To begin with I wanted to say sorry for my lack of udates lately but it totally is not my fault.  The fault lies in the in hands of the Aussies who seem to lack internet in their various hotel establishments!  Actually, I a not too disappointed for the lack of internet since I have been completely “fisted” after the past few stages and can barely muster up a shower let alone an update.

Things here at the Sun Tour have been going awesome.  Hollywood ended up winning the second stage of the tour and has been in yellow for the past three days.  The yellow jersey sounds all fine and dandy but that means we have been on the front for the past three days…..all of which have been 100+ mile road stages in the wind and heat.  Here is a picture before stage 4 before there was much pain to be had.

Speaking of the heat…..holy schnike it has been hot here.  Today the temp was 37 C……which is I think is around 105 F or thereabouts!  On top of that the the lack of ozone down here is really true.  I have been wearing heaps of sunscreen and I am still getting burned through the shit.   Here is Hollywood lathering up with some SPF 75 before the stage….no one actually told him he forgot to rub the stuff in  Here is Hollywood once again waving to everyone who reads the blog….or maybe he got sick of me taking pictures.

My back even got burned through my jersey leaving me some nice bib short tan lines on my back……I wonder if the ladies like those?  So everyone back in America help out the Australians……CFC’s are actually bad!  Oh, here is the new leg tan after I worked so hard to get rid of it

Today’s stage was a mountain top finish……meaning there was a nice 20 km climb to finish off a solid 180 km stage.  We did end up losing the yellow jersey……but it was to Simon Gerrans who is not too shabby of a climber.

Tomorrow is a 12 km time trial……meaning that everyone on the team except for Kirk and Karl get the day off.  Then there is the final stage which is a crit in downtown Melbourne followed the by the after party.

Before I sign off for the evening I thought I would post some interesting things I have learned since being Down Under:

- Instant coffee is complete shit and that is all they drink down here!

- There actually is no ozone but you can get a tan really quickly and look like a fast bike racer without actually being one.

- I can survive on strictly Gummy worms during a seven day stage race……especially the red ones but I have been eating a few of the green because they make me feel a little healthier.

- The outlets all have switches which must be turned on in order for them to work.

- Be careful when crossing the street because Australians drive on the other side of the road and you often look the opposite way that the cars are actually coming from.

- I have yet to see a Kangaroo, Koala, or Wombat but there are pictures of them on road signs everywhere.

- Lastly……Australia is not that much different than America and the people are really nice and I am happy to be here!

later, g.