Sunday 16 September – Some sort of alarm going off at just after five o’clock this morning was a rude awakening for the day.  I later found out that there was some problem with the sprinkler system on floor 14 (our floor) which set off the alarm heard on at least floors 13 and 14.  We woke again a couple of hours later and at a bit after 8, tucked in to the lovely breakfast we had ordered.  We had too much on the trays so we brought the croissants and pastries back to the van for morning tea and supper.  After checking out we came back to the van to bring back the wedding stuff and have a cuppa before we left for Beck and Steve’s place.

While we were having our cuppa, the lady across from us came over to see how the wedding went, and we chatted to her till it was time to leave.  Alan and Janine’s friends Carmel and Pete were waiting for us to pick them up at their hotel, as they had flown over so had no car.  We had a pretty slow trip down to Baldivis, even though we went on the freeway.  First there had been an accident on our side of the road involving a car and caravan and a motorbike, and there was one fellow obviously injured being tended to on the side verge.  Obviously that caused major delays, as there were police there as well as the vehicles involved causing major disruption.

Then, just to add to the congestion, we were no sooner past that incident when the road ahead of us was jam packed (both lanes) and stop–starting, and when it was actually moving it was inching along at snails pace.  We continued like this for at least twenty minutes, fearing that there had been another major incident on the road only to find when we reached the source of the problem that there were three trucks parked on the side of the road and three (obviously council employees) walking along the side of the road picking up rubbish and putting it into garbags!!  We couldn’t believe it – on a very warm Sunday, with major traffic out to enjoy the beach or whatever, these rubbish picker-uppers were causing such road havoc.

There were quite a few people at Beck and Steve’s (about 50), and we enjoyed an easy relaxed day, eating pork, beef or lamb rolls and left over wedding cupcakes (YUM!!)

The happy couple today.

We left there at a bit after 5pm, dropped Pete and Carmel at Scarborough where they were going to get a bite to eat before returning to their motel.  They fly out tomorrow morning.  Grant and I just had a sandwich for tea as we had eaten well today, and Grant is right now perched on the van couch, his open book gradually slipping from his hands as he has obviously nodded off.  There haven’t been any pages turned for quite some time, so he’ll probably wake with a start shortly and pretend that he has been reading all the time!

Tomorrow we are leaving here for Bunbury, which is only about a hundred and eighty km from here, so an easy day as we embark on the last two weeks of out travels.  And I’m ready for bed, so I’ll wind this up and hit the sack.