You can spec NZ all you want but there's no actual proof of NZ being visited at all... I still consider what happens between Argentina and Australia as unknown.
Also re Thailand, I don't think we can assume the leg was run on the 13th just because the picture was posted then. Is there enough time to travel from Thailand to Namibia, run a leg and then have teams purchasing tickets in Windhoek airport by the 15th? I was starting to think that the photo was uploaded a day or more later, I can't see how they make it to Windhoek and run a leg there in time otherwise.
I do think that our airport sighting is them purchasing tickets straight to Russia.. I had a look at flights and the Windhoek -> Frankfurt flight via Air Namibia seems a viable option to get them to Europe and onto Russia... but it would help if some flight guru could do a much better analysis.
This is how I think it pans out, based on our sightings:
Mar 9: Start at Uluru; fly via Sydney and HCMC to Siem Reap and complete night market tasks
Mar 10: Angkor Wat sightings + PitStop
Mar 11: Leg rest/travel to Thailand
Mar 12: Run leg in Thailand -- assuming delayed uploaded photo on the 13th
Mar 13: Fly to Namibia
Mar 14: Run leg in Namibia
Mar 15: Windhoek Airport sighting -- purchase tickets and fly to presumably Russia?
Mar 16: Unknown --possibly a Russia I leg?
Mar 17: Run Saint Petersburg leg
Mar 18: Unknown
Mar 19: Unknown
Mar 20: Run Lisbon leg
Mar 21: Unknown
Mar 22: Unknown
Mar 23: Unknown
Mar 24: Unknown
Mar 25: Unknown
Mar 26: Run Buenos Aires leg
Mar 27: Unknown
Mar 28: Unknown
Mar 29: Unknown
Mar 30: Run final leg in Victoria
Things I want to know/note:
1. Why is there only two days between Saint Petersburg and Lisbon -- does this suggest a leg in close proximity to Lisbon (Spain anyone?)
2. Where do we think they went between Lisbon and Argentina? Is a NA stop possible? I was thinking Brazil was the most logical place, but where else could they have gone?
3. We lose a day for the int'l date line towards the end of the race, so if there's a leg between Buenos Aires and Victoria it can't have a day dedicated to travel -- the entire leg would need to be run the day before the finale or the day after the BA leg.
I'm pulling this from Oval to use as a time guage, because it's easy to use while trying to spec the route.
After talking with Oval a bit, IIRC he thinks that there is a stop at NZ before Cambodia after the Starting Line, and also thinks the Starting Line is earlier than we thought. Oval, correct me if I am wrong
Here is what we know, we have 8 countries confirmed, all but US on MrDS's list, that leaves us with 2 more countries. One MUST be in North America (maybe the US) and that leaves us with one more to work with. The issue with routing this is we have to make up ALMOST 90,000 km. (I'm getting all of this info from the media thread) After trying to map it out, that is very difficult to achieve (Unless the media people are lying, we don't know
).
But here is what I think it is. What I find strange in the 4 day gap between Buenos Aires and Australia. It seems too much for Buenos Aires to be a penulitmate leg, but it's had with the international dateline. Before we were thinking NZ, but there is now a chance with NZ as leg 1, that throws that out possibly. There could be a leg after Buenos Aires in Argentina, but I think there might be an alternate solution (although I could be way off
)
I propose that before the final leg after Argentina, there is a visit in the Middle East close to Dubai (it could be UAE, maybe Qatar?) Teams would not cross the Pacific, and it works well in racking up miles going all the way back eastward. This conjecture also has flight evidence to back it up.
There are some flights going from Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo on the night of March 26th
JJ8011 EZE-GRU 1910-2150 (Actually 1930-2207)
AR1248 AEP-GRU 1925-2210 (Actually 1916-2214)
JJ8015 AEP-GRU 2210-0050+1 (Actually 2249-0122+1)
AU2276 EZE-GRU 2210-0055+1 (Actually 2207-0046+1)
G3 7685 AEP-GRU 2240-0135+1 (Actually 2235-0057+1)
QR772 EZE-GRU 2320-0200+1 (Actually 0201+1-0422+1)
TK16 EZE-GRU 2355-0245+1 (Actually 0147+1-0411+1)
Then from Sao Paulo, there is a flight leaving the night of the 26th to Dubai and one in the early morning of the 27th to Istanbul and Doha!
EK8262 GRU-DXB 2325-2100+1 (Actually 2329-2015+1)
QR722 GRU-DOH 0315-2045 (Actually 0539-0047+1)
TK16 GRU-IST 0415-2145 (Actually 0518-2230)
And all these land in the late night of the 27th or early morning! This leaves plenty of time to get somewhere that has easy access to Dubai (or maybe even UAE itself) maybe Doha to run a leg on the 28th.
(I know there are flights from both Istanbul and Dubai to Doha and I don't have time to look them up)
Then, teams can also easily make it to Melbourne/Victoria by the 30th in time to run the final leg because of these leaving the 29th and with plenty of options to get to Dubai
EK406 DXB-MEL 1010-0635+1 (Actually 1132-0753+1)
QF10 DXB-MEL 1055-0735+1 (Actually 1058-0745)
As well as this leaving on the 29th arriving on the 29th from Doha to Melbourne for Grant and production crew
QR904 DOH-MEL 0055-1025 (Actually 0109-1055)
~~~~~
So after all of this flight analysis, I have an idea that there may be a missing leg in between Buenos Aires and Melbourne, in the Middle East, very likely to be Doha, Qatar or Dubai, UAE, this gives us our 10th country, as well as getting close to 90,000 km. I cannot figure out any other way to meet these criteria any other way with the timeframe we have (but this could be totally wrong idk)