Day 25 – Cunderdin to Perth (161km + 15km)
In light of Alyce’s accident the day before, we entered our final day with mixed emotions. On the one hand, we were excited and relieved to be heading into the final day of riding, but this was coupled with some uncertainty as to how Alyce would pull up with little sleep and a raft of cuts, grazes and bruises.
After a week and a half of resisting the switch to WA time, we finally relented and changed our watches yesterday. This meant a 3.30am wake up with a 4.30am departure. To Alyce’s credit, she insisted on making her way back to the scene of the previous day’s crime to ride the final 15km into Cunderdin before embarking on the 161km to Perth.
Alyce back at the accident scene about to commence the ride
The sun was just breaking as we set sail for Northam, where we had arranged to meet Anita and Judy for morning tea. The first 70km were undulating with a light tail wind, and we had a pleasant break just out of Northam around 7am.
Riders at Morning Tea
Without much of an idea as to what lay before us, we arranged to meet the support crew at Mundaring for lunch, around 65km down the road, roughly 40km out from Perth. It wasn’t long before we realised that day 25 had a few surprises in store.
The generous shoulder and light tail wind that had accompanied the morning’s ride soon evaporated to be replaced with some long steep climbs, a growing cross wind and ever increasing traffic. This section of the ride was probably one of the more difficult we had faced in recent days and we were relieved to break for lunch a few hours shy of Perth.
Contemplating the final leg through to Perth
We spent a very pleasant break lying around in the sun, comtemplating the final run into Perth. Not long after hitting the road again, we were on the long descent into the outskirts of Perth, carefully navigating our way into Midland. Notwithstanding the best intentions of our Perth support crew, things went a little pear-shaped at this point as our best navigational efforts into the city went slightly awry.
After a few misturns, we opted to follow the rail lines into the city and stuck exclusively to footpaths as the shoulder on the local roads was now non-existent. Unfortunately, this blew out our estimated arrival time somewhat, but we were absolutely rapt when we got to town to discover that a police (pushbike) escort had been organised for the final run to King’s Park.
Our three police cyclists were absolutely fantastic and faultlessly guided us through the city, ducking and weaving through traffic at will as we followed blindly in their wake. It seemed like only moments later that we were heading up the road to King’s Park to a warm welcome from family and friends as our journey came to an end.
Riding into Kings Park, Perth
