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.

So, we’re having a bit of a difficult time. On the Monday after we returned from Beverley I really thought I was getting better. But then, it seemed to freshen up. Plus Stephen has caught it now and he’s had a week mostly in bed, apart from getting up to watch the football, of course.

We dropped the Sherwood off on Monday morning to have it’s new fridge installed. This is a 12/230v fridge instead of the 3 way fridge. What are the advantages? Not having to worry about running out of gas overnight and waking up to a warm fridge. I’m delighted to find the new fridge runs much cooler and we will be able to use the pull out pantry next to it for storing food. Previously that spot was far too hot. Running on 12v means not having to light the gas when we stop on the road for a couple of hours. Sometimes it’s quite a struggle to get it going. The fridge looks smaller than the 3 way fridge, but actually has more internal capacity. It has a light that comes on when you open the door. Anyway, from our point of view it’s much more convenient.

I was surprised to get a call on Wednesday morning to say it was ready as they are very busy indeed. As Stephen was pretty unwell I caught an Uber over there to pick it up. Today I finished putting everything back so that we don’t have such a big packing up when we want to go away. Our first planned trip is the Dunsborough Songfest in mid November. The following weekend we have the Folk in the Forest weekend in Dwellingup. Plenty of time for us to get well!

Stephen is having to miss rehearsals for Ruddigore. He’s not too worried about the singing as he won’t be doing any solos and can muddle through. However, he does have some dialogue sections that do need to be rehearsed, so he is hoping to get back soon.

Local Uber trips work out well, it’s relatively cheap even with a $5 tip, working out to a total of $17.50. Sometimes it’s just so convenient.

I spent most of Friday gradually getting the Sherwood ready to leave in the morning on Saturday. I set up the second bed so that we didn’t have to worry about it later. It’s quite a faff getting the boards which make up the bed base out of the locker and setting them in place. Adding the extra foam cushion and making up the bed into a lounge area took time as well. We were happy with this configuration even though we didn’t have a dinette. It allowed for separation of sleeping spaces and it was much easier for getting up in the night.

We left home at about 10.30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Stephen drove most of the way from the beginning of Brookton Highway. We arrived after Marie and Geoff and they had already negotiated being able to set up before 2.00 p.m. The caravan park is quite nice, with trees, good ablutions and an open air campers kitchen. We made our lunch in the van, then sat outside. I didn’t want to be indoors with Marie and Geoff to minimise the chance of them catching what I have, whatever it is.

We were well placed for the location of the choir bash which is a short walk away. It has an open air stage and seating area with about three levels. Marie and Geoff went ahead and found a good spot for us with a tiny bit of shade. Although the day was partly cloudy we still appreciated being out of the sun.

Occasionally aircraft towing gliders went overhead, a slight distraction. The various choirs did their stuff to an appreciative audience. Mackie SS members I spoke with were surprised that I wasn’t singing, but looking in the mirror later I was looking healthy even if I didn’t feel it. Anyway, I didn’t want to get on stage and have a fit of coughing. In fact, I had quite a fit shortly after they were on stage.

The afternoon tea was as lovely as promised, though we had had a good lunch and weren’t particularly hungry. Home baked cakes are a rareity these days and the jam and cream sponge was a treat.

I managed to video MSS doing the My Fair Lady medly, which is our main showcase peice. It went extremely well compared with at Stephen’s 80th when it was still a bit ragged. Most of the choir was there, including Alida sitting on a chair at one side of the stage. Because she was behind I don’t know if she shows up in the video, but I saw a photo taken from the other side of the stage where she is visible.

We chatted with friends for a while after the show, then had drinks and nibbles with Marie and Geoff. Marie heated up our evening meal in her microwave, very handy, and we continued sitting outside until after the meal.

Then it was pretty much going back to the van and getting ready for bed. We read for a while until we needed to sleep.

In the morning we had thought of going to a cafe for breakfast, but nothing was open so we had breakfast brought from home instead. Stephen had asked for a later checkout and it worked out well as we didn’t have to rush.

Marie and Geoff then headed off towards Brookton because they didn’t feel like going straight home. We headed off to Avondale Farm, which is listed on the National Trust. Unfortunately it is closed and there is no information on the gate or online about when it will be open again.

We had a toilet break when we got back to Brookton Highway and decided to have a morning tea or lunch break further along. We pulled off at Christmas Tree Well. The last time we went there was in the Winnie. It isn’t very far off the highway, but the track in had water holes and we were glad to have the higher clearance.

Unfortunately it was noisy with lots of quite little kids on quad bikes, child size ones I think. We spent about 1.5 hours there despite the noise, enjoying toast and tuna for lunch and taking walks. It was mostly sunny.

Top things from the trip: I think it did me so much good to get away from the city that even though I wasn’t feeling well I felt so much happier. We enjoyed camping with Marie and Geoff – it’s more fun to sit outside if you have friends to talk with and share the experience. We get on well together. I was glad to catch up with choir members and have it reinforced that we have have quite a lovely community. Plus I really enjoyed our afternoon picnic at Christmas Tree Well.

It’s so lovely that our grandmother’s home town is beautifully kept, with restored older buildings. Some locals we spoke with didn’t seem to know the family names, which surprised me as the husband had lived in Beverley all his life and there must be a current generation of distant relatives. We think our Aunty Heather and one of our cousins still live there.

It’s been a tumultuous week with insults on all sides, with the left outdoing itself in righteousness and virtue signalling and the right sewing more fear and doubt. Of course, they have stumbled badly on this referendum by not working out what the Voice would actually be before going to to the poll. It’s easy to use scare tactics about an unknown entity.

Jacinta Price said something in her address to the National Press Club which made me sigh and think ‘she’s so young!’ About Aboriginal people benefiting from colonisation and the convicts being treated with perhaps equal inhumanity. Of course she has been roundly criticised for this.

I think what people forget is the issue of class. The ruling classes have almost always treated the lower classes as less than fully human and their sufferings as not counting as much. It’s also used to justify wars with the other side being downgraded to deserving cruelty.

The upper classes sent their children to boarding schools from an early age, so they could see no harm in separating children from parents generally, believing that institutions could do a better job of raising them. To get a good education children from remote communities still consider whether to send children to boarding school. Indigenous and non indigenous children regardless.

Listening to my Aboriginal friend Wesley Aird as speaking for the majority of Aboriginal people who are doing OK, have homes and jobs and send their children to school like other Australians one could perhaps argue that the way out of being dehumanised by elites is to escape to the upper working class/lower middle class where one still doesn’t count for much, but at least can escape being abused or patronised by the upper classes.

And class was a much more obvious feature of life in those days. it hasn’t gone away though and of course it comes down to money.

I read one writer who said that the reason Meghan M. and Harry didn’t get much sympathy from African Americans when they did their Netflix series is that she’s too rich to be relatable. Only other mega rich people could relate to their ‘suffering’.

Monty Python have a sketch in the Life of Brian where the question is asked ‘what have the Romans ever done for us’ and one by one the group come up with ideas. Basically, along with repression came the benefits of Roman civilisation. Someone has even written a song about it. Because Britain was once colonised by the Romans along with so much of the world and the Indigenous people were oppressed.

So, I think this is what Jacinta Price was getting at, that along with the bad things about colonisation there were benefits. Aboriginal people no longer live the harsh lives of hunter gatherers even if they live in remote areas. Life can be harsh due to poverty, but people are not reverting to a hunter gatherer lifestyle because that would be much worse.

And of course there were good stories as well, but they don’t get told as part of the ‘truth telling’. Here I’m also channeling Ainsley Aird in one of his videos.

I’m including the link to one of his videos, but he is putting them them out regularly. He doesn’t tell people how to vote, just tries to put things into perspective with his quiet, gentle and authoritative manner. ‘When you vote Yes or No know why you are voting that way. Do your own research.’

https://youtu.be/2kGtlMjvXQA?si=b2sWXaUegaXbZc5E

Most of the preparation are done. We are going to stay overnight in Beverley after the 2 – 5 p.m. Choir Bash. I’m sad that I won’t be able to sing this year, but still want to be there to see them perform. It’s an open air concert and the weather seems suitable, no rain and not hot either. They have an indoor space for bad weather.

I’ve been struck down with something that is apparently everywhere at the moment, COVID,FluAFluB returned negative results, but that leaves RSV and I expect other nasties. It has lasted a full week so far and I am definitely over it. I now feel somewhat better, enough to be bored with sitting around.

Stephen is sceptical that I am well enough to go, but I am sceptical of him being able to drive to and from Beverley as well as attending and singing in a 3 hour concert, so we have decided to differ on whether it is a good idea. I think he will be glad to have our Sherwood along by 5.00 p.m. tomorrow meaning he can relax for the evening.

We have a site booked at the Beverley Caravan Park for the night and meeting Marie and Geoff there. For us this is camping lite, with normal electricity, plus showers/toilets and a camper’s kitchen available. I’ve set up the spare bed in the Sherwood which means no dinette available, but we probably don’t want to sit in such close proximity anyway. And we don’t want to sleep together in the same bed as it feels too risky.

youtube.com/watch

We picked up the Sherwood from storage on Thursday. We had to prop it to allow rain water to roll off the roof to prevent it leaking through.

This morning we dropped her off for a long list of repairs/changes. We are hoping they can replace the electric step, which is playing up again, with a manual step. They will fix the roof leak, of course. They will fix the powerpoint near the stove, which stopped working on our trip and replace with a double adapter. This comes off the inverter and can be used for our Starlink as well as our low wattage electrical applicances. They will install the boat bung to allow the cable from the dish to enter the van, rather than having it come through the window. The flywire in the bathroom hatch is loose and they will repair or replace it.

As well, we’ve asked them to measure up the space for a 12v fridge to replace the present 3 way fridge. Since we camp off grid it’s very annoying to have to light the gas whenever we stop. It also leaks water onto the floor and sometimes into a nearby cupboard. We’ve had 12v fridges before and they just work quietly in the background without issues.

We don’t really need to have it back for about 7 weeks, which means we are not in a hurry for them to finish, though I do miss having it in our driveway.