A few days near Manjimup

Well I got home from a camping weekend on a farm in the wheat belt late Sunday 15/04/12. A repack on Monday and I was off again on Tuesday, this time to the South West. Stayed at "Grandad's" in Nannup on Tuesday night, roast dinner and trifle for desert....couldn't miss that. Took a route via dirt roads from Capel to Cundinup I tried out about a year ago. I wanted to miss the Vasse Hwy hills and give the stone stomper a workout.

Off on Wednesday morn to a spot I thought I could remember just out from Donnelly Mill. I get there and its all regrowth Forrest. So much for the memory. So a bit of a scout around and I land at Greens Island. Same issue here as most other places. Narrow copper logged bays, really unsuitable for soft floor campers. But I reckon I can fit in....Just. Waiting for the rain to stop, I start to set up. My camper is a pita to do solo. My 5 year old doesn't provide enough help as yet. Anyway I start the set up and it rains again. I don the raincoat as I'm now committed. I get there eventually.

By the time I've set up its "beer o'clock" and a relax till dinner.

Thursday is a nice day. Myself and the little one spend the day caching the area.Found and replanted a nice trackable whilst there (kitty Kat of mass destruction). One cache was only 40m from my camp.

Did a very tough bush bashing cache not far from camp. Was overgrown to buggery, tiger snake infested country and had to leave the little one in the car with a handheld uhf. Found the cache which was nice, but backtracking my route in the thick tree canopy was a challenge. Also did a cache at Glenoran Pool

Went out late afternoon via bush Tracks to Donnelly Mill. I really love to take the little one here every time I pass. Whilst I don't particularly like roo's and emu's (Cockies I know keep asking  me to give them a lead injection, sorry if that's outa place) , they have their place here. An ice cream and another local cache and time had beaten us to get out to Willow springs for the other treasures to be found.



The weather turned early Friday morning and we decided to head back to Grandad's (dry and warm). Trying to pick a hole in the weather, I started to pack up. All the gear under the awning ended up on the picnic table provided with the camper cover on top of it. Setting up was a pita, but packing up was worse, especially solo.

All sorted now between showers and a very wet camper to take home. Home via Donnelly Mill again for lunch and a couple of caches at Willow Springs. Grandad wasn't surprised to see us and we had a warm dry bed for the night. Leaving Saturday, I got home about 3pm via the same bush tracks I took on the way in. A quick hose down of the dust off the camper  and I was off to a pre-arranged bbq. I spent Sunday drying out all my canvas, mopping and cleaning the camper. Just over a week and I've chalked up a couple of thousand K's of camping from the Wheat belt to the South West. Now I'm all set again for the next one.....