We were pretty busy during January but still found the time to visit Daen and Sophie down in Augusta where we went to the hotel for a meal, or that was the plan. It was so full that we ended up ordering fish and chips and going back to their caravan.
It was a beautiful day in Augusta and the views were fantastic from the pub, pity every other person in Augusta thought this as well.
In February we completed the subdivision of our property so we were now the proud owners of three blocks, we only did this to make sure we had the blocks, we didn’t want people making complaints in a few years time if we tried to subdivide then.
Bruce has now gone part time at school and decided to introduce the new HOLA Alex to everyone by having a golf afternoon. They all enjoyed it. Later in the month Rosie and Bruce played in another Qantas golf tournament, this time at WA Golf Club. Rosie again won a major prize and yet another golf club.
After failing all his units again, Liam still wishes to proceed with Uni and has gone back to stay in St Kats. As you can see, Liam loves a good dressup. The photo above is all the Margaret River SHS students who are at St Kats this year. Pretty impressive. Bruce has taught all of them.
In April, Bruce went to the two day golfing event in Walpole/Denmark and decided to take the caravan to see how it went with his car. He was very impressed with himself, though didn’t really like the lack of visibility.
Bruce did manage to lock himself out of the caravan one night and eventually had to break in through a fly screen and side window. It kept the experienced caravanning crew very entertained. Moral to the story is to leave a key somewhere you can get to without keys.
Later in April we took Maddy to the Anzac parade and then out for lunch and a play.
In May Liam and Bruce went to the Darby Day in Dwellingup. Liam like to meet up with his cousins and enjoys traditions like this. This year, we couldn’t goto our usual picnic spots since they were having a controlled burn, so we went to the local oval and watched a bit of football. Bruce was very disappointed as to how many of his Uncles ducked over to the canteen to get hot chips instead of cooking on the BBQ.
The usual gathering at the cemetery before adding to Dwellingup oval. A few less aunties and uncles as the years go by.
Liam again failed all his units and has finally decided to give it a break and come home to look for work, he is obviously very upset with himself but didn’t really ever put in the effort required to succeed.
Rosie and I immediately left him home to look after the property while we went off to the Eastern States to play golf, starting in Sydney and then driving up the coast until we got to the Gold Coast.
In September we took a trip up to Geraldton, again leaving Liam home to look after the property. Liam hasn’t done too well looking for jobs, he is so despondent and doesn’t really know how to go about it, he also doesn’t have confidence in his abilities.
On this trip we finally got to fly out to the Abrolhos Islands, where Rosie spent some of her childhood crayfishing with her Dad and brothers. Rosie has very fond memories of this time in her life.
John bought a farmers vintage collection of Chamberlain Tractors, which meant he needed a huge shed to store them in. John also has a small collection of vintage cars to go with it.
After Bruce’s caravan experiment in April, Rosie finally agreed to go on a small trip down south in the caravan to see if this is a life style she could enjoy. Bruce picked a very scenic route down to Albany and then back through Denmark and Walpole
You can see Rosie wasn’t very impressed with the concept but tried hard. So long as she didn’t have to cook, things couldn’t be too bad.
We visited the usual sites of the Anzac Centre and the golf course.
The Chainsaw Sculpture gallery just outside Albany. Well worth a drive through.
We played golf in Denmark where we had a great friendly game of golf. We stayed on for presentations and then went onto Walpole Caravan park. We got to Walpole a bit late and in the dark and when we eventually found our spot, we didn’t like trying to park there in the dark, so we parked next door, there were lots of empty spaces. The next day we were told we had to shift since someone else had booked the two spots (of which we were on one) and they were staying longer.
When the group did turn up the next day, they had huge caravans, boats, air conditioners and sat up late talking. The represented all the things Rosie doesn’t like the idea of with camping.
When we got back home from this trip, Rosie immediately sold the caravan so that I wouldn’t be able to tempt her into another trip.
