We awoke this morning after having a restless night and being woken early by the very noisy traffic, well Kelley did; Neil was a little bit seedy from a few too many ciders with Steven… After brekkie, we went to the office to see if we could get our money back. The lady acted shocked that they were in such poor condition, trying to tell us that the cleaners had been the previous day and her husband had fixed all the leaks. Obviously our standards are different to hers. She was surprisingly nice about it and gave us a full refund, including the night we had stayed. Next step was to find a park that could take all 3 of us for the next 10 days. Luckily we found a Big 4/Discovery Park in Forrestfield that felt sorry for us and moved some bookings around. We arrived there and were so pleased it was much cleaner and we even had grass. We don’t have ensuite but the amenities block isn’t far and is lovely. We were quickly set up and (thank god for Google maps) were on our way to the local shops for some gear so the boys could service the cars and give them a good clean. Once we were back to the park, we had to move on to the Meet and Greet with some of the other members who were participating in the early bird tours. The actual rally doesn’t start until next Thursday, but they have arranged events for us up until then, including a few nights away at Busselton. You can see the itinery at http://www.classicvaliants.com/entry-form.html .
We arrived there at about 5.30pm. There were already about 10 cars there and the boys were quickly chatting away to people they knew from previous rally’s. There were a lot of stories told about either the car rebuilding or the interesting journey we had getting there. Everyone was really nice and very welcoming. We all went inside for dinner which was a sausage sizzle with some homemade salads – very nice. They held a raffle and Jean & Tamara’s tickets kept getting drawn out, but they graciously only took one prize each. There were many conversations flowing between people and it is really nice to finally be starting the rally. We were all given a book which included the itinery as well as a list of each the rally entrants along with a picture. The photo of our car was taken a few months back and is far from completion which amazed everyone that it actually made it . Tomorrows event is a city cruise, called a Chrysler Cruise where we meet in a park near the city and do a nice drive around the city of Perth and back to where we had dinner tonight. It’s not until 3pm, so we have a chance in the morning to go shopping and get our house (camper)work done.
Also, we forgot to mention, that from the time we left home to the time we arrived at the first Caravan Park in Perth, we had travelled 5,081kms. I don’t even want to think about how much the petrol cost us!