Day 15, our last day, the day we reach The Great Barrier Reef and the day the 12 challenges were completed was a monumental day.
We started out early from Gladstone and I was very pleased to be back in the yellow jersey as we rode out of town.
Bade decided to split the peleton into 2 groups for safety reasons on the Bruce Highway and I was more than happy to be put in the 2nd group – thanks Jono for leading the group today. You did a fabulous job.
The road out of Gladstone was pretty flat and we were aided by another friendly Queensland Highway Patrol officer who kindly closed the Bruce Highway temporarily so we could get on the road safely.
We spend the next 76km on the highway as there aren’t really many road options in this part of the world. I do have to say that Queensland drivers, and particularly truckies are very courteous drivers.
We did a short stop for morning tea at a petrol station and then continued onto Emu Park for a late lunch. Unfortunately our generator that we had been using for the previous 14 days to make tea and coffee was accidentally left behind, and in the time it took us to realise and retrieve it, someone had nicked it! That was a little disappointing, particularly as it belonged to the Variety guys. Hopefully it will be returned soon enough.
After a late lunch the 2 peletons reformed for a pleasant 30km ride up the coast to Yeppoon, our final destination.
We finally made it into Yeppoon and I was greeted with a wonderful sight with my kids Holly and Cameron waving Variety flags at the finish line. It was wonderful to see them and my wife Lizzy there, after what has been such a big couple of weeks and a massive last 12 months for our whole family.
I want to do the whole event and the last 12 months more justice when I’ve had time to gather my thoughts further but in the meantime I just want to say that it was an honour to spend 2 weeks with such fantastic people.
I was also truly honoured to receive an award from Karl for participation on the ride and also from Mappy for being the spirit of Variety on the last day.
I thought I’d take one final look at Strava this evening to check out the stats from the last 2 weeks:
Today’s ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/546615657
April climbing stats: 17,969m (403 in the world out of 185,000 people)
April distance stats: 2,155km (10th in the world out of 224,000 people – 4 of the top 10 did the 15 days on The Variety Cycle!)
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Link to the donation page for Vinnies – helping homeless people rebuild their lives.
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