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Published: October 8th 2015
The perfect Definition of En Suite
Jack towing the new Toyota En SuiteThis weekend’s adventure was Lifecycle for Canteen (Off Road) we had done Lifecycle for Canteen on road, so this could not be that different could it??
My Alarm was set for 4.00 am, I woke at about 2.45 I got out of bed at 3.00am, I was under instruction from Caroline not to wake her until 4.30 am as we needed to be away by 5.00.
Now our role was a funny one, not funny peculiar but funny ha ha, our first mission was to tow one of the toilets for the riders.
When I was advised I was going to have to pick one of the toilets up from Kennard’s the hire people, who I have to say were graciously donating all the box trailers and toilets for this charitable event, Jack Dowling said to me that I could pick it up at the Fremantle depot, and as we are residing in Fremantle at present I thought that would be easy.
When Jack told me this I laughed, he questioned why I was laughing and I said that I would go straight from collecting the toilet to collecting Caroline from the train station, with the toilet
still hooked to the tow-bar, Jack said "Jesus Andy you really know how to make an impression with the ladies, just make sure Caroline realises she doesn’t have to sit on the toilet when you are driving back from the station".
So the best laid plans of mice and men, (Plans change) the toilet had now to be collected from Jack and Sue's house in Rolystone, as Kennards wanted it collected from a different branch, which meant Jack had to go and collect it then drag it back to their house, so we needed to get over to theirs by 6.00 am latest to hitch up the Karzie, and get to the meeting point at Kelmscott Plaza shopping centre for 7.00 am.
We had packed 90 % of everything we needed on the Thursday night, leaving the minor things for me to do when I got up ridiculously early this morning and like I said I was out of bed at 3.00 am,
We had shopped the night before for some groceries that we “May” need as all the food was being provided and cooked for us, but things do go awry and if we were at
a cycling check point, we may miss the food wagon and go without, so having our own provisions just in case was the way to go.
Now our job, well the Toyota Landcruiser Club of W.A give a lot of the time to this very worthy cause, and the TLCC crew was Jack and Sue, Trevor and Rea, Brett and Sue, Mark and Angela, Craig, Mark and Deb, Lien and Caroline and myself, and we were all giving our time for Friday Saturday and Sunday providing support to 36 off road cyclists, sadly the numbers are down this year, but people seem to be feeling the pinch really, Oh and the Western Australia Footy finals were on.!!!
Our job, in the main was to man checkpoints along the cyclists route, count them as they come past us and record the time, provide copious amount of cool water, so we needed our fridge on board, administer first aid if necessary and as we are in fire season make sure we keep our eyes and ears open and protect the riders at all costs.
We dragged the toilet from where we gathered at Kelmscott plaza to Waroona where we
The perfect Definition of En Suite
One of the box trailers that had to be towed stopped for morning smoko, we had to unhitch the toilet as Caroline and I were to man the first check point of the ride and we had an pretty good off road section.
We left the group and headed bush and found the GPS coordinates we needed so we knew we were at the correct place, we set up the little table and our chairs, and sat in the shade, we calculated how far we had travelled and how long the 4 groups of riders would take to get to us and we knew we would have about half and hour before the riders were upon us.
I opened the laptop and started this blog in the hope we would get ahead of the game, even though we are behind on other blogs that have already happened.
Sure enough, our calculation were about spot on and the first group of riders appeared, we offered them, water, logged them in took photo’s and lollies for additional energy, they hung around for about 4 minutes and were off again in to the distance
Within the space of about twenty minutes all four groups had been through, again the
The perfect Definition of En Suite
Looking back from the first check point of the day bush was silent and it was time for us to pack and get moving, we did not have another check point to man except for set the toilet up at the lunch stop at the Nanga Camp site in Lane pool reserve in Dwellingup.
We appeared out of the bush and back on to the bitumen for a while then re met up with the group around 12.00 for lunch, when we arrived the riders were all just coming in in their groups and the food truck and our TLCC ladies were setting up the lunch for everyone.
The weather was due to hit 30 degree’s but for fortunately it did not quite get there, it was really a perfect day to be on a bike, warm, with a little breeze.
With Lunch done and dusted, we were off again, we hitched the toilet back up and our only objective was to get the thunderbox to Dwellingup footy oval, where we would be camping tonight.
Our bed for this weekend would be the swag, we love the swag and we hadn’t had the opportunity to sleep in it since we crossed the Simpson Desert, the great
thing about the swag is it makes you feel so close to nature and whilst you are in bed you can listen to the birds tweeting which is lovely.
When we were driving along through the bush I said to Caroline that it just seemed like ages since we were out in the wilds and how much I missed it and Caroline felt the same.
We arrived at the Dwellingup footy oval at about 3.45 and dropped the thunderbox and the required spot, then selected a place where we wanted to camp, I got the swag off the roof of the truck and set about putting our bedding in.
Our friends started to drift in pulling their various trailers and Trevor and on our memebers was driving the coach.
Everyone was setting up their various beds for the night, some are rooftop tents, some, dome tents, swags and awnings, I think but I am not sure theTrevor and Rea may have slept in the coach and I need to check that one out.
Once everyone had set their beds for the night, it coincided beautifully with Beer-o-clock and it was have been just rude not
to break out the wheaty beverages, it was a nice warm evening so what could be better to crown a good day, than with a beer
At 6.00 pm dinner was served, it was roast beef and veggies, we were obviously aware that the riders needed their food before we have ours as they were doing all the gard work and once their needs were met we had ours.
Once dinner was done, there were a few speeches and general information for tomorrow, and once concluded the only thing left to do was to walk over the the tavern in Dwellingup and have a night cap.
It had been a long day and we were all tired, so after a couple of glasses of beer and wine we wandered back to our respective beds and hit the hay, we had a flaps open in the swag to let the cool breeze blow through and sleep came quickly.
Tomorrow is another day
Kj
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WanderinAl
Alan Fealy
great blog
Really interesting, what a great weekend, thanks for sharing