Bay in a day, and maybe some of the evening!

So the official "Bay in a Day" with well defined courses, road blocks and provided lunch was Sunday.  We did not take that option, we ventured out on our own route, mixed it up with traffic and bought our own lunch! Approximately 230km of energy bars, spandex and good times.

We left Southern Cross station a little late due to some late arrivals but were soon into the rhythm that would be our destiny for 9.5 hrs of leg burning madness.  Excluded from the below photo is Sam Fulmizi....someone had to hold the iphone.

 As you can tell by the sleek athletic figures of my counterparts, I was going to be the riding at the back of this group hoping a tail wind would push me along whilst completely skip the others!  Hats off to you boys, you can all ride.

As strong head wind kept us on the leash for the first 95km to Geelong but as soon as we turned onto Bellarine Highway the tail wind definitely added another 10-13km per hour onto our pace.  Past rides to this point had proven to be filled with tire changes but thankfully at we were yet to experience any mechanical issues.

On arrival in Queenscliff at around 12:15pm, fish & chips, Souvlaki & Powerade's were the days main selections for lunch.  Great spot Queenscliff, a must for any visitor to the Melbourne area and for locals Victorians a real peaceful place for a weekend away. Time for the ferry. A pleasant 45 minute crossing found us docking at Sorrento after recharging the batteries.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

After the nap we started back towards Melbourne refreshed and adrenalised by the idea that we were on the home stretch and that the wind had turn slightly to continue to provide a strong tailwind.  Winding through the costal roads of numerous towns, Rye, Dromana, Mt Martha etc it soon because to tempting for the real talent of this voyage to stretch their legs.  We won't name names but I was not one of them.  Perfectly acceptable behaviour - everyone is there to have fun & I sure don't want to be the party pooper and asks everyone to hang back.

Unfortunately this was also around the time that everyone who was tracking our course with their phones realised that their phones had gone dead so we in fact have no recorded times and distances for the day.  On that basis - I arrived first in record time.... I swear!

With a couple extra stop overs I made it back to Southern cross with my riding partner.  Let me tell everyone he helped get me home as I had hit the wall .... a couple times.  I'm not sure if he wants to be know as one of the back riders so I will leave him anonymous.  But thanks mate.

3 days on and what lessons were learnt which can apply to my AAWT adventure?  Hiking will not require the inner crevasse of my buttocks to be bruised.  Food and hydration is so important to energy levels when you are exercising all day.  Within 20 minutes of food intake I could feel my mood improve, my energy increase and digestive system kicking in!  The first too points being critical to a sustained walk through the high country, actually the 3rd point is probably fairly useful as well.  Carrying less across the mountains has to be a reasonable idea.

Sorry we were short on photos but as mentioned the camera phones all ran flat before we did.