On Sunday 23rd August at 06:01am (AWST) I set off from Cottesloe Beach in Perth and headed east, going through Perth and along the Swan River then onto The Heritage Trail and back on the Great Eastern Hwy where I spent the next few days. Lots of road trains but no problems with any of them. I went on Old Goldfields Rd a few times as it ran parallel and had no traffic. It was a nice change to the Hwy. Passing alongside the Canola fields was beautiful. Got to Coolgardie and then headed south on Coolgardie Esperance Hwy down to Norseman and turned East again on the Eyre Hwy and across the Nullarbor and the 90mile straight (Australia’s longest straight road). Then into South Australia where I got views of The Great Australian Bight and then onto Port Augusta where I turned south. I took some backroads here to again get off the Hwy and headed down to Jamestown and onto Morgan where I joined the Goyder Hwy east bound. I followed this to the Sturt Hwy then through Renmark and into Victoria and through to Mildura and crossing the Murray River into New South Wales. Along the Hay Plain and then following the Murrumbidgee River to Narrandera where I turned onto the Newell Hwy and by-passing Junee to get onto Olympic Hwy to Burley Griffin Way and onto the Hume Hwy all the way to Campbelltown. From here it was a mix of back roads and main roads all the way to Bondi.
My original thought was to try and run 65km to 70km per day for 12hrs and then have 12hrs off for recovery and the first three weeks I was running between 71km and 78km with a few days around 80km and doing this in 11 to 11.30 hours so still feeling good I increased the km to just over 80km for another 3 weeks and for the last week I was doing just over 85km per day with my second last day doing 92km leaving 75km for the last day. I only had a couple of days where I was running for more than 12hrs.
I had the constant support of my partner Dave who would meet me after the first 3 to 3.5hrs (24 to 30km) and then after every 10 to 15km. Dave always had drinks and food for me and I would refill my water bottle that I always carried. There were some very hot days so he was meeting me every 6km to refill. We mostly stayed in motels where we would mark where I finished the day and then drive to the motel for the night and then drive back to my finishing point the next morning. We did camp in our swag a few times when it was too far to drive to a motel.
The scenery along the whole trip was stunning with the wildflowers out and lots of beautiful trees. Most days started with a magical sunrise. I managed to see Emus, kangaroos, echidnas, goats, lizards, sheep, cows, llamas, snakes, hundreds of birds and thousands of flies. I was so lucky to have people come out and join me in places which helped pass the time. The last 50km I had lots of friends join me all the way to Bondi where even more friends and family were waiting. Such and unbelievable finish and down to the water where I finished on Saturday 10th October at 16:09 (AEDST)