Round Australia by bike - Day 001 - Terrigal to Kew

Day:	001
Date:	17 May 2008
Start	Terrigal
Finish	Kew
Daily Distance:	283km
Daily Speed:	24.97kph
Relative to Schedule:	On track
Daily Podcasts:	Here & here
GPS Track	Here
Journal:	Up at 4am.  Drove with Sharon and her kids to the Terrigal Surf Club where our running club, Terrigal Trotters, meets every Saturday morning at 6am for a run…..all 100+ of them. They gave me a rousing send-off as well as some other friends who attended and I headed off into the early dawn.  Shortly after the start, Dan Cleary, the proprietor of the Pushy Galore bike store who has helped me immensely with preparations for the ride drove up beside me to wish me well.  At 10km, cycling friend, Marg, joined me for 30km and we headed to Tuggerah and onto the F3 freeway northwards.  The k’s passed quickly as we chatted.  After Marg left I continued to make good time northwards with the Watagan Mountains, where I enjoy running and mountain biking, to my left.  Later on, friend, Mark, a teaching colleague of Sharon’s, drove up to also wish me well.  It felt great to know I have so much support, but also a little daunting given the size of the task ahead. Given the relatively late start, I was determined not to dally, if I wanted to reach my target, Kew, 283km away, before too late.  There was also bad weather forecast with a storm system supposed to move through late in the day. I passed to the north of Newcastle and stopped for a second breakfast at McDonalds at around 10am.  The continued north on the freeway, through country which became relatively more hilly, crossing numerous small mountain ranges.  It was pleasant riding, although rarely flat.  The weather stayed sunny and mild. This was the pattern for the remainder of the day, although I could see storm clouds building behind me and, after dusk, saw them illuminated with lightning within.  It became dark about 5:15pm but I still made good progress despite a strengthening headwind.  The last 30km in the dark wasn’t much fun as it was almost continuous roadworks, very narrow and hard to see because of the headlights of the oncoming traffic.  More than once I found myself suddenly negotiating piles of gravel or dodging potholes. I eventually reached Kew about 7:15pm, quite tired, but otherwise OK apart from confirming that sometime during the day I had managed to lose my iPod.  I won’t get much sleep tonight, about 5 hours, but hope to finish a bit earlier tomorrow and also hope that the storm system, which is still coming, delivers the promised southerly winds.