Not Before Time

This past couple of weeks we’ve been in Whyalla, South Australia, staying at the showgrounds. The first week here was for us to attend the CMCA (Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia) rally and then we decided to stay the extra week until after Easter (since we hadn’t booked anywhere and would have trouble getting in to a park anywhere along the SA coast).

The rally was good – over 700 motorhomes and fifth wheelers. Here’s a shot from the roof of our van showing the queue into the rally site

And here’s a couple from the roof showing everyone on site

We’ve had a lot of fun catching up with friends we’ve made on the road and making some new ones. The organisers did a really good job. There were lots of interesting things to do on site. There are many craftspeople on the road so there were workshops in quilting, knitting, weaving, appliqué, macramé, decorative painting etc. There were also a vintage car display and seminars on HF Radio, Communication on the road, Satellite TV stuff and other more blokey things that David went along to, as well as entertainment every night, poets breakfasts each morning, morning teas, tour bookings on site, and buses into town every hour. One thing most of the women thought was great was the laundry service. For $15 you could fill a basket (provided) with as much washing as you could fit in, and it would be picked up, washed, dried, folded and returned to you later in the day. I think we kept them very busy. The town itself offered discounts at most of the shops and clubs to all CMCA members and we found the people in the shops and clubs really friendly and welcoming.

One of the highlights of the entertainment was a guy called Jim Haynes who performed at one of the night time entertainment shows and also one or two of the poets breakfasts. He also ran workshops on writing bush poetry. Jim is an author, bush poet, and very funny comedian. Here’s his website http://www.jimhaynes.net – if you get the opportunity to go see him, then do yourself a favour and go.

Also appearing with Jim was country singer/songwriter Amber Lawrence – http://www.amberlawrence.com” . Amber’s a favourite of ours and another entertainer to catch if you get the chance.

There were also a few trade stands around the site, selling goodies for travelers such as thermal cookers and inverters, but I did hear a few comments about there not being as many as there usually are at the rallies. This was our first rally so we didn’t have anything to compare it to, but we found it very good. Of course, a lot of it is what you make it. We did hear some grumbles about other rallies being better/bigger etc, but we really enjoyed this one.

Ok – I have 1 little gripe – while most of the people here were really great, and we met some lovely people, unfortunately there are a (small) number of older people who are among the rudest I’ve ever met! They pushed and shoved their way through people to get to the front, or out of a venue, or trying to be first in line for something that others have been waiting patiently for. They seem to think their age entitles them to being given way to or allows them to be crabby. Good manners work a lot better. I hope I never get like that – but I think David would shoot me if I did

I did hear from some of the men that on the market day there was virtually nothing for the blokes – it was mainly lovely hand made craft items, which apparently appealed to the women more. A lot of the items being sold (cards, jewellery, quilted, sewn, knitted and crocheted items) were actually made by CMCA members, and it is mainly the women who make these crafted items, selling them on the road or at events like this when there are organized market days. Plus, it’s mainly the women who buy this sort of stuff as gifts for family and friends. Maybe the guys need to either organise stuff themselves or drop hints to the rally committee to see if they could get more traders along who sell ‘blokey’ stuff.

It was also a bit disappointing to be told a couple of times by local people in town that some of our members (again, it was only a few) were quite rude and were telling local businesses that ‘we’ are bringing a lot of money into their town and that they should be grateful. This appears to be in response to them not getting some sort of expected discount. Quite a lot of the local businesses did offer discounts to rally participants, and this was done in the form of a book of discount vouchers, but apparently some participants wanted/expected more. While it’s true that we do inject money into the towns, I don’t get why people think they have a right to discounted goods because of it. The local councils also spend a fair amount of money ensuring we have the necessary facilities for the rallies. Perhaps the locals need to take note of the member number (shown on the tag most of us wear) of the person saying this and report back to the CMCA.

Ok, that’s the end of my rant.

The rally was good, we really enjoyed it, and hopefully we can make the Tassie one next year.

For some reason, I thought I had posted here about our trip back to SA from Melbourne a few weeks ago – I think I wrote the post up but never got around to actually posting in on our website, and now I’ve lost my write up – must be getting old! Anyway, I basically just wanted to put up some photos of these kangaroos which I’ve never seen before. Didn’t even know they came in colours other than red and dun coloured!

At Bordertown there is a wildlife park which has white kangaroos and they were all out when we were passing through. They were a bit camera shy but I managed to get a couple of shots. Now I know what Rolf Harris means in his song, Six White Boomers!

Wow, it’s cold! We’re in Adelaide and the weather has been so chilly (to us, anyway) that I’ve had to get out the long pants and put the doona on the bed. It’s been a bit of a shock to the system.

We’ll be here for a couple of weeks and then we’re going to be in Melbourne for a little while – probably until just after New Year, so hopefully we can catch up with everyone before you all head off on your Christmas holidays.

We’ve got phone service again after not having it for a few weeks so I’m trying to get back to all of you that left messages for us recently.

We’re using the time in Adelaide to give the van a bit of a clean out – amazing how much stuff you accumulate when you stay put for a while! I’m not sure how much updating I’ll be doing in the next couple of weeks – we won’t be doing too much interesting stuff (except spending lots of time with Jill and Steve, which is great) although I’ll be going to the craft and quilt show next week which I’m looking forward to, but if anything exciting happens, I’ll post it here!

Well, our time in Adelaide has come to an end!  We’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning, heading north again – this time to Darwin with a couple of stopovers on the way – one of them being Gemtree where we might get in some fossicking. 

Once again we’ve had a great time in Adelaide, spending a lot of time with our friends Steve and Jill.  Our son Ben also came over to visit us bringing his girlfriend the lovely Kat with him and we had a great weekend with them.  Then our friend Trevor visited Adelaide for work so we got to catch up with him too.  So overall it’s been a great few weeks.

We also celebrated our 35th anniversary last week – by booking into a city hotel for a couple of nights.  The hotel had a spa so we got to have a soak in the tub which we haven’t been able to do for a while.  I took the camera with me but for some reason didn’t get around to using it all that much although I was planning to (not to take photos of us in the spa – wouldn’t inflict that on anyone!) but I was going to take photos of the room, and of the lovely meal we had at Blanc, a really nice seafood restaurant in Adelaide, and of the Sunday market.  Instead I strolled around oblivious to all the photo opportunities even though the camera was in my handbag and the weather was superb, perfect for photos.  I’m really not very good at this photo stuff .

We’re both really looking forward to getting back on the road again.  We’ll probably be out of contact for a few days as phone and internet service isn’t that great for a big part of the trip north, but I’ll update (with photos hopefully) within the next week or so.

Meanwhile, drop us an email and let us know how things are going with you, we would love to hear from you. 

    Well, life’s still cruising along, even if we aren’t currently cruising anywhere.  I haven’t updated for a while, mainly because there hasn’t been too much to report on.  As planned, we left Alice to return to Adelaide where I had to have some minor surgery which has happened and went well.  Just have to hang around for another 3 weeks until I see the doctor to get the all clear for travelling.  Funny thing, but doctors don’t like doing surgery and having their patients go off galivanting around the country straight away, doesn’t matter how good they feel apparently.  Anway, another couple of weeks and we’ll be heading north again – back into warm weather, and more importantly, warm weather clothes – shorts and singlets!  We’re both really fed up with jeans and jumpers and cold weather.

Some good things about being stuck in Adelaide is that we’ve caught up with our good friends Steve and Jill again – been practically living at their place, so undoubtedly they will be glad to see the back of us and get their life back to normal.  David and Steve have been busy in Steve’s workshop and so far have made a metal storage box which will go under the van to carry our outdoor table, chairs etc, and they have also made me some wooden drawers for the pantry.  Our pantry is tall and narrow and very deep – (60cm deep [or 24 inches]) which means I can’t reach the stuff at the back, and of course whatever I want always seems to have migrated to the back of the pantry!  My new drawers will make it much easier to find stuff.  Thanks guys, you’ve done a great job.

We also caught up with Sharon and Barry who hung around Adelaide for a few days until we got here – had a good couple of days with them before they headed over to the west – we’ll catch up with them again in the new year probably.  My sister Gail and her partner Russell also passed through Adelaide on their way to Darwin so we got to spend a few days with them too – and we will catch up with them in Darwin in a few weeks.  Lovely sister that she is, she called me from Darwin where they were sitting on the dock on  a beautiful balmy night, waiting for their dinner to arrive and watching the sun go down!  She just wanted to share that with me!

This coming weekend our son Ben and his partner Kat will be visiting us – so we’re really looking forward to the weekend.  It’s Ben’s birthday on Saturday so the weekend will consist of lots of great food (we’ll be eating out a lot)  and drink and catching up.  Can’t wait.

Hmmm, while I said I haven’t had much to report on, reading the above, we’ve been really busy and had some great times, so I guess I’ve just been too busy to write about it all until now

I’ll let you all know when we’re ready to move again.