This was our first visit to Cherry’s ‘new’ house in York. She has been there a couple of years now. Although she makes weekly trips to Perth to visit friends and pick up grandkids for babysitting, she still finds she has plenty of time to herself, which was the aim of moving there. At first she said she wasn’t much involved in the local community, but she has been along to a couple of choirs and is presently participating in a book club as well as running Yoga classes.

When she was looking for a property she told the agent the land was more important than the house, consequently she is surprised that she has ended up with such a large house. However, it is handy for having children and grandchildren to stay and by not adding too much furniture she is able to take advantage of the generous kitchen/dining/living area. She has 4.6 acres on a sloping hillside, with an inner fenced area containing the house, large verandahs, shed and chicken run. In the cooler weather we have had for the last couple of days it was a very lovely place to be. There are a few large trees, but mostly smaller trees and shrubs. She has done a lot of work to tidy things up and plant more trees and bushes. She has pleasant view both uphill and downhill and the slope is quite gentle.

We parked on a flat space beside the house. It turned out to have quite a lot of morning shade, but I didn’t worry about the battery as we were driving home yesterday, which would give it a good charge. She invited us to an evening meal, so we left the food we had taken for our Friday evening meal and had it for lunch on Saturday.

We spent time in the morning sitting outside talking and enjoying the view down towards the river. She rarely has flow in her section of the river, but it seems to be quite moist, promoting thick undergrowth and lots of trees. She has glimpses of the grain storate beyond, but it doesn’t spoil the view, rather adding to the interest of the location.

In the late morning we drove up to Mt Brown to enjoy the views, then went to check out the new free camping area in town near the river. Cherry has invited us to come and stay at her place at any time, even if she is away. I was hoping the camping space, which is new, would have lots of trees and shaded areas, but it is rather regimented and there is only one really shady spot, which was taken. We had our lunch and a cup of tea before driving home. We had some shade, but although the temperature was pleasant, with a cool breeze most of the time, it was still better to be in shade rather than sun. Thereore, if we a going her way in future staying at her place is much the nicest option. We won’t over do it, most of the summer is likely to be very hot and it wouldn’t be much fun being in the van.

Stephen and I took turns with the driving. We were waiting for an opportunity for Stephen to get used to driving the van away from city traffic.