After the wonderful time we had in Albany, neither of us was particularly looking forward to a return to the bustle and noise of the 'big smoke'. "Perhaps we were over-reacting" was our dinner time conversation at our overnight stop at the little town of Williams. No we weren't!
But first a quick glimpse of the park at Williams, a small but busy town. Its location on the junction of the Albany Highway and the main road between the large wheatbelt town of Narrogin and the coast at Bunbury, means that three large service stations all seem to be thriving in a place where normally one would more than suffice.
We had taken the precaution to book ahead, but there was no need....we were it as far as transient visitors were concerned. We pulled into the local motel entrance and booked in. The charming woman behind the desk invited us to pick any site we liked.
We did just that and were quickly moored in a large drive-through with good shade. We had learnt by now not to expect grass in small country parks such as this. At least the ground was more small ironstone rubble rocks than dust, although these can be dangerously slippery. I have also learnt to tread warily on this surface.
And there was grass around the equally well appointed and clean amenities block. We were more than happy with our choice for an overnight stay.
We did take a short stroll through the town late in the afternoon and were particularly impressed with the local sports complex with its large expanses of lush grass. Hockey, football and soccer all had fine venues on which to represent their area.
A short distance from the playing fields we crossed the road bridge over the Williams River
and looking upstream, it was obvious to us that the grass of the sports fields were receiving vital water from anther source altogether.
We did call into the local pub, which from the outside, looked most inviting. One drink was enough....and it wasn't even the 'skimpies' night.
Roses feature prominently along the centre of William's short main commercial street, and
as we strolled along it, we were more than impressed by the Williams community centre building and the lovely gardens in which it stands.
Beyond this, from our perspective, the remainder of the central town area was unremarkable. We were even too early for Liz to be able to get a 'chocolate fix'.
After an early refuelling we were on our to Perth and back to the Kingsway Caravan Park where we had pre-booked an alternative site to that we occupied on our previous visit. We were determined not to be surrounded by the thick sand of our former spot. Site 39 it was for us (I took this shot on the morning we left..hence no awning, annex etc)
The Kingsway park had undergone some radical changes since our last stay. The new management had finally taken the plunge and had evicted all those who were not paying on time and/or who were disruptive and rowdy. The last of these, our previous neighbour, departed under police escort, still over $2,000 in arrears on her site payments. From what we learnt, she had been hosting drunken parties in her van for the previous fortnight after being served with a Court eviction notice. We endured the last of these on the night prior to her exit. Loud music until 0145 hours followed by a drunken and foul mouthed rant up and down the park roadways for the next thirty minutes. Thank heavens we had booked another site for this stay.
Apart from the evictions, many of the more permanent residents had been moved to the back section of the park apparently to the great displeasure of some. The upshot of all this was that the transient area looked almost deserted. There were no vans on the road on which we were last sited,
as was the case with most of the rest of this part of Kingsway. The new manager told me that he had already moved three tonnes of rubbish off the park and that there were serious plans to refurbish the gardens and the sites. We wished them well...they have a big job ahead of them.
One thing which hadn't changed was the traffic noise. This we had been dreading, and we were not disappointed. Hoons in high powered cars and on motor bikes at all times of the day and night, and, for good measure, emergency service sirens.....on one particular morning, eight of these before 1000 hours! We gritted our mental teeth and did our best to adjust....there were things to be done.
Three major reasons had brought us back to Perth. The cruiser was booked in to have the bull bar and bumper assembly replaced at the nearby Kingsley Crash Repairers on 31 March. The week long Aussie Titles began at Scarborough beach the same day and Liz had to make all the necessary arrangements to get herself on the Nursing Agency books here in WA...and therein lies a tale!
She had begun the process in Albany. Whilst logic dictates that all she had to do was both necessary and practical, it was demanding nevertheless, and would have been impossible to effectively complete other than in Perth itself.
Blood tests to confirm she was clear of MRSA (that nasty bug which is a bit too prevalent in SA hospitals) and all childhood illnesses (whooping cough, measles etc etc), TB and so on, a Police clearance certificate, a 'working with children' accreditation certificate, registration with the agency, a transfer to the WA nurses' union (they provide professional indemnity insurance), a personal interview at the Agency office (fortunately only 20 minutes away), two practical assessments (manual handling and CPR), and on top of all this six, yes six, on line assignments including the theory of manual handling and CPR, infection control, mandatory reporting, managing aggressive patients, and fire safety. It would have normally been seven, but Liz is still current in drug calculations.
And of course all of this takes time and effort. Liz was buzzing about on a daily basis doing one thing or another, and beavering away on the computer most evenings. Not that she had to re-learn anything....it was just a matter of proving her knowledge and skills. We did take the view that she was doing it on the bit when she was issued with the agency uniform at the end of her interview, well before she had completed much of what was required.
To add to all this, the cruiser repairs took a day longer than anticipated. From the time of its return, each day had to be tightly scheduled ensure Liz could meet all her appointments. As it was, we had to delay our departure from Perth by a day. But I am pleased to report all has now been satisfactorily completed. Liz can now work anywhere in WA, including in Government hospitals where they are almost obsessively and impractically pedantic about various qualifications.
The agency manager knows we are heading north. We have agreed that we are quite prepared to scoot off anywhere work is available....everywhere north of Perth will be somewhere new to us. Obviously this means that there is not much point in planning too far ahead....we wait for the phone to ring. There is some chance that a contract with the Geraldton hospital is in the immediate offing....fingers crossed...that would be ideal in our present situation.
Liz did take Friday evening off...we had promised to share a meal with our neighbour Tom, a Swiss chap who spends most summers in Perth before returning the Europe for our winter. Tom, pictured here with Liz in his standard 'black', lives in a tent, but as you can see, not just any tent. It is covered with a large shelter shed, as is his little car next to it. Tom also had a motor bike. He is not short of transport. Notwithstanding the style of his set-up we did feel sorry for him during the fierce heat of our last stay here over Xmas. But he copes, and was a very good neighbour.
I discovered that Tom loved a good steak with mushroom sauce. We could do that..and we did! Two of the biggest rib-eyes from an excellent butcher I had found at Whitford City, a home made, thick mushroom sauce, baked spuds and a fresh salad. Oh, yes, and a bottle or two of good red. Tom did declare it to have been the best steak he had ever eaten...I was quite happy to believe him. We did have a good night of it.
Despite her general reluctance to get involved with anything which includes sand, I did mange to drag the matron to the beach for a quick look at an Australian titles on Friday afternoon. She was duly impressed with the scale of the logistics if nothing else..and it was nothing else!! We did manage to briefly catch up with a couple of clubmates and made arrangements to see more of them over the impending weekend.
For those of you who have had no exposure to these events, let me take you on a quick tour (I returned solo on Saturday).
An Australian Surf Lifesaving Championship is the largest regular annual competitive event in the country. On the Scarborough beach the event venue stretched over a kilometre.
The various competition areas are designated on this site board....with the boats on the left right through to the R&R (rescue and resuscitation) on the right.
Clubs set up shelters along the entire length of the competition area on a 'first in, best dressed' basis. This is the view looking north along the beach past the craft areas up to the R&R section. To the uninitiated the scene looks chaotic, and to some extent it may be, but it all seems to work.
I made my way along the beach to the far end, where a mixed R&R competition was underway. This is a challenging discipline which required the teams to perform an old style rescue using the reel, line and belt, but with strict drill requirements the details of which I'll not bore you with. Simply put, a member of each team races out to a can, to then be rescued by another team member who swims out towing the rescue line. They are then retrieved by the remaining team members hauling them in before a structured patient lift and resuscitation is carried out.
It is something of any irony to my mind that this most challenging of events is not one which attracts great general interest. I liken it a bit to synchronised swimming...the demands on the exponents are very high...the attraction as a spectacle is limited.
Judging of this event is also both strict and demanding, as is the case with most championship events. Some of the panel for this area can be seen here in their white and blue uniforms. And each official must be right on the ball....protests are not an uncommon occurrence when an Australian medal is on the line.
Turning south from the far end of the competition area I made my way back past the craft section where crowds watching the various events were, in most places, lined up behind the barriers at the water's edge,
but in others, beyond the immediate competition area, anywhere on the beach.
The craft area is nothing if not busy, bustling and crowded. Rescue board races of all types, single and double surf ski events, relay craft races and mixed craft and swimming rescue races all attract a myriad of competitors, and, of course, their equipment. Surf skis litter the beach,
the lawn areas behind the sand
and the sand hills behind clubbie shelters. Craft are left literally everywhere along this section of the carnival arena.
By the time I had wandered past the main presentation area to the other end of the carnival area where the boats were completing, most of the races had been completed for the day, but there were a few left.
Given the size of these craft, it is important to keep moving them to and from their storage areas as races are completed. Only those immediately involved are allowed in the boat race beach area.
A sand sled towed behind a beach tractor is the ingenious solution to achieving this movement quickly and easily. Here the empty sled is on its way back from the storage area, and,
within no time at all, it is loaded with the next boat and making the return trip, complete with a hitchhiker. Sadly the complete lack of surf did little to improve the spectacle of the surf boat racing.
But there were some who had obviously decided to make a day of it in the boat area. So why not be comfortable?
By this stage I had walked from one end of the competition area to the other. It was time to head back to the main presentation area to watch a few rounds of the 'beach flags'. In this event which is unique to surf lifesaving, competitors lie face down in the sand and, on the blast of a whistle, leap up, turn through 180 degrees and sprint 50 metres or so down the beach. At the end of the sprint they dive to grasp a short length of hose which has been placed upright in the sand. Of course the snag is there is always one fewer 'flag' than competitors...a beach version of the old musical chairs game.
Believe me, this is not an easy event. I used to compete in it. A blisteringly quick reaction time, the body and leg strength to rise and turn quickly, and the ability to sprint in soft sand are all prerequisites for success in this event. And running a fellow flags aspirant off course is taboo....this arena is a fertile ground for protests!
The viewing area was now packed as can be seen looking across the crowd towards the presentation stage and the 'big screen' at the far end of the flags area. Because of the spread of competition areas along the beach, this was actually a very good spot from which to view all events as they came up on the screen.
And here I ran into one of my closest surf and helicopter rescue colleagues. Shane Daw has just stepped down after a lengthy stint as the President of my club, Glenelg, but more than that, served as the Crew Chief in the helicopter group for many years whilst I was in charge. On my retirement two years ago, he took my place. I have lost count of the number of times his help was invaluable. Shane still competes in the Masters ski events, and his sons Alex and Edward are following in his footsteps on that craft. And as you can see, Alex is shy!
I did have the real pleasure of catching up with Shane and other club mates for drinks around the pool at their digs at Cottesloe on the Sunday evening at the end of the titles.
As you may have gathered by now, the staging of the 'Aussies' is a significant logistical challenge, particularly when you recognise that some of the larger eastern states clubs may well arrive with at least one surf boat (some bring two or more) and up to thirty or forty skis and boards, march past and R &R reels and other bits and pieces. The solution...large containers and many of them.
The Collaroy club from NSW was in the process of loading their boat as I strolled by,
whilst the Anglesea clubbies were just hanging around waiting to start loading their container.
And all this effort for possibly only one race! Many do not make it past the first round of their particular competition. 'The Aussies' is indeed a huge annual event. In my early years at Glenelg, they were an annual pilgrimage, but this was the first to which I had been since we hosted the competition at Glenelg in 1974. It had been a long time between drinks and it was fun.
As was our trip on the Swan River, in a 38 feet long Riviera motor cruiser no less, skippered with panache by our great friend John Finlay-Jones. Together with his wife Prue and daughter Sarah, Liz and I spent a wonderful day 'swanning' (irresistible) on the wide Perth river from the Aquarama boat marina (near Freo) to the Perth CBD and back. We then tied off to one of the many public moorings available up and down the Swan and settled back for a delightful lunch before we made the short hop back to the marina where JFJ backed 'Take Five' into its narrow berth with consummate and impressive skill. Thanks again, Prue and John....it was a marvellous day. No photos I hear you cry.....guess what idiot forgot to pack the camera!
Monday saw reality rear its head again....Liz was up to her ears in applications and study, and I was beginning to think about pulling down and getting ready for our next adventure. We were indeed northward bound at last. Cervantes, a small cray fishing village on the west coast about 200 kms north of Perth was our first pre-booked destination. We had heard much of this town, all of which was good. We were more than ready to go!
We did take a short stroll through the town late in the afternoon and were particularly impressed with the local sports complex with its large expanses of lush grass. Hockey, football and soccer all had fine venues on which to represent their area.
A short distance from the playing fields we crossed the road bridge over the Williams River
and looking upstream, it was obvious to us that the grass of the sports fields were receiving vital water from anther source altogether.
We did call into the local pub, which from the outside, looked most inviting. One drink was enough....and it wasn't even the 'skimpies' night.
Roses feature prominently along the centre of William's short main commercial street, and
as we strolled along it, we were more than impressed by the Williams community centre building and the lovely gardens in which it stands.
Beyond this, from our perspective, the remainder of the central town area was unremarkable. We were even too early for Liz to be able to get a 'chocolate fix'.
After an early refuelling we were on our to Perth and back to the Kingsway Caravan Park where we had pre-booked an alternative site to that we occupied on our previous visit. We were determined not to be surrounded by the thick sand of our former spot. Site 39 it was for us (I took this shot on the morning we left..hence no awning, annex etc)
The Kingsway park had undergone some radical changes since our last stay. The new management had finally taken the plunge and had evicted all those who were not paying on time and/or who were disruptive and rowdy. The last of these, our previous neighbour, departed under police escort, still over $2,000 in arrears on her site payments. From what we learnt, she had been hosting drunken parties in her van for the previous fortnight after being served with a Court eviction notice. We endured the last of these on the night prior to her exit. Loud music until 0145 hours followed by a drunken and foul mouthed rant up and down the park roadways for the next thirty minutes. Thank heavens we had booked another site for this stay.
Apart from the evictions, many of the more permanent residents had been moved to the back section of the park apparently to the great displeasure of some. The upshot of all this was that the transient area looked almost deserted. There were no vans on the road on which we were last sited,
as was the case with most of the rest of this part of Kingsway. The new manager told me that he had already moved three tonnes of rubbish off the park and that there were serious plans to refurbish the gardens and the sites. We wished them well...they have a big job ahead of them.
One thing which hadn't changed was the traffic noise. This we had been dreading, and we were not disappointed. Hoons in high powered cars and on motor bikes at all times of the day and night, and, for good measure, emergency service sirens.....on one particular morning, eight of these before 1000 hours! We gritted our mental teeth and did our best to adjust....there were things to be done.
Three major reasons had brought us back to Perth. The cruiser was booked in to have the bull bar and bumper assembly replaced at the nearby Kingsley Crash Repairers on 31 March. The week long Aussie Titles began at Scarborough beach the same day and Liz had to make all the necessary arrangements to get herself on the Nursing Agency books here in WA...and therein lies a tale!
She had begun the process in Albany. Whilst logic dictates that all she had to do was both necessary and practical, it was demanding nevertheless, and would have been impossible to effectively complete other than in Perth itself.
Blood tests to confirm she was clear of MRSA (that nasty bug which is a bit too prevalent in SA hospitals) and all childhood illnesses (whooping cough, measles etc etc), TB and so on, a Police clearance certificate, a 'working with children' accreditation certificate, registration with the agency, a transfer to the WA nurses' union (they provide professional indemnity insurance), a personal interview at the Agency office (fortunately only 20 minutes away), two practical assessments (manual handling and CPR), and on top of all this six, yes six, on line assignments including the theory of manual handling and CPR, infection control, mandatory reporting, managing aggressive patients, and fire safety. It would have normally been seven, but Liz is still current in drug calculations.
And of course all of this takes time and effort. Liz was buzzing about on a daily basis doing one thing or another, and beavering away on the computer most evenings. Not that she had to re-learn anything....it was just a matter of proving her knowledge and skills. We did take the view that she was doing it on the bit when she was issued with the agency uniform at the end of her interview, well before she had completed much of what was required.
To add to all this, the cruiser repairs took a day longer than anticipated. From the time of its return, each day had to be tightly scheduled ensure Liz could meet all her appointments. As it was, we had to delay our departure from Perth by a day. But I am pleased to report all has now been satisfactorily completed. Liz can now work anywhere in WA, including in Government hospitals where they are almost obsessively and impractically pedantic about various qualifications.
The agency manager knows we are heading north. We have agreed that we are quite prepared to scoot off anywhere work is available....everywhere north of Perth will be somewhere new to us. Obviously this means that there is not much point in planning too far ahead....we wait for the phone to ring. There is some chance that a contract with the Geraldton hospital is in the immediate offing....fingers crossed...that would be ideal in our present situation.
Liz did take Friday evening off...we had promised to share a meal with our neighbour Tom, a Swiss chap who spends most summers in Perth before returning the Europe for our winter. Tom, pictured here with Liz in his standard 'black', lives in a tent, but as you can see, not just any tent. It is covered with a large shelter shed, as is his little car next to it. Tom also had a motor bike. He is not short of transport. Notwithstanding the style of his set-up we did feel sorry for him during the fierce heat of our last stay here over Xmas. But he copes, and was a very good neighbour.I discovered that Tom loved a good steak with mushroom sauce. We could do that..and we did! Two of the biggest rib-eyes from an excellent butcher I had found at Whitford City, a home made, thick mushroom sauce, baked spuds and a fresh salad. Oh, yes, and a bottle or two of good red. Tom did declare it to have been the best steak he had ever eaten...I was quite happy to believe him. We did have a good night of it.
Despite her general reluctance to get involved with anything which includes sand, I did mange to drag the matron to the beach for a quick look at an Australian titles on Friday afternoon. She was duly impressed with the scale of the logistics if nothing else..and it was nothing else!! We did manage to briefly catch up with a couple of clubmates and made arrangements to see more of them over the impending weekend.
For those of you who have had no exposure to these events, let me take you on a quick tour (I returned solo on Saturday).
An Australian Surf Lifesaving Championship is the largest regular annual competitive event in the country. On the Scarborough beach the event venue stretched over a kilometre.
The various competition areas are designated on this site board....with the boats on the left right through to the R&R (rescue and resuscitation) on the right.
Clubs set up shelters along the entire length of the competition area on a 'first in, best dressed' basis. This is the view looking north along the beach past the craft areas up to the R&R section. To the uninitiated the scene looks chaotic, and to some extent it may be, but it all seems to work.
I made my way along the beach to the far end, where a mixed R&R competition was underway. This is a challenging discipline which required the teams to perform an old style rescue using the reel, line and belt, but with strict drill requirements the details of which I'll not bore you with. Simply put, a member of each team races out to a can, to then be rescued by another team member who swims out towing the rescue line. They are then retrieved by the remaining team members hauling them in before a structured patient lift and resuscitation is carried out.
It is something of any irony to my mind that this most challenging of events is not one which attracts great general interest. I liken it a bit to synchronised swimming...the demands on the exponents are very high...the attraction as a spectacle is limited.
Judging of this event is also both strict and demanding, as is the case with most championship events. Some of the panel for this area can be seen here in their white and blue uniforms. And each official must be right on the ball....protests are not an uncommon occurrence when an Australian medal is on the line.
Turning south from the far end of the competition area I made my way back past the craft section where crowds watching the various events were, in most places, lined up behind the barriers at the water's edge,
but in others, beyond the immediate competition area, anywhere on the beach.
The craft area is nothing if not busy, bustling and crowded. Rescue board races of all types, single and double surf ski events, relay craft races and mixed craft and swimming rescue races all attract a myriad of competitors, and, of course, their equipment. Surf skis litter the beach,
the lawn areas behind the sand
and the sand hills behind clubbie shelters. Craft are left literally everywhere along this section of the carnival arena.
By the time I had wandered past the main presentation area to the other end of the carnival area where the boats were completing, most of the races had been completed for the day, but there were a few left.
Given the size of these craft, it is important to keep moving them to and from their storage areas as races are completed. Only those immediately involved are allowed in the boat race beach area.
A sand sled towed behind a beach tractor is the ingenious solution to achieving this movement quickly and easily. Here the empty sled is on its way back from the storage area, and,
within no time at all, it is loaded with the next boat and making the return trip, complete with a hitchhiker. Sadly the complete lack of surf did little to improve the spectacle of the surf boat racing.
But there were some who had obviously decided to make a day of it in the boat area. So why not be comfortable?
By this stage I had walked from one end of the competition area to the other. It was time to head back to the main presentation area to watch a few rounds of the 'beach flags'. In this event which is unique to surf lifesaving, competitors lie face down in the sand and, on the blast of a whistle, leap up, turn through 180 degrees and sprint 50 metres or so down the beach. At the end of the sprint they dive to grasp a short length of hose which has been placed upright in the sand. Of course the snag is there is always one fewer 'flag' than competitors...a beach version of the old musical chairs game.
Believe me, this is not an easy event. I used to compete in it. A blisteringly quick reaction time, the body and leg strength to rise and turn quickly, and the ability to sprint in soft sand are all prerequisites for success in this event. And running a fellow flags aspirant off course is taboo....this arena is a fertile ground for protests!
The viewing area was now packed as can be seen looking across the crowd towards the presentation stage and the 'big screen' at the far end of the flags area. Because of the spread of competition areas along the beach, this was actually a very good spot from which to view all events as they came up on the screen.
And here I ran into one of my closest surf and helicopter rescue colleagues. Shane Daw has just stepped down after a lengthy stint as the President of my club, Glenelg, but more than that, served as the Crew Chief in the helicopter group for many years whilst I was in charge. On my retirement two years ago, he took my place. I have lost count of the number of times his help was invaluable. Shane still competes in the Masters ski events, and his sons Alex and Edward are following in his footsteps on that craft. And as you can see, Alex is shy!
I did have the real pleasure of catching up with Shane and other club mates for drinks around the pool at their digs at Cottesloe on the Sunday evening at the end of the titles.
As you may have gathered by now, the staging of the 'Aussies' is a significant logistical challenge, particularly when you recognise that some of the larger eastern states clubs may well arrive with at least one surf boat (some bring two or more) and up to thirty or forty skis and boards, march past and R &R reels and other bits and pieces. The solution...large containers and many of them.
The Collaroy club from NSW was in the process of loading their boat as I strolled by,
whilst the Anglesea clubbies were just hanging around waiting to start loading their container.
And all this effort for possibly only one race! Many do not make it past the first round of their particular competition. 'The Aussies' is indeed a huge annual event. In my early years at Glenelg, they were an annual pilgrimage, but this was the first to which I had been since we hosted the competition at Glenelg in 1974. It had been a long time between drinks and it was fun.
As was our trip on the Swan River, in a 38 feet long Riviera motor cruiser no less, skippered with panache by our great friend John Finlay-Jones. Together with his wife Prue and daughter Sarah, Liz and I spent a wonderful day 'swanning' (irresistible) on the wide Perth river from the Aquarama boat marina (near Freo) to the Perth CBD and back. We then tied off to one of the many public moorings available up and down the Swan and settled back for a delightful lunch before we made the short hop back to the marina where JFJ backed 'Take Five' into its narrow berth with consummate and impressive skill. Thanks again, Prue and John....it was a marvellous day. No photos I hear you cry.....guess what idiot forgot to pack the camera!
Monday saw reality rear its head again....Liz was up to her ears in applications and study, and I was beginning to think about pulling down and getting ready for our next adventure. We were indeed northward bound at last. Cervantes, a small cray fishing village on the west coast about 200 kms north of Perth was our first pre-booked destination. We had heard much of this town, all of which was good. We were more than ready to go!
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