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While You Were Sleeping ...and the Course is...

SleepMonsters Australia and Geocentric / 21.02.2006

While you were sleeping last night (Tuesday) the XPD juggernaut was rolling out of Hobart. Not since the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race has Hobart been such a hive of activity. And the fleet will return albeit a touch slower than a Sydney Hobart Finish and quite possibly a tad wearier.

The advance party was already on its way North to Stanley to prepare for the arrival of the teams well before the teams had left Hobart, as an added bonus competitors will no doubt be a touch weary before they hit the start line, afterall when was the last time you slept well on a bus (without being under the influence).

That is what faces the competitors, by 11pm last night competitors were on buses out of Hobart heading for the Nut in the town of Stanley on the northern coastline of tassie. At 7am the race will start and competitors will no doubt run down the volcanic plug towards their waiting steeds, we are a bit unsure as to the bikes being packed in boxes still, but it should make that changeover interesting to say the least, its then a 52km MTB to the Arthur River at Tayatea Bridge through rolling farmland.

Leg 2 takes teams 27 km down the remote Arthur river, an area of magnificent beauty unspoilt having never been ravaged by bushfires or dozers to Kanunah Bridge.

Leg 3 has teams back on the MTBs heading south for 26 km to the historic ghost town of Balfour and should present the team with to many problems.

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