Spring is sprung

September is the first of the spring months, the time when the rains lessen and the ground starts to warm up and the weeds start to grow. The first bit, about the rains lessening didn't really happen but the weeds growing bit, that did. So September became our garden month. We pulled out weeds from the 'house garden', we pruned and removed shrubs from the area of bush closest to the house and then when it wasn't raining we burnt the cuttings. When we moved up here, to our current abode, we planted lots of shrubs and small trees around the house to act as a windbreak from the almost constant 'sea breeze' and as a privacy screen from the passing traffic. Our previous house, in the Serpentine area south of Perth had what is referred to as 'non-wetting sand'. Water just sits on top of the surface and doesn't penetrate so getting plants to grow was really hard. When we moved in up here, we brought that experience with us and planted very heavily, expecting over half the plants to die. How wrong could we be - the soil here is excellent loam and everything we planted, thrived. The result was a quite overgrown area around the house. We know of worse 'fire hazard' places but we decided to reduce our fire risk and therefore removed several trees and shrubs that were too close to the house, our boundary ones can stay, so we keep our privacy. The difference is dramatic and we'll have to see if the house gets a lot hotter in the mid-summer months.
My Christmas present last year, a lovely brush-cutter, has had a lot of use and will be getting some more in the next couple of weeks. Michael had a few problems getting his quad bike to run smoothly but he's resolved those problems and had been very ingenious and mounted the herbicide spray tank on the back, fitted a spray boom and successfully sprayed the fire breaks all around the block. There will be more work needed to remove all vegetation before we are 'legal' but already the weeds are turning brown.
We're now having a break from work and are off to the Motorhome Combined Chapters State Rally.
(I still can't get used to referring to the groups as 'chapters' without thinking about leather jackets and motorbikes. )The rally is held every year with a different chapter organising and is held in a different country town each year. Some towns are keener than others to host the event but as it can bring over $10,000 to the town in one weekend, lots of places are happy to see us. This year, it's almost local for us, it's up the coast in Cervantes. The shire, Dandaragan, had previously been noted for its' quite inhospitable approach to motorhomes but they have come 'on board' now and the event is promising to be a success. The rally runs from Thursday to Tuesday with the usual events happening - a dinner on Saturday night, disc bowl competitions, various games and a 'market day' where locals and campers can set up a stall. Ralph and Hanny have not been to a state rally before and although just returning from another trip away they were going to join us and head along this year.

Well, the best laid plans etc.... our plans to head off to the Rally with Ralph and Hanny were scuppered when Hanny twisted her ankle so heavily that she broke both the bones in her ankle and had to spend a week in hospital with her leg raised, to get the swelling down before they could 'pin' and 'plate' her ankle.

Taking advantage of the closeness of the Rally venue we headed off mid morning intending to stop at one of the scenic lookouts  on Indian Ocean Drive but the drive was a short one and we ended up driving all the way to Cervantes and the Rally site, arriving and checking in before lunch. We knew that we would not be 'early birds', the usual 'bed wetters' and others would be pouring in the gates as soon as they opened at 7.30am and the organisers, of course, would be set up a couple of days before the official start. There was no queue and we were soon guided to a spot, during the course of the afternoon more vehicles arrived and by the end of the day we were no longer on the end row of parked motor homes. We had probably been around 150th to arrive, out of the final 168 motor homes. (we had been 45th to register).
On the drive north I had mentioned to Michael that I didn't expect to see our friends from Albany, not expecting them to drive all that way north for a weekend, but the very first people that I saw once we'd parked were said friends from Albany. They had come to the rally, stopping over on their way north to visit their son, who was working up near Port Hedland. We had a lovely long chat and then went searching for other familiar faces. There were lots of friends, some seen recently, some not seen for many months which is what these gatherings are all about.

The little town of Cervantes doesn't have a many shops, just one small parade but it is on the coast and the beach is lovely. Beautiful white sand, which is nice and compacted so walking along the beach is relaxing without getting fine sand in your shoes or sinking down. Very pleasant to stroll along, and a bit of exercise which is a counter balance to all the social eating and drinking which happens at these gatherings.

The weather was great, being on the coast the wind blew constantly which helped keep the temperature down as the sun shone on us all.
Time to get out the sunscreen and work on the tan.
The Rally was well organised and there was plenty of time to catch up with old friends. The local community was involved in the catering and there was a cooked breakfast available each morning, and a lunch choice most days.
The evening entertainment was the standard amateur music, unfortunately so common. Loud and discordant, some die hards took to the dance floor but most folks drifted back to their vans for an early night or a night in front of the tv but Saturday night is always THE night at a Rally and this year the theme was 'Space' and some of  people really did do well with the fancy dress - we were unaware of the theme and so came unprepared, unlike our friends Mike and Judy....

And where there are aliens there's always The Doctor.

There was very little organised for the last day of the rally so we headed off home after saying goodbye to our friends, this took a couple of hours so it was almost lunchtime when we set off.
So we did stop for lunch enroute this time, stopping at Nilgen Lookout.

 Then continued home - arriving early afternoon. We had the van unpacked and were settled in our comfy chairs by 4pm.
As we would be home for a little while we put an ad in Gumtree - the online 'paper' to sell our little yellow Getz, and no sooner had I posted the ad (at 8.00pm) than the phone rang (at 10.30pm). This was on Wednesday night and the lady came on Saturday morning, paid the cash and drove off!
We will miss our little yellow friend but I'm getting over it, I've earmarked some of the money for a gondola ride in Venice next year!

The lovely weather has left us for a while, the last couple of days we've had storms and rain. Yesterday the rain storm that passed over us turned to a hail storm as it headed south towards the city. On tv last night they showed some areas looking as if they'd had a snow storm the ground was covered in white.

We have couple of weeks to complete the fire breaks and all our preparations before heading east to South Australia, and that will be another post.