TDU Stage Five

For the fifth stage of the Tour Down Under, we set off with a picnic and a couple of outdoor chairs to get a viewing spot and watch the cyclists come past multiple times. Our chosen position was on the edge of the vineyard. Funny that.

Our picnic naturally included a bottle of local wine - the sweet pea moscato from the Battle of Bosworth winery.  Unbeknown to us, while we were quaffing this in the sunshine, the bones of Richard III were being excavated from a carpark in Leicester. Funny that.

Here they come!

Edvald Boasson Hagen in the Sky train

The Sky boys shelter race leader Geraint Thomas

Excellent driving advice...

...perhaps unheeded by this cyclist

The town of Willunga was bedecked in Tour Down Under colours (orange and purple) and, as it was also Australia Day, there was plenty of yellow and green on proud display too.

Old Willunga Hill has a lot of bends, a lot of climb, and a lot of supporters thronging its fringes. It was exciting. In a ftting result for the national day, Simon Gerrans of Orica Greenedge won the stage with Tom-Jelte Slagter (Blanco Pro Cycling Team) taking second place and moving into the overall lead.

The positioning of the screen at the bottom of the hill meant that those riders at the back of the race could watch the replays of the finish as they rode past and celebrate or otherwise in the outcome.

Andre Greipel (yesterday's stage winner and leader of the sprint classification) looks to the finish on the giant screen

Simon Gerrans does an on-screen fist pump while the remaining riders struggle up the final climb