Hello from Ross and Ann

We're writing to you from Rockhampton, eight weeks and 2,000km cycling from Sydney. We've just crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and visited places whose beauty just blows you away - and we don't mean headwinds either. We've been very privileged to meet many wonderful people and be guests in homes all up the coast - so we are not only clean and healthy but also happy and well fed. We've both put on lots of muscle, which is good because our trailer is putting on lots of weight while we stock up for the longer rides. We're having a wonderful, wonderful time, although we are a little tired from packing so much in to our journey.

We've visited stroke patients and staff in the hospitals along the way, met with stroke survivors and carers, been interviewed on radio and TV in each region and spoken to district papers to raise stroke awareness. We've had civic receptions, ridden with local cyclists and even cycling politicians. We've also survived rain, gear problems, two computer viruses, two dead cameras and the all-time cycle touring favourites groin grief and crotch crush. You can read and see photos of all of it except the - er - cycling favourites, and see photos in our diary.

All this doesn't leave a lot of time to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef, or write newsletters, so we've decided to pad out our itinerary a few weeks. We've also added in a stop at Cairns (Lenore, you twisted our arms). You can get our revised, fatter itinerary from our website. Thanks to this itinerary we had a day off and finally had time to set up the chat forum on our website - so instead of replying to this note, why not post a message in the forum? Chat is on the 'talk with us' menu above. (If you don't have an extra few seconds to register, just use guest as your username and password).

Hope this note finds you happy, healthy and chasing your dreams.

Ross & Ann