Written by Dave

 We are in back in Sydney after a good long visit with family and friends in the US.  Nancy saw her doctor yesterday and …. drum roll please… we are cleared to start the ride!  The x-ray was good and the doctor said that Nancy is “healed” – he did warn Nancy (and me) not to fall or play rugby.  The latter wasn’t going to happen anyway, the former we will be extra diligent with for sure. 

 For those interested in the latest x-ray, see below.  The top x-ray is from 4 weeks ago, the bottom is from yesterday.  At least from what I understand, the most recent x-ray shows less dark where the fracture was/is – this means that the bone is healing.  Nancy has some muscular pain around the arm and shoulder, which is to be expected as she starts to use her arm more and more.  Just have to keep the bottle of aspirin handy.

X-ray comparison - 5 and 9 weeks

 We are currently staying in Sydney with our friends Ross and Jeanette.  We plan on leaving here on Friday, 8 April, nearly 10 weeks since Nancy’s fall and surgery.  It seems that we have a hundred things to do before we go but at least now we can start working through the list knowing that soon we’ll be riding.  We plan to ride less than 60k (36 miles) per day for the first week or so.  Short days should help with any stress of getting somewhere and also let both of us ease into loaded touring bikes.  We’ve only planned the first couple of days, so we will see how things feel and adjust accordingly.

 We’ve been on two short rides here since our return.  Both of us were a little nervous in the Sydney traffic but the second ride was better and we now feel good on our touring bikes – which we had not ridden in over a year (not counting Nancy’s crash ride).  We are both anxious to get riding and get into the rhythm of being on the road.

The plan is to ride Friday to a friend’s (and former Polycom colleague) house near Ettalong, which is up north.  We will ride from Concord into the city to the Opera House and take some photos, then catch a ferry to Manly.  From Manly we will ride up to Palm Beach, catch another ferry across to Ettalong and ride to our first ‘host’.  We will camp out in the back yard and try out our new Hilleberg tent – and maybe have some company if the young intrepid travelers of the house feel like camping out with us! 

From Ettalong the current plan is to head up to the Entrance, staying along the ocean.  If traffic is too bad we may go inland but we will wait and see how it is.  We’ve already learned to be ‘flexible’ on this adventure so no hard and firm plans here.

We are in the throes of packing, trying to make smaller and smaller piles and ‘negotiating’ what we can and cannot fit.  Still some negotiating to be done – a bit unfair I think to put me up against a lawyer with nearly 20 years practice – somehow her clothing pile is still quite a bit larger than mine…