JOHN & TED ARRIVE IN PERTH

The Team arrived safely in Perth on Monday 16th August and John will spend time with his wife, Kay, and members of his family before the Team departs on Tuesday 22nd August for Mandurah and Busselton.
John has indicated that his odometer reading is over 4,300 kilometres.
An outstanding achievement as they turn east for the journey home to Bairnsdale in November 2004.

News from the Team
"Well your southbound Bike Team are trundling along and continue to whittle away the miles to Perth - this is No.1 major target. Whenever John is asked about the target ahead, he clearly states he takes it one day at a time - you just can't quite anticipate conditions ahead and every little thing can have an effect, but as you can imagine, Perth is a bit of an exception as he is really looking forward to seeing his family there and our aim is for next Monday, 16th August.

We arrived in Carnarvon in good time on Monday 2nd August but to our coldest day yet - strong cold winds and a rush to dig out warmer clothes. Again a wonderful Rotary welcome - we were hosted in 3 homes close together downtown, walking distance to everything. After settling in, we were guests at the Rotary meeting that night - again John was able to speak.

John at School

Tuesday was full-on - first appointment at the East Carnarvon Primary School which turned into most of the morning - what a lovely school, the staff all came to have morning tea with us, then it was to the library with several classes of delightful children all eyes at John's presentation. The staff gave us a very generous $100 donation The afternoon was spent with one host, Gary, kindly taking us all around the town and surrounds - along the plantations of the Gascoyne (yes, bags and bags of mandarines, pumpkins, bananas, grapefruit & capsicum found their way into our van).

East Carnarvon Primary School

We really had a wonderful tour, then were guests at a dinner party which followed - their son is a professional fisherman and the biggest meal of prawns and scallops I have ever seen was put before us. What lovely people. It's a tough life being on a bike ride!

Early departure next morning, before daybreak, out along the HMAS Sydney Memorial Drive and out into the wilderness again. Long straight coastal road - something like 81 miles (yes, they say miles) without a corner - low coastal shrub land, red sand, and on this occasion water lying all around. We had been so nervous we might have off-road problems with camps, but the sandy surface crusted up daily before us and not once did we get bogged. We had been promised wildflowers from here and I liked one lady's description of "shy" flowers - they certainly were there but you had to go looking. This is the advantage of being a back-up team - hours of scratching around and thoroughly enjoying the finds. Bunches of flowers ended up on our "dinner table" for discussion and yes, even the men enjoyed them. Only rarely did we see big splashes of colour - perhaps the rain, perhaps too early in the season, don't really know.

Roadside flowers WA

The winds got stronger and Friday 6th August gave us such strong headwinds we were almost blown backwards towards Broome. A most disappointing day. We found a campsite amongst trees and lit our first fire - it helped the morale somewhat. Late Sunday we had a surprise burst out of the scrub to suddenly see our first farms and wheat fields - the greenery was a delight to the eyes. For all this time we had been in red dirt, stones, rocky territory, and the change was most unexpected . We thought we were a bit too far out to make Geraldton on Monday, but upon reaching Northampton the scenery was magnificent and we were high enough to look right down on the most magnificent farmlands with the bluest ocean in the distance - downhill all the way, so whoosh, off they went and made the best distance of the trip - 116 km for the day and on one downslope John clocked 59.5 kph - a huge difference to the 10 kph of the previous week - he said he was hanging on tight! So we did make Geraldton after all and what a lovely town it is. We stayed 2 nights purely R & R - we kindly rejected the Geraldton Rotary hospitality as we all needed the day just to catch up on jobs and rest. The day itself was absolutely perfect - dead calm, very warm and sunny, and we really made the most of it, but did attend the Geraldton-Greenough breakfast meeting yesterday (John again guest speaker) before again hitting the road.

First view of WA farmland

The weather was too good to last, by afternoon we hit storms and on day 60 of the bike ride, we got drowned with torrential rain and for the first time turned back for shelter. Luckily the little historical town of Dongera was only 4 kms back so we took refuge in the lovely caravan park there - the proprietors looked after us so well and even gave Ted a warm dry bed for the night while the storms lasted all night. Conditions have gently improved all day today and looks like we are back on target so the bikers are much happier.

We have been asked if we are diverting to some of the lovely coastal resorts and features along the way, and the answer is no - we are focused on the one highway all the way in order to achieve our goal.

For further information, please contact the web page -www.mrrc.org.au/bikeride
Donations have continued to happen from Rotary Clubs and the community. At the moment over $16,000.00 has been raised to "Help the Children Hear" through the Bionic Ear Institute.

Clubs considering support along the ride and have not responded to requests, please Contact; John Butler -0351569 342 - ajejbutler@ozemail.com.au
The Team can be contacted on-0147 140 051 or 042 9855017 or tl_white@dodo.com.au