A slow sojourn south

CMCA is the Campervan and Motorhome Camping Association, it is one of the largest clubs in Australia and it holds 2 national Australian rallies each year. This year, its' October National Rally is being held here in WA, in Albany, on the south coast.

We have been to every WA state wide rally since buying our motorhome in 2007 so we were ready to go down to Albany. As we live 100kms north of Perth city and Albany is kms south of Perth we were not going to be travelling to the rally in our day. We decided to take a leisurely drive down, staying at picturesque places along the way. We invited friends Ralph and Hanny and Chris and Anne to join us, they happily agreed.

We met Chris and Anne on Tuesday afternoon in WA's first inland town – York. Ralph and Hanny would be joining us on Wednesday as they had commitments Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

The 24 hour RV rest area in York, is alongside the park by the river. 

A short stroll from the main street, there are even 4 power points available free of charge. York is to be commended on this as it really brings people into the town. There were travellers from Queensland, NSW and some European holiday makers in a rental camper, all enjoying a short stay in town.

The ranger came by and stressed that it was 24 hours only, and no one was unhappy about that. 

A quick rest and recharge of human and vehicle batteries was all we needed.

The next morning we had our usual laid back start and then walked to the end of the park and crossed the river on the suspension bridge – we all made the bridge rock and bounce – just big kids really.

Then we drove around to the other side of the river and viewed the magnificent old pioneer barn. It's in private hands and does seem to be slowly being restored, we are looking forward to seeing it fully restored.

We drove out of town and stopped about 10kms out of town at Gwambygine, Avon Ascent Park. In April we had stayed here with a group of motorhomers and it was really quite crowded with very little room for larger vehicles. Today is was deserted, we had the park to ourselves. The heat and fact that it was a week day probably accounted for the quiet. We found a shady spot and after a walk out to the lookout tower, retreated inside our van for morning tea – the heat and the flies were getting unpleasant.

Morning tea eked out until 12 noon and we then headed on south, through the town of Beverley, to Brookton.

We arrived in Brookton at 1.00pm, found a great shady spot, had lunch and settled down in the shade to await Ralph and Hanny. They arrived around 2pm and around 2.45pm we all set off south to our overnight stop – Yornaning Dam. 

The sun was still a little fierce but we found some shade, had afternoon tea and then broke out the 'clog golf' clubs. An amusing game with plenty of laughs, especially when the clog head kept flying off Ralph's club, travelling almost as far as the ball!

Then it was 'Happy Hour' which settled into evening. After dinner it was warm enough to sit out under the stars. It wasn't a full moon but it was bright enough to see without lamps or torches. The leaves on the gum tree above us where so shiny, they reflected the moonlight, making it look as it there were fairy lights in the tree. A magical evening.

The next morning we met a fellow camper, Mike from NZ, who was also meandering around the south before heading into Albany at the weekend. He joined us for morning tea and then we roped him in to a game of boule – on uneven ground it probably should be called 'Bush Boules'.

He headed off and we resumed our southward trek. We stopped at Cuballing and had lunch before carrying on to Wagin. Here we filled up on diesel in the motorhomes and icecream in the humans, before heading out to one of our favourite spots – a little old community hall in the middle of farming land. It's quiet and peaceful, there's the added bonus of working toilets.

We had a couple of games of bush boules, with lots of oohs and aahs and other exclamations as the camber of the road produced some hilarious shots. Once again the boys had a resounding victory over the girls.
The flies were very welcoming but as the sun went down they went to bed.

The wind didn't abate in the evening and we all adjourned to our van to sit and chat until bed time.

The next morning we had a lazy start but around 11am headed back into Wagin and did a couple of 'housekeeping' chores – some using the dump point, some filling up with water. We made this a quick morning tea stop before travelling the next 53 kms down to Katanning.

Here we stopped for lunch, where Ralph and Hanny joined us at the Co op cafe for lunch.

This cafe is at the back of the old Co-op store and we were all very happy with our meal – we can recommend it to you. Ralph's bacon and vegetable soup looked great and was good value at just $6.

I had a very tasty fish burger and a delicious vanilla milkshake – yum! It did take almost 45 minutes for us all to be served though, we'd allowed an hour for lunch and were 5 munutes late getting back to meet up with Chris and Anne. (that would not have done on our European coach trip – the driver would have been very annoyed). So, yes we recommend the cafe, but do allow plenty of time.

We left Katanning and continued south, turning east just after Broomehill. We drove through Gnowangerup and immediately before the junction with the Albany to Jerramungup road we turned off the road up to the picnic area – Louis' Lookout. (named after Louis Joubert, a local rotarian). 

 I used the self timer option on the camera for a group photo here,  but 10 seconds was not quite long enough for me to get  back and pose - hence my side-on pose.

There are some lovely views over the Stirling Range from here even though they were a little hazy today, but the wind drove us all into our vans for the whole afternoon. The were a few black clouds hovering but they blew over, taking the rain into the fields of ripening barley and corn.

The next morning we didn't have our usual lazy, slow start to the day. The whole town of Gnowangerup was participating in the nation wide 'garage sale' day. We drove into town and were surprised to find no indication of various sales, no signs or notices on the main road. We stopped at the newsagent to get the weekend papers. (In this case, just the one paper as the national newspaper – The Australian, would not be arriving until the next day. This is not unusual in rural areas but is thankfully less common than it used to be.).

I enquired after the garage sales and was told to continue down the street and I'd find them, “You'll run into them all”. So we drove on, we could have left the vehicles were they were, because on the next street corner we found all of the stalls. The town had decided against the 'garage sale' concept and had combined to hold a street market. The children of Gnowangerup obviously never missed out on toys, the majority of the stalls were selling toys but there was a good cake stall and some very cheap books. Michael and I controlled ourselves but the others spent a few cents, then we headed out of town, bearing south wards towards the little town on Tambellup.

As the morning was drawing on, when we spotted a roadside 'P' we pulled over for morning.

What a delightful spot, with some lovely wildflowers still in bloom (they would have been at their peak a week or two earlier). 

We pressed on through Tambellup, down to Cranbrook and the caravan park.

The town of Cranbrook was rally supportive of the CMCA rally in Albany, opening up the oval for camping. There were quite a few vehicles there but we had decided before leaving home that we would have a night in the caravan park before the rally. The park caretaker seemed a little taken aback that we wanted to stay, not go on to the oval but the lure of long hot showers and the washing machine was too strong. We would soon be parked on an oval with a couple of hundred other motohomes so enjoyed one more night in own our little group.

The weather was turning now, and we kept an eye out for showers as we hung the washing out to dry. The temperature was dropping too, time for jumpers and wet weather gear. Only 3 days ago we were desperately seeking shade and trying to cool off, now we're trying to get warm and hoping it doesn't rain too hard.

That night we walked (in a light shower) down to the hotel for dinner. We arrived around 6 pm, just as the kitchen was opening and ordered before 10 campers from the oval arrived. It was a surprisingly good meal – country pub meals can be a bit hit and miss, but this was definitely a hit.

The next morning we completed our 'housework' in our vans, emptied grey and black tanks and filled fresh water tanks. We had a leisurely game of 'bush' boule before a late morn tea / early lunch and an easy drive into Albany.

The CMCA organisers had installed electronic direction signs and we were soon through the gates, checked in and waiting to be sited.

We had been lucky in the 'draw' for powered sites but as a result would not be camped near Ralph, Hanny, Chris and Anne.

We followed the buggy around to our site – he got us positioned and drove off, we then got our power cable to connect to the power – no plugs left. I ran after the guy and he then remembered that that particular site had been made into a non powered site. He would get back to us, and move us.

Shame really, as that site number was 482 – our van's registration is **** 482.

Michael waited with the van whilst I walked across the oval to find the others. They were parked back to back alongside other friends of ours. Then I wandered back to 482 – no van. We had been moved, but I didn't know where to. I found another volunteer parking body and found out where we were now. Still had a problem though, - our 25 metre extension cable was not quite long enough. It would have just made it had our plug into the van been on the other side, as it was, it was too short.

There wasn't a vehicle alongside, on the side closer to the power supply – 'we can just move over'.

Not as easy as it sounds, the 2 volunteers had to have a discussion and then agreed that yes we could move over. Finally, after about half an hour, we had a site and could start to settle in.

                    (Our motorhome is 4th from left)

The  weather was as we had expected, cool and wet. It stayed that way for the next 5 days, luckily the rally site was only a short walk to the shopping centre and the main street. There were plenty of seminars available at the rally but the usual cameraderie was missing due to the weather, people were not sitting outside, wandering around or generally socialising.
We only managed a couple of games of clog golf or boules but each game was great fun. I scored the clog club with the loose clog and narrowly missed hitting Michael below the  belt when the clog came flying off again. The boules match between Hanny and myself and Ralph and Michael was exciting with Hanny and myself winning one game 13 -0, the boys didn't score any points at all but they still won the best of 3 series!

On Friday afternoon the sky darkened and we expected the rain to return, and it did. Around 8.15pm it was as if someone was firing a fire hose onto the roof of the motorhome. Then the water started dripping down from the a/c unit.
We scurried around for a bucket, put towels on the bed and spent an anxious few minutes. Luckily the storm passed and the rain had stopped by 10.00pm and we were able to have an uninterrupted night's sleep. 
The next day, Saturday, was a busy day at the rally with a market day on site and the grand ball that evening but we thought it over and decided to de-camp and head back home.  We packed up, made our farewells and headed north. Once we left the Albany city limits the sun came out and stayed with us all the way home.

We were sorry to leave the rally but didn't want to risk water getting into the body work of the motorhome, things like that can be very expensive. 
We were home before dark and soon had the essentials unloaded and were settled down. Work on the roof is obviously needed but we are heading into summer so will have plenty of rain free days to tackle the problem.
As long as it's not raining we can still head out in the motorhome for a few days if the mood takes us. 
But that will be in the New Year I imagine - so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.