We (I) woke up early and we (I) were ready by 7.00 am our body clocks are slowly adjusting, Janet’s a lot faster than mine. A breakfast and a cup of tea later we left the house cycling with Noel, first stop Bunnings (B&Q but Australian hence the giant barbecue section) where Shellite was sold for our stove.

From here we went to a volunteer group called Bessendean Preservation Group, which Noel is a member of, where we helped by sowing cuttings of Myrtle, a native variety to the Perth area. Once rooted the group then plant out in designated areas to restore the fauna back to its original state. Everything has to be disinfected due to possible contagion (yes there are zombies in Perth) with a soil borne disease, a very big thing here.

Volunteers planting cuttings

On our way back we stopped at a local bike shop to buy the map set for the Munda Biddi cycle trail, managing to get 7 of the 9 maps for it. This is the way we will leave Perth and get down to the south coast. It is 1100 km (690 miles for you metrically challenged) long which we will take around 6 weeks to cycle (assume we cycle for 5 hours a day what is our average speed in feet per day?) The Munda Biddi trail is the longest off road cycle route in the world and supposed to be in the top 10 best cycle rides in the world.

Our life for few weeks on a 9 pieces of paper (yes I know there is only 7 did you miss the above explanation?)

A random Ibis on the car park, apparently they are legally allowed to drive SUV’s in Western Australia, this one had lost it’s car

From here we returned to Noel and Connies where after checking if my Australian sim card is working, no is the answer. We then became olive pickers as Noel and Connie have one in their front garden, managing 10 kg, if they can get 20kg then it will be pressed for oil, there is a tree in a local park which should make it up to 20 kg.

Olives from an olive tree sigh!

The sum of our efforts

After this we rested and consumed a nice alcohol based lime drink, the limes were from their own tree, the gin from their own bottle of it. Janet went off to do some olive scrumping returning a hour and a half later with 5 kg more, she would have been later but an Ibis gave her a lift back, Connie was confident of getting the 20 kg tomorrow.

Then for our final night here we went out to Rifo’s Cafe and had a very good meal, lovely food, good portions and great company, somewhere we would recommend.

Lovely Lovely Lovely