2 Poles, 7 Summits, 13 Ironman's and 196 Countries

🇦🇺 25th March It begins.  4:00am the alarm goes of and as quietly as possible I leave the bedroom, as not to wake Orlando or Elle.  Though I am quite sure I have.  Breakfast was porridge and a banana. Last preparations though most were already done. With almost no cold weather gear, so hard to pack for cold from Singapore a small jumper is all I brought, I wore my wet-suit with my only jumper on top. At about 4:45am the knock came on the door, it was my brothers, Jonathan and Chris, it was time to go.  The slow walk down to the St Kilda foreshore, we discussed how we all slept, I had slept quite well all things considered, Chris  dreamt that he had already done the race, finishing but unhappy with the time.  We all laughed how nice it would be to have already finished, the butterflies gone replaced by the high of accomplishment.  But that was not the case, there was a long day ahead. The buses were lined up at the foreshore, e...

Tuesday 20th The day had finally come it was our trip to Australia, while only a week there was a lot to fit in.  First we would go to Sydney for three days, then it would be of to Melbourne for the Ironman, I had been training for about 6 months and was a little nervous as there had been some hiccups along the way.  But before this was Orlando's baptism. I would think it rare for anyone to have crammed as much into their first nine months of life as Orlando, outside the trips to the Maldives, Malaysia and Darwin there has also been the rock star welcome home in Sydney as his uncles and aunts clamor for a cuddle and a smile, which he is happy to oblige.  Then there is the hospital, our little man went through his first lip operation in November last year and on the 11th April will undergo hopefully the second and last operation for his palate.  On top of this he has learnt to eat, sit up, hold a bottle, play, crawl, trying to stand, get his own way, talk...