Another cold, grey Sunday morning at Balmoral.  Water temp hovering around 14°c. Longer swim, about 1km, but I still didn’t get cold. No Jimbles – they are all frozen. Bob Johnson ran past me as I hobbled up the beach to the finish line.  Still came 13^th overall. Not bad. Set off from Awaba Café at 9.45am heading up Stanton Rd to Barry’s place. Had 20kgs on board but decided that was a bit over the top. Dumped 2kgs of water on Barry’s lawn and left his place carrying 18kg, which is the weight I’ve had on board to date. Bright and sunny but cool day in the Open Air Rehab Clinic – different than rainy Thursday. Wonder how I will handle the heat in the Northern Territory. It always knocks me around.

Achilles tendon started to ache a bit about ½ an hour into the walk, but it settled down and I had no further problem. Stepping up and down was no problem, although the step up with the bad leg is harder than the step down with the good leg. Made it to Manly without incident in 4 ½ hours.  We talked most of the way. Barry and Adriana are very engaging walking companions. We celebrated with lunch on the footpath at Manly Wine bar.

Hot shower and a lie down at 3pm. I was pretty tired. I awoke and looked at my watch which said 6.30 and because it was dark, I presumed it was Monday morning. Began to dress for work before realising it was 6.30pm on Sunday night. I’d been asleep for 3 ½ hours. Felt like a goose.

I’ve walked a daily average of 11,668 steps over the past week, including the long walk on Thursday. That’s  steps, according to my Iphone. They reckon you should do 10,000 steps per day to stay healthy. That’s a lot of steps. I don’t know where people get the time. Two weeks from now until the Jatbula adventure begins.