If you think your week at work has been hard, check out 5 days of playing in the mountains of Zambia.

This is the shirt I bought just after crossing the Luanga River. 

Now that's a hard week at the office.

A typical village on the road to Lusaka.

At the front of the Lilongwe Golf club, Malawi.  NO golf, but who cares.

Dust at the Jehovah's school.

Alot of the shops have religious advertising over the doorway.  I thought this was one of the best.

The long road to Lusaka, Zambia.  Good pavement and little traffic.

6^th April 2011. Lilongwe Malawi to Chipata, Zambia. 155kms.

Today we had to get up at 4.45am to get ready for our 5am lift back to the campsite to meet up with all the cyclists and more importantly, breakfast at 5.30am.The early morning are seriously cracking me.

So off we went at 6.15am for the long ride ahead. The road was gently sloping down for the majority of the morning. Nice paved roads, with the usual dogs, one got run over straight in front of us, donkeys, cars, trucks and not one bus. Beautiful green hills and some nice small villages. The lunch stop was at 72kms which we reached by 9am. Too early to eat food but we had to try as we still had over 80kms to go.

We pressed on going through towns with people welcoming us along the way. The first thing we noticed was the excitement of the children to see us silly cyclists on their roads and the adults also saying hello. We still have to contend with the kids asking for money along the way, and I think this will continue well into Zambia.

After lunch we formed a group of 6 riders, of course Peter Lamond was riding with me, followed by Andrea, Dr Gary, Eric the Viking and Mr Rodney Hilton Sanders. We rode at a nice pace to the small town of Mchinji where we got the chance to spend the remaining Malawian Kwacha. So at the supermarket I bought biscuits, chocolate, toothpaste and more biscuits. I always buy the essentials on tour.

The border was a further 10kms on, so after stuffing our face with yogurt and coke, and spending money it was off to the Zambian Border. Country No.7

The border crossing was perhaps one of the simplest crossings so far of the tour. I was shown to the black market money exchanges and ended up with 470,000 kwacha for my $100US. The bank was paying 4500kwacha to the US dollar.

The road from the border changed immediately from a smooth paved road to a harsh stone surface. It was a rather bumpy 30kms to the campsite. But before we reached the campsite we stopped at the last town to check out the SPAR supermarket.

We had stopped at the right time as no sooner had we pulled in and got the security officer to guard our bikes, the skies opened up into a torrential downpour. We sat inside in the café and had a nice cappuccino and chocolate coated donut. It was sensational. We met the owner of the SPAR and his wife, they also own, Mama Rula campsite where we’re staying tonight.

Every time you enter a new country there are a couple of things you have to do, exchange money and get a new sim card. We got the sim card and a top up so easy, the young girl in the MTN phone shop set up my phone and I was on my way to the campsite. We arrived at 2pm after riding 155kms, crossing the border, and stopping for an hour for coffee and cake. Now that’s a good day. The campsite is really nice with plenty of grass and a swimming pool. I’m not too keen to swim in pools as the chlorine plays havoc with my sinuses. It’s now time to rest and eat and get ready for the longest day on tour so far, a 177km ride tomorrow. Should be a blast. We’ll also be in the bush for the next 4 days until we reach Lusaka the capital, so phone coverage will be limited.

Now we’re in our 7^th county, Zambia. Still a long way to go, but enjoying every minute. Goodnight from my first night in Zambia, Africa, 2011.

7^th April 2011. Mama Rula’s campsite, Chipata to Bush Camp. 177kms.

The rain came down big time during dinner last night and once again many tents got some water in them. I got a little bit of water in mine, but nothing that would interfere with my sleep. Actually a hurricane wouldn’t stop me from sleeping, especially after riding 155kms yesterday.

I got up around 4.30am because of the zippers being opened and shut, people farting, burping, belching and sneezing. I dragged my ass out of the tent around 5am in pitch darkness and slowly in my methodical way pulled down tent Hilton to be packed away nice and damp for another day in the locker.

Today a couple of riders joined Peter and me as we set off around 6.15am for the long ride ahead. The roads were surrounded by thousands of kids either side of the road for many kms until we got away from the town of Chipata. The kids are just like the others from Malawi and Ethiopia calling out for money, pens, and get this, ‘what is my name’, I replied ‘I haven’t got a clue mate’, and continue on. We caught up with other cyclists along the road and many joined in to the lunch stop at 82kms. I felt pretty good all money but I paid particular attention to my eating and drinking to make sure I was good for later on in the day. We arrived at the lunch stop at 9.30am.

The countryside is spectacular with rolling green hills, small thatched house villages, some with green grass an some with straw on their roofs. Still poverty is a big issue out in this part of Zambia. Many of the men just hang around the villages and don’t appear to be doing much at all. It’s the women in many of the cases carrying the goods to market.

Today there were thousands of school kids wearing uniforms calling out to us, which is a big surprise as many of the kids we’ve seen before wear rags and nothing on their feet. After a 30min break for lunch we were back on the road and more nice rolling hills and a favourable tail wind to help us along the way.

The peloton was now 8 strong and this gave me a chance to get off the front of the bunch. To many of my useless cycling bodies back home, I do hit the front of the bunch now and then. The next stop was at 120kms for a coke which is getting pretty hard to drink now after having so many over the past 3 months. Yeh, in 3 days it will be 3 months since I left home.

After the coke stop it was a further 40kms to camp. We continued on doing turns at the front of the peloton until the last hill where I did apply some pressure and gapped the guys in my group. I wanted to see how strong I was after riding 175kms. I rolled down the hill to the finish flag and buzzed out for what was a terrific day. We arrived at a nice camp with bar and green grass at 1.30pm. Now that’s a good day, 177kms and off the bike at 1.30pm.

The rest of the day is dry out some clothes, and the damp tent, eat plenty, continue reading, ‘marching with the devil’ by Australian David Mason. A good book. I will get a early night as I still have 3 big days to the next rest day.

Over and out.

8^th April 2011. Private Camping ground to bush camp. 145kms.

After 177kms yesterday I didn’t know what to expect when I jumped on the bike. I thought this was going to hurt big time today. First thing was to put that pain in the ass tent away, eat a heap of food and go and do some fertilisation work in the fields before jumping on the bikes.

I rode off with Dr Gary and Andrea. After about 10kms the racers came by so I jumped out of my group and sat on the riders for about 7kms when the hills were taking too much out of me. It’s so hard to ride with guys and racing bikes and thin tyres when I ride a heavy hunk of crap. I pushed on after being dropped and caught a couple of riders who I passed and was caught by Kim and we rode together to the lunch stop at 75km. We got to the lunch stop at around 8.45am, we started at 6.10am.

With a nice lunch we headed off again with Scott De Moss with us now. He’s one hell of a strong rider. Big guy with enormous power. This section of the tour is really nice, the road is surrounded by tall grass and trees on either side of the road. With fast hot mix tar surface and mostly downhill, we were hitting 80kph as we roared down the hills around bend after bend hugging the sides of the roads with those spectacular long grasses jutting out onto the roadway. It was so nice the riding.

After an hour of riding after lunch the humidity and heat was going through the roof. The temperature was 90%, and I’m sure the humidity would have been just as high. Each time you slowed down to climb the next hill, another litre of sweat was lost to Africa.

Still the kids were calling out to us for money and asking ‘how are you’. The kids are so nice and warm in this part of the world and it’s a pleasure to ride through their part of Africa. We stopped for a coke at the 120km mark and I was glad to take the break. My legs were hurting early on in the day and that pain continued well into the afternoon. I don’t know whether I’m soft or just getting too old to be riding a bike through Africa.

So off we go again to finish another long day on the bike. The rest of the trip was even faster winding downhill to the 546 altitude mark. We climbed over 1km today which is becoming normal these days. So with the nice smooth road taking us to the campsite it was so nice to get in at 11.30am for the 145kms.

Another good thing about getting into camp so early is you get a better chance of finding a nice place to pitch your tent. So I found the best place to pitch tent Hilton and I was so happy. The school ground where we’re camping is a 2 building complex with 7 classes, 3 teachers and 300 children. The school has a hand pump for the water supply. We were told we could go and fill up our bottles and have a wash. When I got to the pump this young boy allowed me to lay on the ground and he kept pushing the pump with water pouring all over me. I had my cycling clothing on at the time so I got to kill 2 birds with one stone as they say.

The weather down at this lower altitude was oppressive to say the least. I went for a walk up the road and met up with a couple of cyclists at the local coke stop, stayed a short time and made the walk back to the campsite. The rest of the afternoon is taking it easy, do some reading, have dinner, and get ready for the tough MANDO stage tomorrow. 148kms, hills and more hills. Bring it on.

9^th April 2011. School Ground Camp to Jehovah church ground. Mando Day. 150kms.

After a hard day yesterday and a terrible night’s sleep sweating my guts out in Tent Hilton I was dead tired when I woke up at 4.30am. Yeh, this is madness, I should never be out of bed or even contemplating such a stupid act of getting out of bed at 4.30am. This will not happen at home, after all I’m the king of my castle.

Whilst eating my breakfast I was in one of those moods when you just sit there gazing into space and not really keen on getting up to do anything. I ate heaps for breakfast but was still half asleep when I hit the road at 6.10am for the Mando Day which involves 1850metres of climbing.

The first couple of kms was brutal on the legs, I was doing it real tough just sitting with Peter on the flats. I didn’t have any trouble on the hills as I’ve got better as the trip has gone on at climbing mountains. No choice really on that one.

My legs felt like house bricks for the first 80kms to lunch and every mountain we had to climb was sheer agony. We crossed the large river at the 27km mark and took some photos of the bridge which we were not supposed too, then the climb commenced. We just kept going up and up into the mountain until we came to this small village which had some good things on offer. I got to buy my Santa shirt for $1.20 and Luke and Kevin got 2 really cool shorts as well. After some food and looking around the village it was time to press on to the 80km mark for lunch. By the time we had reached lunch we had climbed 1300metres.

The lunch stop couldn’t come quick enough today. I was doing it so tough today and dragging my ass up every mountain was not a pretty sight. My legs weren’t getting worse as the day went on they were actually getting better.

What I did stand out on today’s ride was the small huts that littered the landscape. We would find 2 small thatched cane huts that looked like the rain would poor straight through them and children coming out of them. We got to meet one boy who had one arm to Malaria now that does affect me when I see that. These kids are so beautiful and friendly and we just ride past at the rate of knots never to come back again. I would like to spend more time in villages but the circus most roll on to another town and another part of Africa.

The final leg into the Jehovah camp was 70kms up rolling hills. We had to climb 2 hills about 5kms long, but it wasn’t that bad because of the temperature and a slight tailwind to push us up the mountain. There were some great descends along the way today, but no enough to take the pain away from my legs and my ass which was hurting a bit from spending so much time in the saddle over the past 4 days. Over the past 4 days we’ve ridden. 155, 177, 145, 150kms.

We didn’t stop at all this afternoon, we had plenty of water and food to keep us going for the final 70kms. With the rolling hills not as brutal and favourable temperature and winds, we rolled into camp at 2.30pm. As soon as I got to camp I had a quick shower under one of those hand pumps that get the water out of the ground, pitched the tent and put some clean clothes on. I really need to get a good night’s sleep tonight as I might be riding with the racers tomorrow. Not sure how my legs will feel in the morning.

I did do something very important at 4pm, I sent Graciella a Happy 50^th birthday message. I will call tomorrow when we get to Lusaka. Looking forward to the 104km ride into the capital and more importantly a rest day to follow.

10th April 2011. Jehovah's camping ground to Lusaka the capital of Zambia. 105kms.

Today I got up nice and early to beat the racers out of camp and get some warm up miles in my legs. If I felt like yesterday it was useless to try and stay with them for any length of time.

I left camp at 6.10am with Peter Lamond and by 6.50am the racers were biting at my wheel. I managed to stay with the racers over many rolling hills until about the 40km mark where I got dropped on a hill. My shitty mountain bike just doesn't have the gears to keep up with these blokes. I rode to the lunch stop on my own going as hard as I could. I knew Luke and some of the other racers were still behind so I was hoping to get a quick snack from the lunch truck at the 50km mark and then continue on.

When I got to the lunch stop Jorg and Horst were ready to leave and no sooner had I filled up one bottle Luke and Tory were passing the lunch truck not bothering to stop at all. I knew this was not a good thing. I got some PVM health bars, quickly joined Horst and Jorg and chased down Luke and Tory. I should say that I sat on the whole time.

By the time we caught up my legs were burning. It's not often I get to climb hills on a mountain bike at 35kpm sitting on the seat. I'm getting so much stronger as the tour goes on, but I'm being methodical in my riding ensuring I don't tip over the edge and crash and burn.

The group ride at 45kpm for the next 1 & ½ hours over rolling hills with a slight tailwind. As we approached the outskirts of Lusaka a place Graciella had been in 2008 and Josh and I had been in 2003 I was so glad to see the finish flag.

I was so happy to finish with the strong riders and I was well and truly stuffed, shagged, shattered, you name it, I was it.

Luke and I got a room at the hotel the cyclists are staying, quickly had a shower and got one of the local buses into the arcades shopping centre to eat and eat and eat some more.  Later on we're going to the pictures with some cyclists and then we'll eat again.

Now perhaps the most important achievement today was not my racing but my wife turning 50. Happy birthday Graciella, I hope you had a fantastic day. To those who think I should've been at home to celebrate this huge goal in life, the decision for me to take on this journey was made by Graciella. She said, 'Go and enjoy yourself while your fit and healthy enough to do it'.

I'll wish Matthew a happy birthday in 2 days time. 

My thoughts go out to Julie and her family for the sad loss of a beautiful mother.