"This is my bedroom. This is my food station. This is my toolkit. And this is my wardrobe, where all my clothes are."
It is not what it sounds like.
Rupert Guinness's bedroom, food station, toolkit and wardrobe are all in the same place - on a bicycle.
The Indian Pacific Wheel Race is a race like no other.
It goes for 5,500 kilometres, and riders have no support whatsoever.
They must find food and water, sleep under the stars, battle their way through the natural elements and monitor their own health.
That is a hard enough task for an elite athlete, let alone a 55 year-old man.
But the cycling journalist feels he is up for the challenge.
Guinness says that challenge is about extending himself.
"I think I've covered every base I can think of. And I also believe that the human being has a lot more of a survival instinct in him or her than probably what most of us have really experienced in modern life today."
Starting beside the Indian Ocean, the course follows a path across Western Australia, the Nullarbor Plain into Adelaide, the Victorian coast, the Australian Alps and on to Sydney.
It finishes at the Sydney Opera House.
A rider has to stay both physically and mentally strong.
To prepare, Guinness has undertaken a gruelling training program, including pre-dawn sessions in the gloom, that started five months ago.
He has covered the Tour de France as a reporter for 30 years, and reaction to him moving into the rider's seat from some of those he has covered over the years has ranged widely.
"It's funny, actually, because I've let a couple of riders know, like Richie Porte and Rohan Dennis, and they thought I was crazy. I spoke to Lachie Morton, who rides for Dimension Data, who loves these sort of rides, and he just told me I'm going to find peace in the suffering."
For Guinness, it is the biggest challenge of his life.
Up to 80 people will compete in the race.
He does not expect to be among the front-runners but, rather, says just completing the race would be worth so much.
"I really want to finish. And I've just got to keep reminding myself that the sense of achievement will far outweigh anything I could ever get on a bicycle - that I know of, anyway."
And if he achieves that goal, he may go back to what he does best.
He is planning to write a book about the experience.
