Today as per yesterday was another sent to try our patience and resilience in these grinding last few hundred kms.
The support crew left camp at 7:00am, following the freeway out to Berwick, where we were to meet the riders after coming via bike trails to this central point for the morning. We traveled well with nearly all the traffic going into Melbounre as we were going away from it, wondering why people put themselves through this horrendous traffic jam every morning and night!
We arrived in Berwick and the boys went to the corner to wait for the riders to come through, while the girls went to warm up in a nice coffee shop. This was all after an interesting time in the carpark following David's lead, going down the wrong way! Trying to manoeuvre Maureen and her big van out the wrong way ( as one very helpful person told me) was quite a feat!
Waiting, waiting and the rain started to fall heavily, wondering how the riders were doing, we then receive a phone call from Tim, informing us they had "hit a hail storm and we're now sheltering at a service station around Dandenong".
Eventually after what seemed an eternity we see Tim and Darren riding up the hill toward us, but it seems not to join us but to get more clothing supplies to change into. They had left the group at the Genisis Fitness Berwick (gym), to shower and have coffee to warm up. Once again hypothermia was making its presence felt and it appeared some people weren't making very rational decisions, therefore a time spent drying out and warming up was necessary for health and safety reasons, before continuing was contemplated.
Daren and Tim complained the hail had filled there helmets, where the slats are in the top and began to freeze their head, as in an ice-cream headache. Not good!
Eventually after sustenance and a warming sauna for some, most took to riding their bikes again, with a few opting out in the better part of 'lose the battle: win the war' saving their strength for tomorrow, hitching a ride to Traralgon.
Tonight we have just come back from Tim's mates place (Geoff) where the group celebrated our last night together with presentations all round for the support crew and our USA boy. It was a great night of reminiscing over our trip and the sheer relief of having made it happen! As we head down the last few hundred kms tomorrow it is also a walk/ride down memory lane for some as we go past Col's old farm at Stockdale, Darren's home in Maffra, both Ray and Franks' 'stomping grounds' at Lindenow South before cruising into Bairnsdale hopefully around 2:00pm.
Let the weather Gods shine one more day please!
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