we headed to the service station then onto McDonalds for a frozen coke. A little rant here..... Personally I wish service station attendants would pay more attention. If I'm dressed in cycling gear, looking like I've just ridden a fair few km's, then the likely hood of me having filled up a car as well as buying a Poweraid, water and Redbull is fairly slim. Funny thing is Jason got the same question in a servo outside Adelaide earlier in the week.

After cooling down and rehydrating it was off to Ararat, our final destination for the day. Unfortunately the heat hadn't died down which made the last 28km's difficult even with a stop at Great Western. We couldn't wait to get to the Acacia Caravan Park in Ararat and their pool. 

In the end we covered 96km's in about 5hr's which was our quickest so far. Not bad even in 40+ degree heat.

Day 4 - Kaniva to Horsham

Today started pretty much like the last three but ended up a little more interesting as the day progressed.


Before we left the motel we were told that there was a steep hill about 20 km's outside Kaniva which made Garry really happy, due to the fact he loves hills so much, so of we headed down the road towards our lunch stop Nhill looking out for this hill, like many of the hills we have gone over, this one looked rather menacing from a distance as we approached, but turned out to not be as bad as first thought although Garry decided it should be renamed Little Mt Lofty.

Garry climbing what he named Little Mount Lofty.

Unlike the last few days the wind had died down quite considerably and we were moving along at a good pace, we made it to Nhill nice and early for lunch where we met a nice elderly gentleman named Frank who sat down with us on a park bench (the Nhill seat of Knowledge the attached plaque said) while we ate our lunch, Frank told us that if there was anything we wanted to know about the town he was the man to ask and informed us he used to run a local bike shop many years ago. Like many of the people we have talked to after arriving back in Victoria Frank was quite interested in what we were doing and very kindly donated $20 dollars to our charities.

Jason and Frank on the seat of Knowledge in Nhill.

 Before leaving Nhill Frank suggested we pay a visit to the Nhill Free Press (the local town paper). Little did we know Paula, out host from the night before in Kaniva had phoned ahead informing them that we were heading their way. We spent a few minutes talking to one of the local reporters and had a few pictures taken for the paper before heading of towards Dimboola,


It was during this section that Garry started complaining about the heat, now Jason had heard many many times from Garry (who lives in Sydney) that it is always cold in Victoria so found the complaining rather amusing.


After a short break in Dimboola, we were approached by a writer from the Dimboola Banner, their local paper, she had seen us in town and was wondering what we were doing so came over to find out more, another interview and photo session later and we were once again on our way to the end of day 4, Horsham

Tomorrow we will be making our way to Ararat but first have another press interview with the Wimmera Mail Times news paper in Horsham.