Today I had our good friend Cliff Brown ride with me out of town, this was exciting, having someone to ride with as well as talk with along the way. The big thing that I did notice with riding with Cliff is that I did have to watch where I was spitting and making sure that I took the wind into consideration as I didn't think Cliff would have really appreciated green sticky mucas heading his way. My chest was also more productive today with the cooler weather when we first started.

My cheer team was smaller this morning but Aunty Barb (Meg's Aunty) came to see us off too so that was great.

The morning started off windy and fresh so we knew it was going to be a long ride with the head wind. With the winds came the smell of the sugar cane cutting it is a sweet smell but it is also dusty, when riding I could see the dust coming towards us.

Cliff Brown is a very fit and strong rider, every time I tried to catch up with him he pulled away and didn't even look like he was working hard to do it. The Brown family used to live in Ipswich and we have known them now for about 10 plus years. Cliff  used to do triathalons and is a very accomplished rider.

The winds got up about 930a, with these winds it is adding about another 30k's or so to the ride legs wise so I found it tough today, Cliff did try to break the wind as much as he could and he said that he was even feeling the winds today. I did try a couple of time to get in front of Cliff to break the winds for him, but I really don't think it made much difference and Cliff would end up riding out again in front of us.It was Cliff's first ride to Ayr and his longest ride for a while as his average ride is around the 60k mark.

We started off good we cracked 57k's in the first 2 hours, soon slowed down and the average at the end of the ride was 23k's per hour. Top speed was 41k's and it took us about 3hours and 55 minutes to ride the 87km's trip to Ayr. I really felt the last 10k's today with the wind coming through the tunnel and my legs were burning, I had to stop and get more food at this point as I had used all my reserves body wise in fighting the wind. I was having a sugar low and really feeling the pinch. I actually thought that I was going to vomit at one point today, about the 5k out of town mark.

We arrived in town about 1130 and had the local Advocate paper journalist waiting for us, being that I am the avid photographer it surprises me to see the quality of camera's that some of these journalists are sporting to take their newspaper pics. I guess I could get a job up this way!

We grabbed some red rooster to top up after the ride and get some food in us and headed off to home hill for our overnight stay in the free rest area. Late in the afternoon you can see and smell the smoke from burning the cane at home hill, the smoke didn't affect me but you could definately smell it.

There wasn't much open by the time we were ready for dinner so decided to eat out at the local chinese restuarant run by Jackson, the local and very funny China man. We had a great meal and plenty of laughs and found out that Jackson used to also run the old Jimmy Wahs in North Ipswich back home a few years back. After a good big feed we went back to the camper and got things ready for the next day and off to bed.

I was pretty tired and so ready for bed after the good feed.

Cliff and I getting set and ready to go with Father Rob, Mother Rob and Aunty Barb watching on.


Cliff Brown and I before the ride to Ayr.

With no scissors in the car we had to use other ways to break the thread coming from my pants without ripping the lycra.


Cliff and I heading out of Townsville.


Cliff and I arriving in Ayr.


All the kids happy and keen waiting for Cliff and I to come into Ayr.


Having our picture taken for the local paper in Ayr.