Busselton and Ironman WA

Jason and I went to Busselton to meet up with some NZ friends, watch a bit of Ironman Western Australia and do some sightseeing. Busselton is about 3 hours from Perth and is essentially at the top of the Margaret River Wine Region.

Busselton is a beautiful seaside town. One of the key feaures is the massively long jetty... its about 2km long which makes it perfect for swimming around for Ironman.

Ironman day starts early for all... competitors and spectators alike. We arrived at the jetty around 5.55am. Look how beautiful it was with the calm sea and the beautiful sun making the sky a pretty colour.

While we were walking to the start line the pros started their long swim. It was 15 minutes between the pro start and the age group start so we had a bit of time to take some more photos and get a good spot on the Jetty.

It was sucha beautiful morning, here is a shot of the sun rise reflecting in the windows!
And the sun rising itself...
At about 6.15am the age group competitors were off... i must admit to having a slight pang of jealousy not racing! This is a good sign I think!
Arghhhh the sight of a triathlon swim... it can inspire fear in some competitors... I love it! The awesome thing about watching was seeing where the current pulled competitiors... so if I ever (thats a big if) do Ironman WA I know where abouts I should be swimming.
Here's a little more biffo in the swim...
After the swim had been going for a while jason adn I treated ourselves to a nice brunch looking out over the swim course.... there were swimmers spread out for mailes!
Here is a shot of the eventual women's pro winner- Gina Fergusson from NZ. She came in under 9 hours! An awesome effort and inspirational performance.
Here's Matt Illingworth, ex Brit, ex Wellingtonian, now Perth resident on his way to smashing the bike course record!
Here's Matt again... looking very fast!
This shot is designed to show you how hot it was... check out the heat rising from the road surface! I felt quite sorry for those racing as the day wore ona nd got hotter and hotter!

All in all we had a great day and it was nice to get down and see another iconic Ironman race! Well worth the trip and the sun burn that we suffered :-)