Hi Everyone,

I am still in Buenos Aires sorting out some logistics for the rest of the run.

Sunday before I left Dublin after my three week timeout  I went out with the family for lunch before going to the airport that night for my early morning flight to Buenos Aires. It was so nice to get back and see my Mam and sisters family again.

Many thanks to my great hosts and friends John Boyle,  his wife Argentine Clara and their 5 year old identical twin girls Sofia and Paula for being so helpful to me.

John, Sofia, Paula and Clara.

Wonderful people. Last night we ate the huge fry up I smuggled over on the plane! Plus drank  lots of Barrys tea!

John, originally from England, who we all consider to be as Irish as ourselves often wears his Mayo GAA shirt proudly as he used to holiday with the family there as a youngster. When he was older he worked in construction near Balina for ten years.  He is also a great Luton Town fan who even has a sign outside his house reading ‘ car parking  reserved for Luton Town fans. ’

He has been minding Nirvana up in his loft for almost a year now, so I guess he also reserves parking for Dublin fans also.     Even if Mayo did beat the Dubs in the All Ireland recently!

He ran a pb for a half marathon on Sunday (the day before I got back to BA, well timed lazy Mangan!)  So too did Michael his friend from Kilkenny. At the start of the race a mad man drove his car the wrong way down Alcorta Avenida towards the runners. Luckily nobody was hurt.

Mad driver at the start of Sundays Buenos Aires half marathon

After the race, while still celebrating their great pb’s John and Michael had a great excuse to go out to a bar to watch Kilkenny draw with Galway in the All-Ireland hurling final. The lads then decided to rehydrate on huge amounts of alcohol ending up in a state of talking incoherent jibberish!

 I expect to take a bus back to my finishing location in JB Alberdi tomorrow Thursday, the bus leaves Buenos Aires at 5pm, it is about a 20/24 hour journey, so too late to start running on Friday. It looks like I will make my restart from where I finished last month on Saturday. I will be taking Nirvana with me. It may be a bit difficult to manage as the bus only allows passengers to carry 15kilos of baggage. Nirvana alone weighs that!

This morning at 9am  I was first in the door of the Australian embassy. I applied for a 6 month visitors visa. By 5pm, just 8 hours later I had an email to say my visa application was accepted

Attached to the email was a letter with my visa which I just produce at the border.. What a great system, no need to leave a passport in their embassy for two weeks unlike certain difficult countries!

Many thanks to Jerry O Donovan of the Irish Embassy here in Buenos Aires for helping with my initial enquiries and for smoothing the path for me, also  the wonderful Australian office manager Maria Ines for granting me this often hard to obtain 6 month visa 

Just as I was leaving the embassy I lost control and shouted out….

” I’m as happy as a bastard on Father’s Day after receiving my Australian visa. I can’t wait to hit the frog and toad down under….”  Tony are you loosing it? Are you going down? 

Then I took out my Australian/English dictionary and translated it….

”  I am really pleased to receive my Australian visa. I can’t wait to get on the road there. ”

Thats better Tony    Its a LONG WAY DOWN!  PLAY

Having said that, there is no better time than the present to announce that in the last couple of weeks I have had an offer by a very experienced ultra runner, masseur  and crew man who is excited at the thought of crewing for me through Australia!! I am excited too!!

His name is Michael Gillan from Melbourne, Australia. Thank you so much Michael.

Hawkers try selling all kinds of items on the subways. Even overpriced Argentine maps, he is looking for US$ 16 for this, crazy prices!

Because of this offer I have changed my Australian route to my dream route –  the old pioneer route, right through the center of Australia.Because of this new route Tasmania now comes back into the route making my route even more joined up.

 After Tasmania. I will run from Melbourne, departing around St Patrick’s Day. I will run right through Alice Springs and the Northern Territories as far as Darwin in the north Arriving there  mid to late June. By the way my plan is to finish off South America by Christmas and run the two New Zealand islands in January and February.

It will be hot, very hot but I will have a support vehicle and a great crew man. And I will be over dosing on High5 Sports Nutrition which have kept me well hydrated over my 7,000km route over the Andes mountains.

Tasmania route press HERE

Australia route press HERE

My Irish timeout also gave me the opportunity to reexamine my Asia route, which had already been thoroughly researched. After about 8 late nights I came up with a shorter route across Central Asia, saving about 3,000km. It just happens one of my friends is walking through there at the moment! That is the Gobi Desert, see Christoph’s comments below!

I have many great friends to call on for much valuable information and advice. Some of them ex SAS officers, world runners,  2 world walkers, trans continental walkers like my German friend  Christoph Rehage on his second walk Across China. Christophe has always been a purist walker carrying a backpack but I did notice him pushing a cart recently in one of his photos. He gave me a very interesting reply tonight.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2012 at 2:25 am and is filed under jogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.