This last weekend we headed down to Boyup Brook for the annual Country Music Festival. Kitty picked up our lovely passengers and we headed off, stopping as usual for our first-morning-of-tour special coffee at Maccas. This has been a tradition for years now and came about because of our policy of picking up passengers at their homes: by the time you do a bit of a circuit around the city, the first pickup has often been in the car for a while and a comfort stop is appreciated. So after picking up the last person (each vehicle is doing the same) we would all meet at a Central Macdonalds, introduce our passengers to each other and enjoy a coffee and get comfortable. It’s a nice way to start a trip.
This time around our Maccas was in Rockingham and from there we drove out to Harvey to pick up fresh bread supplies and while we were there we spotted an op shop. A lot of our passengers (and Kitty!) love op shops so if we can squeeze them into our itinerary along the way, without Barry knowing (he doesn’t love them!), we will. A nice little browse and then a Caseys bus stopped there as well because the toilets were across the road. Caseys were also off to the country Music Festival and around five people, who knew Kitty from her time working there, jumped off to hug her and say hello! Nice to catch up with old friends again.
We picked up some lunch in Harvey and then travelled out in the hills behind Collie to Lake Kepwari. The lake is a former open-cut coal mine formerly known as Western Five and has been developed as a community aquatic recreation facility. It has taken about five years to fill with water from the Collie River South and is now a great camp site, full of potential for water activities (Kepwari is a Noongar word meaning playing with water). The day use areas are really nice and they have set up a shelter with bar stools and counter so that you can eat while overlooking the lake. So that’s what we did!
One of the interesting things about the area is that although you are allowed campfires, they have to be in fire rings only – and the reason is a little different from regular park rules. Because this was an old coal mine there are still coal seams around and if your fire accidentally lights one, the seam will continue to burn underground and may come up somewhere totally different so that a person walking barefoot would suddenly step on a hot spot and burn all the skin off their feet.
From Lake Kepwari we took the back roads to Boyup Brook. There was no internet coverage in the area and signage was sparse so we did a bit of guessing and I guess we got it right because we ended up meeting Barry at our campsite.
Stayed tuned for Part 2