Brutal

30 July - Somehow managed to wake up ... Well, not really that difficult as I was still on Sydney time even aftert my ordeal and found myself up three hours before I wanted to. Was the firt to get to the meeting point and was paranoid that it may have been canged in the past week but was soon joined by Markus, from Germania (a recent ex-Sydney courier) and he was shorty followed by the rest of the 40 stronginternational crowd. Eventually made our way out of town a few hours later than originllyexpected and took a massive group ride through the heart of rush hour London. How to describe the rest of the day - an offroad canal ride out of London followed by hours of relentless riding - frequent stops which could have been a good ro a bad thing - realsied I'd taken far too much weight with me and probably a too difficult gear - through Eton and Reading and on to Avebury. Got lost or aleast thought we did on several occasions - the group was constantly splitting up and joining up again - a few crashes, a few incidents with police when we were headingto the campsite as it approached midnight without lights, also learned the ebnefits of team tactics - can make a real difference when pushing into the wind - backbreaking day and followed by an awful sleep on the stone cold floor of a barn (hey, it was good enough for jesus). Felt a lot of pain for Kevin, a Bostonioan who had no sleeping bag and was sleepingon a chair in the barn with us. Still, felt relatively chipper the next day all things considing.