Leg 6 Day 1: Perth to Mandurah

Up early to meet the new group at the Jetty. We are meeting up with Sheila and Norm as Sheila will be leading the group to Bunbury or as far as she can manage. We have two return riders on this group - Jacquei (Swiss living in Brisbane) who has ridden Cairns to Darwin, Darwin to Broome and Broome to Perth and then there is Jim (Kiwi) who has done Perth to Melbourne (the short way) and then the Murray Ride. Also along with these two we have five brand new riders, Doug & Di from Tassie, Fran from Scotland, Peter from NSW and Dennis from Melbourne. It is a beautiful crisp Perth morning without a cloud in the sky and everyone seems to be in good spirits and looking forward to the trip ahead.

We leave right on time at 8 am with Collis and Sheila leading them down the bike path beside the Kwinana Freeway. Collis just rode out to the start of the path to make sure they got on the right path then he rode back because we both have to drive cars on this trip and I have found that I have the worst sense of direction and couldn't find my way out of a brown paper bag let alone find my way out of Perth. In the end we both had to follow Norm. It was like old times.

The next two days are dedicated to Sheila. Sheila has done 4 rides with us in the past but has had some major health issues over the last couple of years and has not been able to participate even though she has been very keen to do so. Today is Sheila's 75 th birthday.

Morning tea was at the Hungry Jacks at Boldivis where the group came in off the path mostly still together. Doug, Peter and Dennis were in quite a bit before the others. We're already able to work out the gun riders.

Lunch was at the end of the day at Mandurah Bakehouse. Everyone managed to get lost but the girls disappeared. They were on the correct road but going in the wrong direction so Collis went out and got them. They were a bit embarrassed but you have to expect it to happen on the first couple of days.

Everyone went into the IGA for a food shop and then we discovered a Woolworths further down the road. Jackie got a bit ripped off with her food shop. Peter discovered that he had forgotten to bring his tent. He had brought along everything else including the poles and pegs but no tent. Lucky we bought a spare tent.