I will be making way to the Western Islet of New Zealand shortly. This being the little island that serves as a prison colony to the western edge of this fine nation. The locals being uneducated believe they are free, and refer to their convict colony as “Australia”.Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Unfortunately, the nzopengps project maps do not provide coverage for the Western Islet, and after some fickle efforts to compile OSM Australia maps myself to install on my Garmin Etrex30 I curiously discovered why the convict colony is also known as “downunder”.
However as discrepancies such as this are not present on the web version of Open Street Map, maps of the area, this is not so much a fault with that projects mapping data as my failure to compile it neatly for Garmin GPS use. (or, the fact that the convenience afforded by nzopengps is unavailable with this project)
It is very good of Mike & Stacey to put up with me for a couple of days before I head to Angelsea for the Great Southern Randonnee. 48 others and myself have entered the 1200km event organised by Audax Australia. With the ride starting at 6PM, Monday 29 October AEST. Locals along the route should be aware of the potential of 49 two-wheeled zombies arriving for halloween two days later. 
For myself, the training has been lacking through a miserable winter then the painful ailment of kidney stones. However, I was able to get in a 420km last weekend around the Pahiatua Loop and three laps of the Tour of Waikanae. That pretty much serverd as both my first and my last endurance training ride for this epic event :).
Obviously I have the disappointment of being narrowly over the 90 hour time limit in the Kiwi Hunt 1200 to rectify. There is also my 1200 personal record of 85h32 to improve upon. Regardless of my lack of training, I was reasonably happy with my strength last weekend so consider the PR as on the table. Whilst the GSR has no significant mountains it does have four steep pitches of about 400 vertical metres over the Otways, of which the last two are likely to hurt after more than 1000km in the legs.
There are some 20 checkpoints including start and finish, so if you are bored at your desk jump online and check my progress on my SPOT Tracker. This is several more checkpoings than the PBP, but using average speed at similar distances to get the PR I need to be tracking ahead of these times. PBP had a 30km bonus at 1230km long, so if I am able to maintain the same times (on no training)I should finish 2 hours faster.
| Checkpoint | km | PR | Time-limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Angelsea | 0 | 29th 18:00 | 29th 18:00 |
| 2. Geelong | 54 | 29th 21:36 | |
| 3. Queenscliff | 122 | 30th 02:08 | |
| 4. Angelsea | 196 | 30th 02:35 | 30th 07:08 |
| 5. Apollo Bay | 269 | 30th 12:04 | |
| 6. Port Campbell | 364 | 30th 11:55 | 30th 18:28 |
| 7. Hopkins Falls | 431 | 30th 17:02 | 30th 23:00 |
| 8. Port Fairy | 481 | 30th 19:43 | 31st 02:12 |
| 9. Macarthur | 529 | 31st 01:40 | 31st 05:28 |
| 10. Dunkeld | 597 | 31st 06:24 | 31st 10:05 |
| 11. Halls Gap | 662 | 31st 15:47 | |
| 12. Moyston | 694 | 31st 14:46 | 31st 18:35 |
| 13. Halls Gap | 726 | 31st 21:18 | |
| 14. Dunkeld | 791 | 31st 21:21 | 1st 03:01 |
| 15. Macarthur | 859 | 1st 05:39 | 1st 09:04 |
| 16. Port Fairy | 907 | 1st 08:33 | 1st 13:22 |
| 17. Hopkins Falls | 957 | 1st 17:34 | |
| 18. Port Campbell | 1024 | 1st 16:08 | 1st 23:32 |
| 19. Hordern Vale | 1099 | 1st 20:45 | 2nd 06:02 |
| 20. Angelsea | 1200 | 2nd 05:20 | 2nd 12:00 |
