Bunch of Aussie tradies on a table behind me in the Yacht club. The guy offering an opinion to his mate, was almost certainly called 'Bruce': "Mate, I got a good look at that Shelia that works in the flower shop Ay. Bit of a stern on er Ay"! Australia is a pretty classless society, with some having no class at all :-)

After a most wonderous cycle for 4 hours on a gorgeous first morning, the weather arrived. Buckets of it. x86 has been bucking and straigning against her fendors, ever since. The noise had me outside twice in the small hours, to check if the sounds of her being ripped apart bore truth. Thankfully not, but not nice. The screenshot tells all - look where the wind is coming from, that's the roaring 40's and the Antarctic down there.

I'm generally wearing a fleece, waterproof jacket and gortex legs. Locals are in sandles, tshirts and shorts, diving between cover in the downpores. They're not tougher than me, it's a relative thing - they've just come out of winter, I've just come out of Fiji.

It continues, day after day, but didn't stop me going on a 10k wet walk - then the pub, where my Garmin watch told me I'd earned an 'Intense 150' merit badge! On my walk I came upon 'Ridgey Didge Pies' - not somewhere easily passed. I didn't, likely therein devaluing my merit by 50%. Talking about food, I also spotted the nearest grocery. That's good, as I now have zero food aboard, except an old leather belt, to get me to Sydney. Scurvy's a thing.

If your not familiar with the speculated origin of the subject of this email, it's worth a read:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquialism)

All's well on x86, but she's gonna fight me next week, when I turn to head even further south.