DAYYYY 23 – TO SYDNEYYY – FINISHING IN SUPREME STYLE WEARING $3 KMART THONGS

HE FORGOT IT WASN’T A TRIATHLON

As if the last 22 days weren’t enough to make you wanna raid the valium cupboard.

So a heart-racing end to the IPWR 2022 journey for Mr Willy Maykit.

For those of you who don’t follow the dot-watcher page on FB, do not underestimate the running potential of $3 thongs from Kmart.

Due to a mechanical failure just under 20km out, these thongs were Mr Maykit’s running gear of choice to finish off the last 18km of the 5471km journey.

Soooo many stories and piccies from his last day ever on the IPWR route – from the amazing welcome from family and friends in Warilla, the ride with the awesome Eddy Birt (last year’s #2), the dot-watchers who helped along the way and then to finally scoot into SOH steps to see Otters, dot-watcher Gavin (thanks again for piccies) and more family.

And there’s Auntie Barb presenting Todd with his pop’s war medals.

Pretty spesh.

A priceless way to end.

The Coronas at the Opera Bar went down like water.

Todd would like to apologise (WTF for – but anyway I am but a mere scribe!) for being ‘late’ last night.

Reason being…

Leaving Windang, thinking about all the wonderful family and friends waiting, he actually had a stack off the pink beast.

It must have been at that point where the bike derailleur was damaged.

18 km out, while Betty Makesit and the Moderator were walking around with bottles of Veuve champers going “Don’t you know who we are” at the Opera Bar, the Moderator gets a text – “bike stuffed”.

Excellent news.

A call-out on the dot-watcher page had some great mechanical advice, and a couple even tried to come out and help.

It was such a mad panic, getting any advice to Mr Maykit was pretty impossible.

Proud to say he went full commando triathlon style,  “f*ck it, I’m running it in”.

Thank you, Kmart – your $3 thongs have survived 5471km of shitty accommodation stops and still had enough padding to cushion his tootsies home.

A few navigational issues at the end made the wait even crazier.

Fingernails a thing of the past.

Heart palpitations a little worse.

But the feeling of watching him rolling into the steps of the SOH was something we’ll never forget.

Oodles of photos and videos to add, but that will need to be for another day – tomorrow hopefully when home. This laptop and the crap wifi ain’t cutting the upload mustard.

So there you have it.

Epic finish.

We’re hanging here for another night to cheer BeetleJuice and Caveman in.

Something we just cannot miss.

So – I hear you ask…”What’s Willy’s next adventure”…

We’re presently working on this…