Date Published: 18 Nov 2010 10:02am
Author:Steve Moore
Continuing the excellent hospitality of last night and early this morning Darren took the red team on a sight seeing tour around Albany and finished it with complimentary coffees at the local cyclists café. Again thanks Darren for you have done to promote the ride and the cause and assist our crews. Anyone heading Albany way look Darren up.
South West WA has a unique feature in the towns names of this area, commonly a town name will finish in UP, Yornup, Mungunup, Palgarup to name a few. Must find out the origin of that, or if anyone knows please contact the website. The journey east has commenced, we can’t believe that we have been away for nearly 3 weeks, a reality check sets in when you look at the GPS tracker on the website and see the ever extending blue line. In less than a week we will be riding in towards the MCG, but there is still a lot of country to cover and plenty of kilometres left to ride.
Leaving Ravensthorpe mid afternoon we headed into wheat country, soft rolling hills and wide open plains. The riders worked into a fairly stiff head wind and soon we were fitting head and tail lights. The upside was that as darkness fell the wind abated and conditions were almost perfect for riding. A little chillier than we had become used to though.
In order to minimize the “kangaroo effect” the “White Maggot” replaced the Black Territory towing the Yellow trailer. The thinking was that we could use the sirens on the MFB car to scare away any roos in front of the riders. Don’t know if it worked as we didn’t see any anyway. Dinner was pre arranged with a hotel in Esperance. A couple of cars went ahead to collect dinner and all enjoyed lasagne and salad on the side of the road. A pretty uneventful evening saw us arrive in the thriving metropolis of Salmon Gums and transport ourselves to Norseman for our overnight accommodation. A small hiccup, some of the beds didn’t have linen or towels. After some persistent knocking on the door of the manager the goods were produced and heads hit the pillows.
Thanks to Shane Goss for the images. www.licoricegallery.com
Conan Daley of the red team awaits his ride in another leg around Australia, this time from Ravensthorpe to Salmon Gums.
Red team members Mark O’Connor (left) and Stephen Moore in the setting sun between Ravensthorpe and Salmon Gums in Western Australia.
Regards
Paul Manning, crew member for the red team, sports a loyal tattoo that signifies his recruitment into the Fire Brigade in 1996.
Red team crew members Lisa Blake and Paul Manning prepare the bikes for another leg on day nineteen.
Red team crew member Bill Weir snaps an unusual sock wall that is a protest against property developers in Albany.
Andrew Luedecke of the red team added an MFB sock to the protest in Albany.
Can you do my car next please Stephen? Stephen Moore of the red team keeps the HOSTPLUS Ford clean in Ravensthorpe.
Riders from the red team at the Anzac lookout in Albany where the waters head out into the Indian Ocean.