THURSDAY NIGHT
Again a great night and the owner of the Esplanade Hotel put herself out to make sure we were accommodated.  
 
Dinner at Busselton was its usual hilarious and very happy crew of riders and support teams eating well, enjoying moderately of course, a few ales or a glass of wine and then again being got at by the fine masters who seem to get more accurate and scathing as the days go on.
 
Winners of the jerseys that we give out every night were received with emotion and a great feeling of pride.   James Sutherland won the King of the Mountain which in his 8 years of doing this event he has not previously won, Strongman was won by Leon Jennings and the Poona winner last night was Steve Pettenon – all riders had a story to tell and I apologise for not recognizing the previous winners of these prestigious awards.    However, at the end of the Ride we shall list all winners on the final blog.
 
FRIDAY
 
What a day – again hot – our alarms went off at 5.15 am – 3 school visits and one Civic Reception at the Performing Arts Centre in Mandurah!
 
The schools today were all new schools that we visited – Bunbury Snr High which was great and we talked to a group of year 10, 11 and 12 students who lined the oval to greet us as we rode in.
 
We were all taken to the gym where Jenny introduced our Bunbury Youth Counsellor, Joanne Edmonds and thanked the school for welcoming us for the first time.    The head boy and girl presented a cheque to Joanne and she in turn gave them our Certificate of Appreciation – many questions flowed after Kim Harrison’s presentation which of course he managed very well, feeling right at home in the school surroundings.    Pete Trench spoke at length to ABC Radio in Bunbury and it was played to the south west audience at 9.30 am this morning and the Bunbury Mail are also doing a story with photos of the mornings presentation.    A great success and we look forward to making it an annual event.
 
Then off again to Australind Snr High where our Youth Counsellor Joanne again met us together with their Chaplain.    The Year 9’s of which there were about 130, seated themselves in the gym  while Matt Kelly also involved his team and had the students tuned in to his presentation.  As we arrived those 130 students welcomed us with a resounding cheer.   Again Joanne was given the honour of presenting the Certificate of Appreciation.    This was also a great visit and I am sure we will do it again.
 
Again on the road to Mandurah after watering and feeding – my gosh these guys and gals eat and eat and sometimes I wonder where they put it but then again I am not on a bike peddling like hell to keep up my strength.
 
We arrived in Mandurah and lunch had been organized by Halls Head Community College – again we were in the gym and all the Year 10’s were waiting for us – we lost a bit of time getting here with a few punctures – Di Scott had two within minutes of one another – I was amazed that they go off like a fire cracker and in the many rides she has done she tells me she had never had one – definitely her lucky day because they occurred at the school before we left.
 
As the riders were 20 minutes late we changed the format around at this school – I did my presentation just to the students which works well as it meant we could talk in more detail about our services and the counselors that work with them within the Mandurah area where we operate from the Billy Dower Centre in town.   Again the school presenter, Brendan Arundell did a great job and had prepared music and questions that related to the music – he involved his team members who sat with a young person and they were then involved in reading out the quotes from the prepared manuscript – well done Brendan.
 
Next stop the Performing Arts Centre where we were greeted by many invited guests to the reception which was hosted by Alcoa Pinjarra and Wagerup.     The Shire President, Kim Hames representative and many other councilors from the Mandurah City Council attended, together with a number of VIP’s.  
 
The Mine Manager presented Youth Focus with a cheque for $10,000 and the Billy Dower Centre (where our office is situated with our two counselors) with a cheque for the programmes they run for the local young people for $20,000.   Afternoon tea was served, again with great food and a very welcome cup of coffee or tea instead of Gatorade or water which all have been living on for the past 5 days.   Throw in the Carboshots and muesli bars and 5 days constantly sort of starts to tell you they are ready to have a change of diet – so today the Miami Bakery was just too tempting – 48 pies somehow appeared from nowhere with that well deserved can of coke – normally we are so healthy on this trip but we are nearing the end of the journey and they all informed me nothing had tasted so good!
 
Well we are off to Hogs Breath Café tonight, massages are now finished and everyone is getting ready to let their hair down – speaking of hair and outfits – the GSC Team has set a standard of dressing up every morning and we all wonder just what they will wear – today it was boxers over their nicks – quite a sight and I must comment that Iddles hair is starting to look somewhat jaded definitely needing some additional gel to make it “stand up”.
 
Well that’s it from me – I will try and write a blog on Monday to finish this wonderful journey for those who have been tuned in to my ravings – with our totals at $690,000 tonight and cut off not until the end of May, that magic figure of over $700,000 is looking like a walk in the park but it isn’t as these people have worked so hard to make this happen – all I can say as the CEO of Youth Focus who has been on 6 out of 8 rides, this is an incredible amount of money from 44 people and our sponsors – each year I feel so humble to sit at the head of this very special organization with very special people that I have just shared the past 5 days with – they are nothing short of fantastic and so are their families just as special – because without them they couldn’t do it so thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for caring about our future, our young people.
 
Cheers for now - Jenny