DAY 1 AND 2 - ROLLED INTO ONE

Well, g'day from Cessnock. We've completed our second day's ride in this year's Men on a Mission sojourn to Coffs Harbour. We had very limited phone coverage out in the sticks at Putty last night so this arvo I'm sitting down to write the equivalent of two day's blog rolled into one. Even if I did have coverage last night I doubt very much that I'd have been in much of a condition to write a blog anyway. Myself and three other slow gentlemen who I wont mention lest I embarras them rolled into the Grey Gum Cafe just a few kms short of the township of Putty at 8pm! That's right you heard it 8pm!

Hey thanks to everyone who's been following along back home. We've been so encouraged by the number of people posting to us on Facebook and Twitter. They tell me that the 10km automatic Twitter updates are working pretty well. For the uninitiated every 10km the App on my iPhone that is tracking our progress posts an automatic update to Twitter and Facebook that includes a link to the map of our progress. You may want to check it out so you can follow our progress in real time. Technically you're tracking my progress. If you want to get a true record of where most of the boys are you probably need to assume they're about 10km further down the road! Matty Lees was one of the many following the map of our journey and he sent me a text upon arrival at Putty with the words "It must be a day one thing!" Last year we rolled into Goulburn at 8pm as well due the late start at church at the 40km of dirt road we were forced to endure.

I've noticed a big spike in my blog numbers over the last 24 hours. I promise you I wont let it go to my head but in the last day I've had over 100 people view my blog! I'm famous, I've made the big time. Yeah baby! I can now roughly estimate that in 24 hours I've had as many viewers and Pastor Phil Pringle gets in about 15 minutes.

Anyway back to the story...

Firstly let me thank the people at C3 Church Mount Annan for yet another superb send off yesterday morning. All the boys were truly stoked with the support and encouragement that you showed us all as we departed.  The three guys from Oxford Falls were really impressed too. Mind you they were pretty easy to please. They were amazed by the fact that we actually have electricity and running water out our way. ;)

After the great send off we headed down Narellan Road and up the Northern Road en route to our scheduled lunch stop at Windsor. Special thanks to Richard McDonald who followed us to Penrith despite his wife Tonia just having had a whopping 9 pound somthing baby less than 72 hours before. Richard would have been with us but I think we'll give him a legitimate excuse this year. Besides he's heading to Canberra next weekend to compete in the Fitz's Challenge, a 200+ km one day ride through the Stromlo Mountains. He's also raising funds for OCF. Rich we'll be thinking of you as we travel back to Sydney in airconditioned vehicle at 100km/hr.

The road to Windsor was relatively flat and we made good time averaging around 26 km/hr and arriving at Subway Windsor just after 1pm.  I must say they definitely take life a little slower in the country because the few staff that were on were averaging about five minutes per sub.  It took nearly three quarters of an hour for everyone to get a feed.  Just before we left at 2.30 we were joined by Andrew Flaxman (hereafter referred to as Flax) from C3 Tuggerah who drove down to meet us following his morning service at church. He's named the ride Tour de Flax for his friends back home.

From then on the day got a little tougher. OK, a lot tougher. I'd say it was my most challenging day on a bike ever - period. (And Wednesday is likely to be considerably worse, Arghh!). After the flat terrain of the Northern Road the country side just started to go up and up and up and up. For the better part of 40km (with the exception of one 3km down hill where I managed to get my bike up to 81.3km/hr - man that's such a rush!) the road ascended from pretty much sea level up to about 500m.  Some of you will recall me telling a story in a sermon last year sometime how I've managed to keep myself from swearing pretty much all my Christian life. As I said at the time I still maintain that I've only slipped once and that was attempting to assemble the Expedit Bookcase from Ikea. Now I think that anyone who has put together the famous flat packs from Ikea will forgive me for that one. Well you'll be pleased to know that I didn't swear yesterday. Ok, for the more sanctified and holy among you who consider CRAP a swear word I pretty much used up my annual quota in about three hours between 3pm and 6pm. Matter of fact if it were possible to sanctify human excrement then the number of 'holy craps' that were heard to come out of my mouth would definitely have sanctified it!

At one point we saw a sign saying Colo Heights and I thought I'd made it to the top. It would appear  that Colo Heights is a region and not a town because I saw several signs as I'd crawled my way up the mountain. By the fourth sign it was beyond a joke and I said to the boys in the support car, "I don't need another sign to tell me I'm in the %^&$ Colo Heights. (Ok so maybe some of you still think bloody is a swear word too).

As I said above, myself and four other intrepid explorers arrived at 8pm, a little over one hour behind the front pack which I believe included Kenn Hedges, Craig Trautch and the cycling machine Antoni Mikac who I'm told was seen ascending one of the steepest sections of the day with his hands on his hips! Jerk! ;) We arrived well after dark accompanied by the extremely patient support crew of James and Sam who's head lights served us well in the forest so we could actually see where we were going.

Here's a video I posted when we were about a quarter of the way up the mountains. Believe me I was not in as good a mood by the time I reached the top.

Hey I must give a huge shout out to the staff at Grey Gum. Upon arrival they fed us well with a plethora of cold meat and fresh salads. I was amazed that they boys before us actually left us any I by the time we arrived. Then we washed it down with the biggest bowl of Pavlova and ice cream you've ever seen. Oh how that pav soothed my soul. These guys asked for some OCF merchandise and have agreed to promote OCF and our ride for one day per month from here on in. Apparently they had 600 people through their cafe on Sunday. That's sure to raise some dollars for our cause throughout the year. Incidentally it's worth a day trip with kids up that way some time over the summer. There's great family swimming in the Colo River and then I'm sure they'll treat you well at the Grey Gum if you tell them the boys from the OCF Sydney to Coffs ride sent you.

We spent the night in one million star accommodation under a big top that they guys at Grey Gum had organised for us. I say spent the night because I don't know that there was a lot of sleep going on, except for Scotty Cracknell who was out like a light (and sounded like a steam train) from the moment his head hit the pillow until about 6am this morning. Apparently Sam snored too, although I can't say I heard it. I'm certain he was awake for the same two hours that I was between 1.30am and 3.30am because I didn't hear him but did see him on his phone once or twice. Probably suffering Facebook withdrawals... ;) The other reason he probably didnt sleep was because apparently Rob Grae kept kicking him in the head every time he snored. During those two hours while I tossed and turned with sore muscles I did experiment with taking a photo of the boys in bed.  Come to think of it, they must have all been sleeping pretty well coz none of them complained about the flash going off seven times. Here's the best photo I could come up with. Doesn't show too much, just the typical mess that a bunch of men create within a couple of hours. Mark Cramer apparently couldn't tolerate the snoring so he spent the night on the concrete out under the stars. I think he would have got a little damp from the dew. And then there's the story of Tezza D who completely forgot to bring a sleeping bag or a jumper. That attractive green rug you can see in the front left corner is mine. I lent it too him but need I say it didn't do too much to warm him up I dont' think.

The Day 1 elevation chart.

I don't have much to report for Sunday's Road Kill report I'm afraid. I saw a couple of dead lizards and and a very smelly dead snake that Kenn reckons must have had something half digested rotting inside it to make it smell that bad. It's possible that there was quite a deal more than that on the road but for much of the afternoon I was so oxygen deprived I wouldn't have noticed any dead animals, and even if I had I doubt that I'd have been able to tell the difference between them and a rock or a tree, or another cyclist. Not that I saw any other cyclists as they were so far ahead of me!

And onto Day 2 - Monday.

After a fantastic cooked breakfast at Grey Gum we packed up and were on the road by 7.35am, keen to get as much of the trip done before the heat set it. Sam and Colin headed off about half an hour before us in to give us something to chase. We endured another 40km of mountainous terrain but at least this time it was at the start of the day and there were considerably less expletives coming from my mouth, despite some cracking hills in there. The best part of the day was 18km straight down hill - man that was fun. I was sooooo glad I didn't have to ride up back up there in the opposite direction I can tell you. At the bottom of our descent we regrouped at Milbrodale Public School to talk to the students about our ride and OCF.  Some of the other boys tried to console me by telling me that they'd only arrived minutes before me and Flax but I think they were just being nice.  Here's a brief video I recorded at the school as we ate lunch.

After lunch at Milbrodale we troddled on down the road for 15km to Broke Public School.  This school is about 130 years old.The Principal at Milbrodale had phoned ahead and they were expecting us. Tezza was in his element with the 56 kids that waited on every word he said in the COLA - That's Covered Outdoor Learning Area for those boys that asked ;)  Antoni remarked that Tezz would make a great kid's pastor, partly because he's got so much energy to burn and the kids love that. Well we could barely get away from the children - we were treated like heroes and there were high fives all round as we tried to ride off. One boy was determined to ride his BMX with us and wouldn't take no for an answer, until the principal told him it was out of the question. Would have loved to show you some pics of the delight on the kids faces but obviously for security purposes we can't take photos of the kids. Apparently we've got several more schools to visit before we arrive at Coffs. A great and rewarding way to share the purpose of our journey.

From there on we hit the flats and false flats. For the rest of the arvo my torture in the hills was over. It's in this terrain that I come into my own and happily led the boys for 15km or so at an average speed of 35kph. I put this down to my rather large calves which I inherited from my dad.  Rob Grae tells me I actually don't have calves, I have cows...  Well after leading the pack for a while I realised that I'd forgotten to eat anything at all since lunch and promptly faded of the to the back of the pack and let some of the other boys lead us into town.

This is us stopped in the shade for a breather about 10 km from our destination. Antoni informed us that his fancy computer on his bike was telling him that the temperature coming off the road was 41 degrees and it certainly felt like it.

We arrived at 2pm a full six hours earlier than yesterday which gave me plenty of time to have a hot shower, respond to some emails and get some blogging done. Unfortunately I've spent a couple of hours trying to get the computer to work hence the lateness of this post tonight.

This was Day 2's Elevation Chart...

We're staying at the Potters Resort and I must say it's pretty impressive. The boys enjoyed a swim while I slaved away bringing you the news and we convened at 6pm for dinner in the bistro. I've just enjoyed a fine feed of Chicken Supreme which was about half a chook, a full bok choi and about 6 cups of rice. Should be sufficienty carbo loaded for tomorrow now. At dinner in one of his shortest and less glorious speeches Tezz awared Peter Grae with the yellow jersey for being first across the line today. By awarded I mean he essentially chucked the shirt in his general direction.

Speaking of tomorrow. Not having looked at the map I'd been consoling myself with the fact that we had a relatively flat and easy day of about 120km only to find that it's actually about 160 with a killer hill right in the middle. Joy, oh glorious joy! I'll be having a quick breaky at 6.30am and will aim to get on the bike by 7am and give the boys something to chase.

Day 3's ride looks like this...

Monday's road kill report is much more interesting then yesterday.

• We saw several roos, probably about half a dozen including three in quick succession that went in order from 'fresh roadkill' to 'starting to ro't to 'not much more than a skeleton'.
• A ripper wombat complete with bumper bar. The boys tell me that there was also massive tyre marks on the other side of the road but I was too busy admiring this guy and his accompanying car parts to notice. (See picture below - and check out our friend's two front teeth)
• Two flies which I had the pleasure of swallowing... Disgusting!
• And the great escape of the day - One bearded dragon that somehow managed to walk right through the middle of about 10 of us riding at 30kph and survive being hit by a rotating bike tyre.

Well thanks for reading my blog - the support that we're receiving from back home means so much to us out here on the long and bumpy road. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. Never ride a bike on the Broke Road -  it's a killer. I thought I was gonna shudder the bike to pieces on that stretch today. Unbelievable - 20km of bumps and potholes - scary stuff when at times you're cruising along at 35+kph. If any of us had hit a pot hole that would be the end of it for the trip I reckon.

Hey thanks also to all those that have sponsored us so far. It's not too late to do so if you've not got around to it yet.  Simply click HERE and it's as easy as that.

For more info on the Oncology Children's Foundation (OCF) click HERE

Enjoy your Tuesday and I'll speak to you from Gloucester tomorrow night where I'm certain to have a very sore bum - and if you think that's still a swear word then you really are too holy for the rest of us and should go to heaven right now ;)

PS. A special shout out to my boy Jeremiah who turns 9 tomorrow. Enjoy your day mate.  Missing you and mum and all the other kids and can't wait to see you on Sunday night. xx