After breakfast we headed out of town and into the Karri Valley. Very nice scenery but quite hilly. Lots of ups and downs - mostly downs to start with (which is worrying when you think about it because obviously going down a hill means you'll need to go back up it at some stage) and then (as predicted) a lot of ups at the end to bring us out onto the plateau.

No particular things to note during this part of the ride except that most riders are starting to feel the distance - mostly in their bums. The halfway point of the ride was today so we've done (once finishing in Margaret River) around 400km. And that is a long way to ride.

I found the second-last leg of our ride today quite hard - it was a bit into the wind and I was feeling quite unwell after I ate something dodgy yesterday. But, a drink and a pie at the servo on Bussel Highway fixed me up and we caught the tailwind the last 30km into Margaret River, averaging over 35km/h.

The traffic was quite heavy on this leg - as you'd expect being the main road between Augusta and Margaret River but we made it safely even so thanks to our support crew who were shepherding the cars and trucks around us. Apparently there were a few cars who just didn't get the big sign on the back of our trailing van that tells them only to pass when the van driver waves them through. The front and rear cars of the convoy are in radio communication with each other and can therefore get cars past us even on double-white lines when they know there is no oncoming traffic. For vehicles that try to pass us when there is traffic coming down the road towards them (that they can't see) the rear van will try and block them but apparently some try to go around (and onto the side of the road) even so before they discover exactly why there is a large van parked directly in their path.

Once in town we stopped at the high school for our usual presentation. This time the kids were a bit cheeky and needed a bit of control. Once that was done, onto our accomodation for the evening.

Tomorrow is the big day - 235km to Mandurah with two high schools to stop at. It will be a very long day. But, everyone is riding well so it should all be good. The first 20km or so will be hilly as we head out of town but after that the rest of the ride is quite flat - this will present a problem if there are headwinds or if people start to get bored so despite the lack of rolling terrain we will still have to be very alert.