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Published: April 27th 2011
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Tuesday 26th - on the first “normal” day of our stay in Perth, following the Easter weekend, we began to pursue the various tasks we had set ourselves though, as it turned out, not very successfully. We travelled to Belmont, a large shopping complex about 5 kms away. There we discovered the Medicare centre that Graham was to use to register in order to get more of his tablets. Alas, it was closed for an extra day (presumably in lieu of Anzac Day) but most of the shops were open. We had a good look around the shops as we were there and confirmed that, if we needed a bigger shopping complex than the one at Forrestfield, Belmont would be the place to come. Never mind, we thought, we’ll tootle off to the neighbouring suburb of Welshpool where we hoped to find a Nissan garage to arrange to get the car serviced. Sat-nav took us straight to the place where the garage should have been but, if it was ever there, it certainly wasn’t there now. We tried a variation of the address, also in Welshpool. Sat-nav took us on a round about journey and back to the spot we had
just left!! Frustrated, we went back to the caravan for a bit of lunch.
Our next small task was to re-secure the safe that Darryl had cleverly fixed during his and Sarah’s trip around Aus. It had proved extremely useful for keeping passports, visa documents and extra cash in but one of the securing bolts had worked loose. Presumably the bouncing along of the caravan and my fairly regular use of the safe had combined to loosen the nut which had held the bolt in place. The position of the safe means you need very long arms or you need to be extremely agile to get at the back of the safe to hold the bolt in place and, at the same time, to reach through a cupboard to get at the inside of the safe to tighten the nut. Poor Graham was clearly struggling and in his frustration he managed to drop both of the space bars down through a gap at the back of the cupboard where the safe sits. Judging by his language, he was just about fed up as the gap they had fallen into made them virtually inaccessible. Fortunately, I have much more patience
A wet Wednesday morning in Perth
with the same busy traffic as in the UK than Graham and, with the astute use of a pair of barbecue tongs, I was able to retrieve them. To ensure that nothing else fell through the gap ever again, Graham placed a double layer of sturdy cardboard in the base of the cupboard but this meant that the safe then sat far too high for the bolts to pass through the cupboard back in line with the holes in the safe. (Are you still with me?) But by reducing the thickness of the cardboard by half and refitting it (another frustrating task that Graham was nearly incandescent over) it was just possible to line up the holes and re-secure the bolts, which he did. So all was well eventually, that is until the safe works its way loose again!!
By this time, we had given up any idea of going off to the next location, Midland, where we thought a Nissan garage might be, and decided to leave it until tomorrow. It was as well we did as, almost without warning, the heavens opened and it rained heavily for some time. The Perth area is desperate for rain and it still amuses us when we hear weather reporters
Charlie's crown that he, his Nan and Grampy made
that he'll wear at the Royal Wedding Day street party (photo from webcam) (We hope we'll see some photos) talk enthusiastically about the likelihood of rain. They’ll be thrilled to bits after this downpour. We settled in for the night, dodging the continuing showers to use the facilities, and watched The Queen (film) on the telly (have you noticed that the telly seems to be playing a bigger and bigger role during these autumn nights when it gets dark by 6:00pm?)
The heavy rain continued through the night and well into Wednesday morning but I managed to get some washing done and hang it out in between showers. Despite some very black clouds hovering, the sun began to shine fairly consistently so we took the opportunity to go back to Belmont for Graham to register as a Medicare patient. Today things progressed much more smoothly although there are still things to be done to get them fully completed. Graham had to fill in a form to register with Medicare and it allowed for me to be added too. It required some detailed information which we didn’t have readily available but with a bit of ingenuity we managed to obtain all the info required – or so we thought. We were able to be registered OK but it transpired that we would have to pay for everything and then have part of it refunded. This required full bank details which we didn’t have, so we brought a form away with us to register at a later date for the refunds. On we went to Cannington, another nearby suburb, where we hoped to find a Nissan garage to get PIE serviced. Bingo – there it was as we entered Cannington and not far from a really huge Westfield shopping complex – somewhere to go while PIE is being attended to. This would save us a much longer trip to Midland where we thought the nearest Nissan garage would be.
We had lunch in the shopping complex - Chinese steamed chicken with rice – beautiful and cheap. It came with bowls of what we took to be soup. They could have been finger-bowls for all we knew but it tasted pretty good so we spooned it up or spread it over the chicken and rice!! Then we found an STA office (travel agents) that we knew was somewhere in the complex. We’d held out a slim hope that they might help us to redeem the cost of our return flight tickets which we believe we cannot use, but we were told we would have to do it via email with the originating office in the UK. Never mind, at least we now know what is required so, back we went to find the Nissan garage and successfully booked PIE in. It was beginning to look like a reasonably good day. Back at Forrestfield we arranged for a medical appointment for Graham – not quite as soon as we would have liked but Easter was holding things up so we settled for an appointment a few days hence. We were on a roll now so Graham rang a mobile caravan service engineer to come and check the wheel bearings and brakes on SWEETIE. No problem – that was arranged also for early next week so things were, at last, falling into place nicely. If only the weather would improve then we could fully explore and enjoy the area as we had hoped but the heavy showers kept us in for the rest of the afternoon. All of our appointments were for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of next week so we now have the next four days to get out and about a bit and we already have a few possible trips in mind – into Perth on the bus which goes from outside the park, to Fremantle for a day, Rockingham for a day so we’ll be able to fill our days without any difficulty. We enquired about the possibility of staying on longer in the park if we wanted to – no problem. We asked about storing the caravan if we decided to go back down to Busselton for a few days to stay in a chalet – no problem. So we’ll be here in Perth (well Sweetie will) for at least another eight days – maybe longer – before we begin our journey further up the west coast.
Later on we enjoyed a great chat with Barb and Tony and had a sneak preview of the crown that Barb, Tony and Charlie had made for Charlie to wear at the local Royal Wedding Street Party on Friday. We will definitely feel homesick when we watch the day’s events on the TV and will wish we were back home in the UK so we could join in the celebrations. We just hope that the day is dry and everything goes smoothly.
As it was still raining there was nothing else to do but have some more races between Ginger and Floss, our racing eggs, with Barb and Tony’s Easter eggs as prizes. Ginger has been in strict training and it paid off as she came out the winner 6 – 4. Well done, Ginger!
Latest: (Official protest – Floss was nobbled!!).
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