It was time to stop pretending we could be counted amongst the rich and famous, well, rich at least! The Mandalay had been a wonderful slice of luxury, but reality is an unforgiving master....it was time to move to digs which were more to our budget.
The Kookaburra Caravan Park is wonderfully located on the Busselton Esplanade, but a short walk to the extraordinary Busselton Jetty and nearby foreshore parks and an equally short hop into the main Busselton CBD. We had read that the sites here were very tight and had done a recce whilst at the Mandalay, only to find that this was not the case. Certainly there was less individual space than at the Mandalay, but Kookaburra was not nearly as potentially crowded as many parks we have come across on the East Coast.
The Kookaburra Park is different to many in that it is unfenced on all but the western side where it abuts the Busselton Pioneer Cemetery (more later). Here the yellow dividing fence can just be seen in mid shot.
A little further along Adelaide Street (how could we not stay here?) we come to the back of the park where the sites immediately abut the roadway. This was a matter of some concern to the cynical old copper but after a visit to the Police Station in the next street, I was reassured that the only real problems occur when untidy punters are wending their muddled ways home from the nearby Esplanade Hotel on a Friday or Saturday night. Even then, I was told, the only goodies targeted were the contents of exposed eskies!
I decided that reasonable security measures would overcome this potential problem, and we moved in accordingly to a site just beyond where Liz is standing on the footpath in the above shot. On the day we moved in this was the only site available that was large enough to take us but, after setting up, I remained concerned about the direction in which our annex was facing. The winds here can be challenging to say the least, and we had no shelter at all to the south-east where we looked out across Adelaide Street and over the open expanse of a nearby oval.
Sure enough...a day later the first of what has now been many south-easterly hoots began. We were belted. I don't mind flapping annex walls and the odd ripple through the awning, but when that responds to unusually ferocious gusts with a resounding 'crack', I begin to worry. With little relief in sight according to the forecasts, I approached the park managers with a request for a shift if a site became available. They could not have been more obliging.
A good site in more sheltered spot was taken up by a van which was unoccupied...its owners were in Perth dealing with a major illness. "Can you help us move it to a storage park?" "Of course..when do we start?" A few hours later, after the now vacant site had been mowed and watered, we moved.
Erecting the full annex is not a task without its challenges....there is a real trick to making sure everything is properly locked in and the levels are right. We don't bother too often but here I was up for it....we had another three weeks to go in this park and improved physical comfort weather wise and peace of mind from a security perspective was paramount given we were planning to be off touring on a number of occasions.
Our new site was a little 'up and down' and a fair bit of fine tuning was needed, but after a couple of hours we were set up. And things were much more comfortable. The trees and vans behind us offered shelter, and the fact that on the fridge side of the van our neighbour was in a tent meant that we had considerable 'elbow room'.
The only slight problem we faced was the lack of immediate shade...things did get a bit warm on hot days, but that's why we have an air conditioner (for the cat of course!) and with a length of shade cloth preventing direct sun on the fridge area, we were happy with things. I had my eye on another site before we moved. Good choice, Marshie...it will be available....in early April 2014!! I can pick them.
The unfenced front of the Kookaburra Park,
which faces across the seafront parks to the Jetty precinct, is as open as the rear but by all accounts this is not a problem other than on rare occasions.
And frankly, as I said earlier, we view the comments about the close confines of this park as silly. The roadways are a little narrow, but like the Mandalay, the staff of the Kookaburra provide directions to put all arriving vans on site with an absolute minimum of fuss. The amenities are adequate, the staff cannot do enough for their guests, and this is the type of park where folk talk to each other. We were happy as!
And what did Max think of his new home? Well he certainly likes the annex, particularly when there is one unoccupied chair,
and when things have moved indoors he is quite happy to lean back and relax in his little basket whilst keeping a critical eye on all things human
until it all just gets too much altogether. Life on the road can be so demanding!
We intend to make the Kookaburra our home until 1 December when we are moving down the road to the Sandy Bay Park for another fortnight. The demand here at Kookaburra is so great that all the sites are pre-booked as of that date. We decided that Busselton is such a great spot we would remain here until it was time to move back to Perth over the Xmas period.
Given the length of time we are staying in this area, and the amount of touring throughout the Busselton, Margaret River and other local areas we intend to do, I have decided to break the blog segments into something more or less 'topic driven' for ease of later reference....hence the additional title information and shorter offerings.
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