We had a very cold night last night. William ended up coming into bed with us in the early hours of the morning because he was cold. It was hard to get up and took a while to warm up. We had to be up and off by 7.30am as we had a Show & Shine car show on the Perth foreshore today. We met up with the other Rally Members at a car park again and were soon on our way into the city. We had been given written directions to the venue and although we all went in a convoy, as we were travelling on a highway we managed to get split up a little bit. We were doing alright until we had to get on the exit to the Riverside Drive. Luckily Neil was driving, as it is very hard to see around when you have no mirrors on the car. We had to cross over a few lanes of traffic while competing with the cars in those lanes who wanted to get across into our lane. It was a very hectic 30 seconds and we aren’t sure how we didn’t end up in an accident!
We found the park where the Show and Shine was being held and parked in line with the Barnes’, due to our consecutive number plates. It was a nice park with a lovely view of the city and river, however there wasn’t much shade and by 10am it was very warm. We managed to find a tree nearby and set up camp for the day, well the girls and the kids did – the boys were busy walking around filling in the voting forms. We had lunch, which was supplied, and Will had a nice play on the playground .he was very excited as the circus was set up in the same park and he watched the horses for a little while. Although he wasn’t impressed when the horses didn’t respond to him yelling out ‘Horsies, horsies’ at them.
At the park there was a couple of local ‘natives’ who must have lived in the park. They both had a bottle of liquid they were sniffing and were quite obviously high from it. They approached the cars and after trying to touch some of the cars, left us alone for a while. That is until they tried to steal petrol from the generator the caterers were using. They hung around the park all day, mainly keeping out of our way, until the end of the day when we were driving out. One of them tried to get into the car of Des & Kelley, who were staying at the Caravan Park with us, while they were packing up. Neil had to go and assist them and keep him from getting in the car. It was a little bit scary for a bit there =, but he walked away once Des & Kelley drove off. Although it gave us some entertainment for the day, it is also sad to see people like this who have no other way of life.
We left the park just before 3pm and headed back to the Caravan Park. We all had a quick break and showered before heading out the Presentation Night at the Mulberry Farm. We arrived just before 7pm. We found our table at the back and were off buying raffle tickets and chatting to the others. Dinner quickly came around and we all enjoyed a nice meal. They presented the trophies from the Show and Shine and although we didn’t win anything, it was nice to see the people who had also spent a lot of time in effort on their cars get rewarded. We missed out on the ‘Hard Luck Story’ with our ambulance ride and hospital stay - the winner of this had hit a kangaroo in their car only 200kms from their home in Victoria. It was a very nice car and sadly did a fair bit of damage. Luckily they still made it over to the rally. William fell asleep in Kelley’s lap after dinner and stayed there for a couple of hours. We won a few raffles including a $300 voucher for chroming for the car (however we found out later it was on the wrong table and was supposed to be auctioned off!) and a very large poster of the driveline showing the lubrication points of an R Series, although this will be given to David to put in his workshop. There was also an auction held for numerous items, including a book that one of the WA members had put together. It is all about valiants and had 240 pages and over 800 photos. They are only printing 100 copies and all will be numbered. We have bought ourselves a copy for $180 (#32); however they were auctioning off #1 tonight. Steven had said he would go up to $250. He was quickly outbid and a war had begun between a SA member and a Qld member. It slowly got up to $300 then up past $500. It finally sold to the SA member for a massive $700. The gentleman who bought it apparently has a very extensive collection of R & S Series Valiants and memorabilia. It is doubted it would ever come out of the plastic. We think given the chance, he would have paid over $1,000 for it. All in all we had a wonderful night.