Friday 5th September, 2025
So, after three days of sunshine and exploring we heard that rain was on it’s way and have come to Merriden to sit it out. It seems wise to be on a firm site and to have power and water on tap, as it were, for a couple of nights. Although we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning by the time we left our campsite the wind had picked up and clouds were gathering.
We left home on Tuesday morning, heading for York. Of course, as it was on our way, we stopped first at Mundaring to buy bread and have lunch at the nearby cafe. We also shopped at the Coles supermarket. It has been a very busy time, with one choir working hard on songs for a variety of gigs and Stephen singing all week with the WASO Chorus getting ready for the Friday and Saturday night concerts.
Last Friday I experienced quite strong vertigo and nausea and couldn’t eat for most of the day, though the left over curry in the evening was enough to tempt me.
Various communications from Matt’s staff kept me up to date with his flu like symptoms and visit to the local Urgent Care clinic where the doctor panicked and sent him off to Emergency at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital. Thankfully he was provided with staff to wait out the long hours until they eventually realised he wasn’t ill enough to admit to hospital and he was discharged with antibiotics. Apparently he has Influenza A. And no, although I sometimes brought it up with staff, he hadn’t actually been vaccinated.
I went into the hospital on Saturday and waited with Matt and his support worker until he was discharged. Not fun, and Matt was clearly very tired after being all night in hospital. Fortunately, the staff got to change shifts in the early morning, so they didn’t have quite such a long time in hospital.
On Sunday Stephen and I went to visit him at Villa 3 and sat outside so that we felt safe from catching what he had and me giving him what I had (I had worn a KN95 mask at the hospital). Unfortunately Stephen picked up a virus, likely from his colleagues in the choir and has cold symptoms at the moment. I still feel a bit under the weather, but not actually ill.
On Monday we tried to get ready for the trip, but still had a very intense rehearsal with the new Mackie St group. This is for the more dedicated members who want to have a good choir and do gigs in nursing homes, etc.
So, that left Tuesday to finish off getting ready, we could have left it a day and gone on Wednesday, but we were keen enough to make sure we had done most things, except the shopping, before we left. We’ve talked with Matt a couple of times during the week, and this morning he definitely seems to be back to his normal self, and we didn’t feel worried about leaving, especially as we won’t be more than about 300kms from Perth on this trip.
York has a free camping area just across the river from the main part of the town, with a swing bridge over the river. We scored a spot overlooking the river, very pleased as one of our favourite things is camping next to rivers, the sea, and perhaps even a swimming pool. At least, that is what we have ended up doing here at the Merredin Caravan Park.
On Wednesday morning we did some more shopping and drove to a campsite at Kwolyin, which is between Quairading and Bruce Rock. We stayed two nights so that we could spend yesterday visiting Kokerbin Rock, which is about 12kms from the campsite.
Apparently camping was once allowed at Kokerbin, but they realised it was too small for the number of visitors and it was hard to maintain the nature reserve. So, they moved the campsite to Kwolyin. It is a large campsite, with different areas for tents and caravans. There are flushing toilets, a campers’ kitchen and some BBQs. Campfires are allowed in winter as well.
We could see everlastings from the van, but the orchids were also there in abundance, just one variety which we haven’t yet identified.
Yesterday was cool, partly cloudy, with lots of sunshine. We found the walk around the base quite easy, with lots of interesting rock formations (there is a Wave Rock, the Devils Marbles and an historic well), as well as a walk to the summit. We were checked out by a resident wedge tailed eagle, and apparently judged to be harmless as we were allowed to continue on our way.
Stephen and I walk separately, and he went for the summit walk first, whilst I took the little diversion to the well. I joined him on the summit walk (we didn’t go to the top, just high enough to get wonderful views), then I walked back and he went off to see the well.
On the way back I had a wonderful encounter with an echidna, which initially walked across the path, then decided to pretend to be a rock or a plant. This wasn’t very successful as I had enough zoom on my camera to see it breathing. Anyway, it stayed still as long as I was close, then moved away when I started walking again.
We didn’t see any other walkers, but I came across a large arrow drawn in the gravel pointing off the path. That could only mean one thing and there it was, an orchid, quite different to the ones we had seen at the campground. We didn’t see any other flowers on the walk, surprising us because there were everlastings and several clumps of orchids at our campsite.
After we both arrived back at the Sherwood and had a cup of tea I put the drone up to get some photos and practised taking a panorama of the area. Moderately succesful, but I had to work through a tutorial first, I’m not sure if I had a choice on this, but I guess it was useful as I don’t fly the drone often enough to remember how all of the controls work.
We arrived back at the campsite and chose a different spot this time. On our first day I had gone too fast through a wash out and tipped the Sherwood around rather badly. The Starlink fell on the floor and I had to fix a shelf over the stove which had slipped out of its fixings. Also, we were in the tent area and I felt a bit guilty about this and wanted to sort of make ammends by staying in the caravan area. However, there was no section for little vans like ours, so perhaps we were OK.
This morning we packed up after a leisurely start (most mornings on the road have leisurely starts of course), and headed to a cafe in Bruce Rock. Stephen had an enormous cup of chai and I had my usual flat white. I used the cafe wifi to send a couple of photos and videos to Matt using Whats App, which his support worker set up for him. She said it works better than other apps for photos and videos. Facebook is for old people, I gather.
We did some more shopping (we tend to do small shops in the towns along the way) and it helps to support the local communities which often provide very good campsites with good facilities. Flushing toilets are rare, but much appreciated.
We planned to stop at a nature reserve for lunch, but the wind was picking up and I didn’t want to park amongst trees, so we didn’t have lunch until we had booked in here, after 2.00 p.m.
We managed to forget about turning off the inverter and it’s RDC switch, fortunately it just caused the breakers on the post and in the van to go up, and after switching off everything we started again. I had written notes on the bag with the electrical cord about switching off the inverter and RDC (this is under the seat, but accessible through the side hatch). We use an internal switch normally, but it does leave the inverter in standby mode, and you have to switch it off properly when plugging in.
However, after some fiddling we managed to have a good lunch and settle ourselves in. Then came the rain, which had held off despite the threatening clouds.