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Today we were to start from Albury and drive into Canberra, but the weather had other ideas. Overnight the dense cloud cover had started to dump rain on us, with some team members experiencing a damp night in our swags. As we waited for the start the rain was holding off, but reports of heavier rain between here and the end of the day's racing had the organisers cancel the first leg for reasons of safety, with a decision on the rest of the stage to be made when teams reached that point. Leaving Albury we made a ceremonial start, then packed up the car into the trailer and drove to Holbrook.
Holbrook's main claim to fame is that it has a decommissioned Royal Australian Navy submarine, the HMAS Otway, buried in a local park. Up to this point we had wondered about the organisers' decision, since the weather to this point had been reasonably good with only light rain.
By the time we reached the next control stop at the dog on the tuckerbox near Gundagai we understood their decision a bit better. Having to stop on the way while a semi-trailer accident was cleared up helped to reinforce this as well.
There had been heavy rain as we drove through, and at the stop the team found out that having a picnic lunch would be difficult, but not impossible. We were joined by our inflatable whale mascot Willy who had been deflated since we left Adelaide. Willy was in his element, swimming and even making a bid for freedom.
From here we drove on to the Canberra finish outside Questacon. We pulled out UNSW Sunswift II and displayed it in front of the finishing banner while it continued to rain around us. Usually at stops we would be spraying our array with water to cool it down, however this time around we had to wipe the water off to prevent it getting inside the car.
After we had spent some time posing for the news crews we were then led to our accommodation for the night at Lake Tuggeranong College. We are thankful to LTC for their generous offer of accommodation for the night, and to Tom from LTC's solarcar team for looking after us. LTC had decided not to enter their car, the Spirit of Canberra, in this year's SunRace since they are going to concentrate on the World Solar Challenge.
Willy The Whale
Willy!
Mail Bag
If you have a question for the team, or would like to wish them well, write to our mail bag, care of Ask Willy. | | | |
