Friday 5th and Saturday 6th January, 2024 At Cosy Corner East

We went on two walks yesterday, the first in the late morning to Cosy Corner West, which is a nearby beach that is more sheltered than the beach opposite Cosy Corner East Campground.

It was cloudy all day yesterday and cool enough to deter us from swimming, nevertheless there were swimming lessons in progress. In Albany you just have to go for it as you can’t rely on having warm, sunny weather just when you want it. However, it does happen and it can be quite hot, mid thirties, sometimes.

In the late afternoon we went for a walk in the other direction. We were looking for a lookout, but I don’t think we went far enough along to find it. We started inland and it was pretty warm on the track away from the beach. We arrived back to our campground approaching from the rear. It was actually hotter at that end of the campground than in our campsite, either due to being closer to the beach or being more sheltered from the sun. Probably both.

After tea we set up the projector and watched the movie Maestro based on the life of Leonard Bernstein, with a particular focus on his complicated relationship with his wife. Good acting and an interesting choice of scenes for exemplifying their lives made it very good entertainment. I’ve been thinking about it on and off since, surely the sign of a good movie.

This morning we went out for a walk getting away about 1.5 hours earlier than yesterday. Once again we went to Cosy Corner West, and this time climbed up the stairs to the Bibbulmun Track. Heading further west along the track took us eventually to the next beach, Hartman’s Beach. To reach the shoreline we had to go down a steep, gravel road, which was quite stressful as we were afraid of slipping and falling.

Once there we asked if we could get back to the Cosy Corner West beach via a beach path, but there wasn’t a way through, which meant we had to climb back up the steep road and go back along the same path. We contemplated asking one of the 4WD owners to take us up the road, but gave up and tackled it on foot. In fact, it felt much safer going up and even seemed shorter because we could look around us more.

The walk back was more enjoyable than I expected, and curiously felt shorter as well. After climbing down the stairs we were able to walk back along the beach to the campground and appreciated how much fresher the air was compared with on the bush walk. There were quite a few wildflowers on the walk, small, shy bush flowers, very pretty if you take the time to look.

We had eaten muesli bars on the walk, but still appreciated our quickly made sandwiches and bananas on return. As with yesterday I had a long afternoon nap before our normal afternoon tea of cups of black tea and biscuits.

From the photos you’d think that the clouds make it rather gloomy, in fact it has been a joy to walk in the current weather with maximum temperatures of about 22C and mostly cloudy.

Of course, the photos don’t make clear how steep the road is.

Thursday 4th January, 2024 Albany to Cosy Corner East Campground

Yesterday morning I went out to see what I could find for breakfast. The main aim was a coffee. The IGA has stopped making bacon and egg toasties and the cafe I went to only had sweet items, so I settled for coffee. Apart from that we had our normal breakfast of cereal and fruit.

We had a fairly good night in the carpark, being woken by freight trains occasionally, and once by someone shouting. Stephen spoke with another van person who advised us that there is sometimes trouble in the IGA carpark and staying in the convention centre/hotel carpark over the other side of the railway is a better overnight option. We shall try it.

I decided to cook a spaghetti bolognese for our evening meals at Cosy Corner, so we shopped for that specifically, as well as whatever else we would actually need for our planned three night stay. This means we are not trying to store things that aren’t important. There is a little local cafe and general store within about 3kms, but unfortunately it is now closed. Our nearest store is about 10kms away and we would have to drive there. So, we hope we have covered everything we will need.

Drinking water is the main thing that holds us back for long stays off grid, but we have refilled the water tank a few times now and could drink that water boiled if necessary.

We filled and emptied at the main Albany service point before heading out to Cosy Corner East. On arrival we drove around the campground. There were a few vacant places, but the No. 1 space looked the best. It’s very close to the toilets so we are hoping we don’t get a smell. On the other hand we have a certain amount of privacy and a bit of shelter from the wind. It’s also fairly flat.

I spent about half an hour trying to pay at the parking meter that is used to pay for camping. But, later found that you don’t have to download the app, you can just manually pay and get a ticket. Next time! In the evening the campground host came around to check and was surprised when I showed him our camp booking on my phone.

We went for a bit of a walk along the beach before coming back here to do the cooking. A rare event, I used the gas stove top, but it was handy as I needed two saucepans, one for the sauce and one for the pasta and green beans. Stephen chopped up a large carrot into small pieces for the sauce.

I found a fairly good spot for the Starlink and it has been performing quite well. We won’t leave it on all of the time, but I need it for this blog for uploading the photos and we will need it if we want to watch something on Netflix. We have another movie in mind that is available there. For everything else the weak, slow 4G signal should be enough. We listened to a podcast last night on healthy living and that worked just fine. Starlink uses a fair bit of power and so far we haven’t had much sunshine today.

You can click on the images to bring up the gallery so that they are full sized.

Last year I read adventure novels by Alan McDermott, The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathon Haidt, The Palestine Laboratory by Anthony Loewenstein, The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls byKara Dansky, Born in the right body: Gender identity ideology from a medical and feminist perspective by Isadora Sanger, The end of the world is flat by Simon Edge, Tough Crowd by Graham Linehan, The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart, The strange death of Europe by Douglas Murray, The Gran Tour by Ben Aitken (and some of his other novels), including Dear Bill Bryson. Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, Trans gender Identity and the new battle for women’s rights by Helen Joyce, Material Girls: Why reality matters for feminism by Kathleen Stock, The man in the bunker by Rory Clements, 4WD Driving Skills: A Manual for On- and Off-Road Travel by Vic Widman, and many, many more, far too many to list. One of the great joys of being retired. But, it means I sit too much.

3rd January, 2024 Tendenup to Albany

Yesterday morning we had a few showers whilst we were getting up and preparing to leave. Rain was pouring off the roof onto the ground next to the driver’s side door, which I took as a good sign that there was enough rain to do some cleaning of the solar panels. Later, as we were driving to Albany there were some heavy showers, with the added benefit that we were travelling, making the rain even harder. The upshot was that when we parked up in the IGA carpark and had our 200w panel facing the afternoon sun and the two 120w panels getting some sun we ended up with a maximum yield of 431w. The solar charger reported going into float, which almost never happens when we are using a lot of power.

As we are planning to camp for three nights on the beach it feels good to know we have clean solar panels. The days will be partly cloudy and I’m not sure how much charging will happen each day when we aren’t driving.

We had a plan to go to listen to the Albany Shantymen, but it turned out they perform on every second Tuesday night. I had confused the dates. When we enquired it turns out that you have to book and most people get in early to make sure they get a place. So, we’ve missed out for this trip, but perhaps they will go to the Fairbridge Festival in April, where we have already booked.

We arrived at lunch time and bought a bagette from the IGA to have with ham, etc. I managed to drop our salad onto the floor, and as it contained beetroot (not much juice, but still messy), so we just had the beetroot part to have with ham and cheese.

After a rest we took a walk up to the historic Albany Hotel for coffee, etc. Most of the cafes were closed by that time, but pubs are open and the coffee was good. We were close to the town hall and Stephen went off to see the exhibition of art whilst I was reading.

The pub advertised skimpy barmaids from 4.00 p.m. My tribute to art was to check this out, pretending I was going to the toilet. I was very impressed by the woman in ‘skimpy’, she looked pretty baddass with tattoos, piercings and interesting makeup. I’m sure the men would be too much in awe of her to give her any nonsense. The clientele were a bit rough, as far as we could judge, so there is another pub, the one that has the Shantymen performing, that seems more our style. It has a very nice outdoor area.

A Chinese meal beckoned, there is a small restaurant in the next street where we have bought takeaway in the past. It seemed nicer to eat in, so we went early hoping it wouldn’t be crowded, and it wasn’t. They leave the door open, which made it almost chilly, but I appreciated the good ventillation. It seems to be a very popular place, with lots of people coming in for takeaway. We ordered a meat meal and it came with lots of vegetables, always much appreciated.

Overnight there are occasional freight trains and I woke up twice, usually only once. But we still slept well. We had watched the end of our movie and it was all downhill as the conductor’s past came back to bite her. Even in the lowliest job of conducting an orchestra playing the music for a film (WASO has done this, with WASO chorus as well), they showed her being dedicated to the music and spending time working on the score. The film was Monster Hunter with the audience in costume. One review suggests that this ending may have been a hallucination. There had been other suggestions that she was having hallucinations.

Anyway, Cate Blanchette, playing this complex, mad and bad woman, was amazing. The character was allowed one redeeming feature, her love for her adopted daughter. In the end, her partner does not allow her to see the child, which possibly led to a complete breakdown.

I set up the projector for the movie and it really was so much better than trying to watch it on the Macbook Air.

This morning we have shopping to do before heading off to Cosy Corner for a few days. I wonder if we will get a camping spot. It can’t be booked. There is another option, Shelley Beach. Anyway, fingers crossed we will find some camping by the beach.

Tuesday January 2nd, 2024 Boddington to Kendenup

I didn’t take any photos yesterday, so the above is a photo of a meal we had at at small Korean restaurant close to our home in Victoria Park.

We nearly zagged yesterday as there were two ways of getting to Kojonup, one down Albany Highway and the other an alternative that would have taken us to Quindanning where there is a very nice old pub which offers free camping in exchange for patronage. Apparently the food is good. We thought we might check it out for future reference.

However, sanity prevailed. We really wanted to make it here to Kendenup and Albany Highway was the best and fastest route. It was extremely busy, mainly cars, and without huge trucks on the road it wasn’t stressful. I could only do 90kms an hour due to strong, gusty winds which tried to lift the Sherwood off the road. Having a sail (C class motorhome) and a vehicle with a high wheel base makes this seem a possibility, however remote.

Although we often ended up with a ‘tail’ of cars, it seemed to be partly the normal clustering of vehicles that happens when it’s busy. The fairly frequent passing lanes and the ability of cars to pass in small gaps meant that we didn’t really hold other drivers up. Caravans have a bit more difficulty obviously.

Before leaving Boddington we went to the dump point, located just outside the Mens’ Shed, poor things, and then went to the local IGA.

As I was walking there I was hailed by Carl in a rental car who explained that as he is quadriplegic it quite a business to get out of the car. He was wanting a coffee and wondered if I would check for him and ask one of the shop assistants to come out to his car. I offered to get the coffee instead and he gave me his card to pay for it. There is a coffee machine instore, automatic, and I had fun trying to capture the errant milk which sailed past the cup and onto the floor. Anyway, he got a partially full cup of coffee, not very hot, for $3.00. I apologised. He was grateful nevertheless, but I wish it had been a beautiful, steaming cup of hot coffee.

We bought food for the day, prepared salads, cold meat, and some fruit. We don’t yet have a plan for our time in Albany, but are hoping to plan beachside camping at Cosy Corner and East Bay with going to events in the town. First of all we have to find out what’s on in Albany.

We had lunch in Kojonup with lovely fresh rolls and the food we had bought in Boddington.

We were surprised to find the Kendenup campsite fairly empty, or at least just a few vans, and were able to take our favourite spot in a clear area away from other vans but not far from the ablutions. We phoned the caretaker who came to take our money ($20) and thereafter used the toilets, Stephen had a shower, and did our dishes at the outdoor washing up point, which has hot and cold water.

We had leftover salads and an omlette for tea.

I couldn’t be bothered to set up the projector so we watched the movie Tar on the laptop. The projector is better, so will use that next time. It’s a strange movie and the story unfolds without fully explaining the plot points, so you have to be patient. The focus on music was enough to keep us going through some not very interesting scenes at the beginning.

So, we are not far from Albany and will go there today.

A rough plan has been made. Tonight we will go to the Six Degrees (pub) to hear the Albany Shantymen. They were featured in a Bill Bailey documentary on Western Australia which aired recently. On Wednesday we will go to Cosy Corner to see if we can get a spot for 3-4 nights. On Sunday afternoon there is a concert at St John’s Anglican Church in Albany. Then on Monday we can go out to East Bay to see if we can get a camping spot for 3-4 nights. There is a second camping ground close by which would work if we can’t get a spot. At this stage none of these camp spots require pre booking, but it does mean you take your chances re availability.

We will need to set off for Perth on Saturday 13th in order to give us a couple of nights on the road before arriving on Monday 15th, in good time for Matt’s appointment on the 16th.

14-15th December, 2023

Stephen hasn’t finished with his music commitments for the year. He sang with The Real Sing in the city last Saturday night, with the WASO Chorus at the Children’s Hospital on Tuesday morning, and at Rockingham Shopping Centre Thursday night. His last gig is this coming Tuesday evening at Bentley Hospital with an small group of singers, mostly from the WASO chorus. And possibly me.

Last year when he sang in Rockingham in the evening, 6.30 – 8.30 p.m., we took the Sherwood and stayed overnight at an unofficial camping spot on the beach at Naval Base. When I was looking up places to stay another place came up as a possibility, Wells Park. It is closer to Rockingham and has a cafe within walking distance, which meant we wouldn’t have to take food for the morning.

As last time we thought it would be wise to check it out before going to the shopping centre. And it is lovely, but the large signboard on a truck said there was no overnight camping. It practically yelled at us. We were disappointed, but there was still Naval Base as a possibility.

We had dinner in the food hall at the shopping centre, then Stephen’s choir sang for two hours. They get paid for these gigs, so very worthwhile. I did some Christmas shopping and then went back to the Sherwood to do some planning. What if we didn’t go to the beach and could we find a camping area not too far away? Which is where Jarrahdale came in.

It is about a 30 minute drive, practically due east, and doable provided I felt up to it and didn’t mind driving through bush in the dark. I decided I was up for it. We followed Google’s instructions and got there safely. At that stage we didn’t have food for the morning and I hadn’t checked online for cafes. Turns out there are two lovely cafes within working distance of the camping area.

Jarrahdale provides a large area on the edge of the town. Much of it is sloping and in the dark we weren’t able to find a level spot. We put up with the slope.

There were quite a few other campers and we weren’t sure if they were there for the Geminid Meteor Shower. Stephen actually did get up in time for the ending but as the sky was slightly cloudy and we had a bright streetlight about 500m away it wasn’t really dark enough. I’m glad we didn’t set an alarm for it. I only noticed that Stephen went out when he was getting back in.

In the morning we had cups of tea, showers, then walked up into town to find a cafe. We stopped at the first one, It has a lovely outdoor area, but is nice inside if the weather is too hot or cold. The new owners have been there since September and are hoping to make a go of it. We shared a cooked breakfast and it was ideal for two people.

It had been quite cool overnight and the morning was fresh without being cold, really ideal weather for our overnight escape. Our only worry was that Stephen forgot his medication and missed doses for the evening and the morning. I put out some Panadol in case he had a headache. He seemed fine.

It was just over an hour to drive home. We felt satisfied that we had had a good experience.

Our January trip to the Albany region will be a bit shorter than usual this year as Matt has a specialist appointment on the 16th January. Our plan now is to leave Monday January 1st and return on the 14th or 15th so that I can go to the appointment with him. We still have a booking with a private specialist in March, but this one in the public system has come up first. I did a quick search on Google which explains why he is seeing a specialist.

“Leukoplakia is a condition that creates white patches on your tongue, gums or the inside of your cheeks. The patches don’t hurt but they don’t go away. Leukoplakia may look harmless, but the condition may become oral cancer. Talk to your dentist if you notice white patches in your mouth.”

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.