Up at 6:30am, no more holiday sleep-ins for me. Group due to arrive early and get into the last leg of the ride. I dry John's tent on the (barbed wire) fence, then grovel out to the side of the road to wait. It's cold and windy but not actually raining, and the early sunshine is a bit weak. Went into town before 8am, figuring that the riders would not appear for a while. Rang Ed and left grovel message saying I wasn't going to ride with her.
Back out to the roadside, and the riders seem to be feeling the cold, they're all bundled up. The van eventually rocks up, with three people in it. Chris and Jedda on support plus Tanya sick. I'm in the back, crammed in a wee space by the door. I swipe Chris's paper and read the IT section. Tuesday in the Australian is good like that, there's 10 or more pages of IT stuff, including jobs for me to think about.
It's not really a nice day at all. Evan is somewhere behind us (a long way behind us) having decided on a slow start. About 60km out we turn into the former crosswind for 10km, and the kids do not like that at all. We get excited with a tarp shelter and hot food, plus cheerleaders on the roadside to try to perk them up a bit.
The group arrives and decides to make this a short day. As usual, "the group" is Sunny, Tali, Beth, Anna and Leo, and they decide on behalf of everyone who is not present. We're to stop at about 70km and camp. After they leave we wait for the other people, who are not having nearly as many problems as the rest. They had also planned or accepted that they'd be late in tonight. Nor was completing the planned 100km going to be anything other than a bit longer than some other days. We're talking about the stronger cyclists in the group as well - Evan, Bindi, Jonas and Naima are all capable of long, hard days with a smile at the end.
When we arrive at the camp there's already a few people there, so Erin goes hunting for a sleeping site. We're in fence country, but the verges are 10m deep so we're better off that in Wubin. Chris disappears to take Tanya to the hospital.
The cyclists eventually arrive, grab dinner and announce that they will see us later. They're going to ride the 100km planned for today, then decide whether to camp or keep riding and do tomorrows ride tonight.