This was our fourth year in a row! We were all trying to remember on the weekend, but found it difficult to be sure. I’ve checked back through the blog. The search only looks at titles and one year it wasn’t in the title, so now will be much more careful to put events and places in the title.This small music weekend is a fundraiser for the Perth Children’s Hospital and the full title is Little Folk in the Forest.

They had some cancellations and a person who just did not show up for his session, but there were still lots of musicians, singers and spoken word content to fill the program. We also had a chance to catch up with the many people we know who attend this type of weekend. There were some Working Voices folk, plus other people we see more rarely, but have come to know over the years.

The volunteers put on a cooked breakfast Saturday morning, and this is something we look forward to from year to year. The Blackboard Concert is held in a green dome in the beautiful garden. It was quite a warm weekend and we were a bit worried about the heat, but there was enough of a breeze to keep it comfortable. We Working Voices folk sang twice, once after the dancing on Friday night and also at the Blackboard Concert.

Friday and Saturday night were cool enough for jumpers and comfortable for sleeping. Sunday was the only really warm day, and although there was an air conditioner going, the room was a bit stuffy and hot, especially as we couldn’t have doors open without losing what cool air we had.

We had decided to have a late lunch in Dwellingup with Eversley. The concert was supposed to finish at 2.00 p.m., but then was going on for another hour, so we skived off. We had packed up in the morning and were able to get away fairly quickly to meet Eversley in the town. We went to the Longriders Cafe and Restaurant, which Stephen and I had visited last year, mainly as, apart from the pub, it was the only place open. We haven’t yet been to the pub, so that it something I would like to do next time we are in Dwellingup.

After an unusual and very tasty pizza, salad and cold drinks Eversley headed home and we went to a campsite, the Old Marinup Townsite, about five kms from Dwellingup. We first visited the dump point and filled up our water bottles with what we hoped was drinking water.

The beautiful cafe beside the Visitor Centre has closed indefinitely, so that wasn’t an option. When we first arrived in Dwellingup at about lunchtime on Friday we made our lunch in the Sherwood nearby so that we could use the nice toilets.

When we arrived at the Marinup campsite it was still warm, with the sun very bright. We put out the awning on the sun side and sat in the shade at the rear. The bugs and flies, which had been a problem outside all weekend, were still causing problems. We tended to cover up as much as possible to try to deter them. The flies didn’t bother our faces but the big March fly type creatures loved legs and feet.

We set up the Starlink as we wanted to talk to Matt via Facetime in the evening. I also used it for a short time at the music camp to look up the words to a song which we thought we might perform during the dinner break. However, no else was performing and it was a song that most of us hadn’t sung for a long time, but we thought we would join with people from another choir to sing it. Fortunately, as we would have been under rehearsed, it didn’t happen. I left the Starlink out overnight at Marinup, switched off to save battery power, and tucked in close to the Sherwood. We set it up again in the morning.

I’m not too worried about it being stolen. For some reason, although the dish is vulnerable to being driven over at campsites, people don’t steal them. It wouldn’t do them any good anyway as it is powered via the wireless router inside and can only work if you are the owner. So even if you bought a router and fixed the cable you’d had to cut to steal it you still couldn’t use it. But not everyone would know this, of course.

The nights at Banksia Springs had been still and cool, but our night at Marinup was a bit warmer, though with a strong wind which kept things comfortable for sleeping. We had parked away from the trees so weren’t worried about branches falling on us. It is also better for our solar system to be in the open.

In the morning we had a cup of tea, then went for a short walk on one of the trails. A mountain bike trail goes through the campsite. As we walked along I noticed a lot of loose gravel which would make it difficult for riding, unless you are very experienced I guess. We heard a lot of birds, but couldn’t actually see any. There was one flowering bush.

Eversley pointed out, correctly, that my main focus in the past three weekends away is the camping, rather than the events which lead to us travelling. Although I enjoyed all of the weekends for the actual events that motivated our travel, I particularly enjoyed finding interesting places to stay.

We have no more trips planned for this year, but hope to head to the Albany region as early as possible in the new year. We were very fortunate in the weather, especially this past weekend, as we now in a heatwave that is predicted to last until next Tuesday. It’s very unusual for late Spring. We can only hope that if the very hot summer happens as predicted that the Albany region will mostly be much cooler.

Friday 10th to Monday 13th, 2023

We went to the Songfest because Stephen’s choir, The Real Sing, was singing there. We found it fairly easy to get ready because we hadn’t completely unpacked from the previous weekend. We left the house at about 10.15 a.m. and arrived in Busselton in time for a late lunch. We went to the jetty area where there is a takeaway cafe with some indoor tables. After a good rest, food and short walk we settled in for the rest of the drive to the caravan park.

Normally at the Dunsborough Lakes CP it is quite informal, we are allowed to choose our own site and don’t worry too much if someone else takes it whilst we are still at the evening concert as there are plenty of free sites. This time it was quite busy and we were escorted to site 2.

We quickly ran into some friends also camping there. We had dinner and settled in before driving to the first concert at the Old Town Hall. We stayed for some of the other music as well as Stephen’s bit, and confirmed that although there are some good choirs, there are also some acts that are really sub par.

We arrived back at our site without any problems and had a good night’s sleep.

In the morning Stephen had two separate gigs in the main shopping area, one in a foyer and one in the open air at the markets. I found some unusual treats, cruskits, which we found interesting and tasty even though they are quite hard and need dunking in tea or coffee.

After that we found a beach park up for a short while before heading off for the afternoon concert at the Catholic Church. We found it sufficiently interesting to stay for most of the concert before heading down to the old town boat ramp for a rest. We were joined in the van by our old friend Ian. He’s very intense, best in small doses, but we are fond of him and he is always interesting to listen to.

In the evening we had tea at one of the houses where other choir members are staying. We sort of ate and ran because we wanted to get to the evening concert, fortunately some of the others did as well as we were joined by members of Coralie’s other choir, Peppermint, and they were singing at the evening concert. It was a good evening and we stayed until about 9.15 when the concert ended. There was ongoing music happening, but we wanted to get to bed.

When we arrived back at the caravan park a caravan was parked in our bay. The bay next to it was free, but we weren’t sure we could use it as there was a Campervan there on Friday night and we didn’t know if it would be coming back. I checked with the caravan occupants, they were most upset that I knocked on their door, and they confirmed that they had been given our site to be next to their friends and we had been reassigned next door. It would have been a courtesy if the caravan park managers had let us know, but I guess it was beyond their capacity.

In the morning we decided not to complain about not being told as we were leaving a bit late and wanted to get our money back for the key to the main gate. I hope the other people complained, but perhaps they were too grateful about being allocated our site to complain that we weren’t told.

We stayed for most of the concert at the Catholic Church where TRS performed once more, then went up to the primary school to catch the last few acts. It was well worth it as they saved the best for last.

It was well after 12.00 by the time it was finished and we thought we should have lunch before deciding where to go for the night. We drove along the beach and eventually found a large car park with a view of the beach. We had lunch and rested and explored around.

It became clear that it might be possible to stay the night and I asked a young Campervan owner who said that they had stayed a night previously and planned to stay Sunday night as well. We moved to a spot somewhat hidden behind bushes and after a bit of a cleanup of left behind rubbish had a comfortable spot for the night. There were bins for getting rid of the rubbish.

We had a peaceful night, no rangers came, and we didn’t try to get away early. We had explored along the path in the evening and in the morning just went down to the jetty to enjoy the morning. It rained in the early morning, just enough to bring down lots of dust from the trees onto the van. Fortunately there was a little rain on the drive home which mostly cleared it.

I’m not going to say where we stayed as we would like to stay there again and don’t want to alert the authorities.

On the way home we took a slight diversion and found a nice spot on the Mandurah estuary to rest and have a walk around. There was good birdwatching and a little cafe where I bought an icecream.

And then driving home. The freeway was busy and there had been a bit of a bingle at one stage. Still, when I’m tired I don’t want to drive fast all the way, so it was a chance to drive slowly for a bit.

At home we did some unpacking, but not everything as there is one more weekend to go in our three weekend cluster.

We were thinking of going to the Wongan Hills Wildflower Festival 3rd-5th November. The time had been set aside in our diaries when we were contacted by the partner of a friend living in Albany about a surprise 75th birthday party on Saturday 4th. We converted our trip to WH to a trip to Albany and accepted the invitation.

This turned out to be unexpectedly beneficial because there was a heatwave over the weekend, which we were mostly able to avoid by going south instead of north east.

On Friday we drove to Kendenup just north of Albany. Although it is over 300kms from Perth, quite a long distance for us to drive in one day, it was hot whenever we stopped for breaks during the drive and only became cool as we approached Kendenup. It was an incentive to keep driving.

Unusually we travelled via Albany Highway. It is the quickest route and as it was a short trip we wanted to save time and distance. The route is riddled with passing lanes, which definitely helps as it is fairly busy. Our first stop was at Bannister and as it was about 12.00 we had some lunch at the roadhouse cafe. There is a new little cafe there as well, which we went to explore. Having had lunch we just chatted with the owners and looked around at some of the goods. The roadhouse cafe has its own bakery, selling lovely cakes and fresh loaves of bread, so it has stiff competition, especially as it hosts toilets for customers only. I’m not sure if the new cafe can compete.

Our next stop was in Williams where we had a look around the WoolShed. It has not changed much, there is one air conditioner for the whole area, so still uncomfortable on a warm day. We decided to have cordial made in the Sherwood rather than buying cold drinks.

It was lovely to get to Kendenup in the late afternoon. As it was Friday evening the Country Club was serving meals, so we walked there, about 1.2kms away for our evening meal. The food was good and the atmosphere friendly. Kendenup offers a simple camping experience, with or without power (we chose without), with showers, toilets, a washing up sink with hot water, sullage at some sites and a drinking water tap.

On Saturday morning we made a leisurely start before heading to Mt Barker to go to the pharmacy and then driving down to Bayonet Head where our friends live. We had lunch at the nearby boat ramp and enjoyed the peaceful location. Our plan was to either overnight at our friends’ lifestyle village, or come back to the boat ramp area to stay overnight. They live somewhat out of town and I don’t like driving in the bush at night to go to a caravan park.

The surprise worked well, our friend’s partner had enlisted others to help with the plan, including brother in law taking him out during the afternoon whilst she got things ready. We really enjoyed the party, finding lots in common with our fellow guests, mostly of a certain age.

We asked our friend about parking with the RVs in the village, but he said that the new managers were sticklers regarding rules and might kick us out, embarrassing for him. So we took the second option. We thought we might be moved on by a ranger, but nothing happened. In the morning there were people walking dogs and using the boat ramp, but no one challenged us for our obvious overnight stay.

For Sunday night we decided to go to Katanning, one of our favourite overnight spots, with the Dome cafe a short distance away. We were hearing about wildfires close to Perth and it felt safer to stay in a town overnight as there could be other fires on the way. We drove up Chester Pass Road to enjoy the scenery, then on to Katanning. When we arrived it was still hot and I enjoyed a coffee at the Dome in the air conditioning.

Once settled we experimented with running the air conditioning from our EcoFlow Power Station, and when that was reduced to 20% switched over to using the Sherwood batteries. I was able to switch off battery charging in the Victron app so that we weren’t charging the batteries as we were using them. We have to run the cord out through the little exit point we use for our Starlink cable and plug the whole van into external power, actually batterympower. It would be handy to be able to do this within the ‘house’, but it works well with the normal 10-15amp adapter. We had enough power to run the air conditioning for about 4 hours. I only let our house batteries go down to 80% as we need the power for other things.

Even with the air conditioning, which I kept on a fairly conservative setting, we found the hot afternoon rather tiring and both ended up with headaches. Of course, we could have gone to the caravan park and had normal power, but where’s the fun in that! Anyway, the caravan park is too far from the Dome and we wanted to be able to walk there for breakfast Monday morning. Which we did.

I cooked our dinner on the gas stove Sunday evening. It seemed to take forever. Fortunately Stephen remembered that we were going to call Matt, I lost track of the days and hadn’t remembered it was Sunday night.

So, yesterday we drove to Wagin, where we stopped to visit the adventure park behind the giant ram before heading across to get back on Albany Highway. We had lunch in Williams at a little cafe on the highway and made a few other short stops on the way. About 70kms from Perth we went through a bushfire area, with lots of smoke, smoldering bush on one side of the road and lots of emergency vehicles and staff. There were signs to slow down, but otherwise it appeared to be safe to travel through the area.

We are now home for four nights before heading off to Dunsborough for the festival. Stephen’s choir is performing several times over the weekend. We will be home again Monday night, then off to Dwellingup for the Folk in the Forrest weekend the following Friday. Three weekends away in a row. We have too many rehearsals and events to simply stay away for three weeks. A benefit is that Matt can come to tea on Wednesday nights to make up for not coming on Sundays.